A single thread in the tapestry
AT LASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST!
It was really a long way journey. This is quite different from 'Doomsday book.' The air is much more light, weather is amiable (at least they are not dying of diseases) and characters are way more talkative than the ones from Doomsday book. I may havel enjoyed the book if I knew the history of WW2 tho I know no more than that Hitler of Nazi lost the war which means it took so much effort to read through the end.
Talkative characters are one of the leading features of Connie Willis' works and I can dare say this is the best among them. I've been distracted numerous times when people started to blabber on their own and Ned started to think on his own but somehow it made me feel like I'm in the middle of all the situations and can feel it vividly than anything else. Maybe this feeling is what the author had intended and it worked for me. I felt quite sorry and awkward when Ned and Verity finally completed their mission and started to leave Victorian era. Still feels like not only Ned and Verity but Tossie, Baine, Terrence are living somewhere in this world doing their works.
After reaching the end and heard what is happening in the net from T.J, it remind me of the lyrics of the song from the Prince of Egypt. It's title is 'Through Heaven's Eyes' and starts with 'A single thread in a tapestry though its color brightly shines can never see its purpose in the pattern of the grand design.' And the whole thing Ned and others were doing in the book was like that. They were doing what they can do in their places but never truly understand or know the part they were playing in the great course of history. And that's what history is. Only after everything had happened we pick up several "important" events and rearrange incidents to make up or explain things in "cause and effect" frame. But if you are living it, if you are middle of the event, it is no more fixed function with cause and effect but chaos. Not just with what happened with Ned but every single people who are alive right now including me. And you.