The Republic of Heaven

I'm re-reading TSK, and I've gotten rather dubious. How is it no-one noticed the window under the trees? After all, Will saw it and it wasn't that impossible to find, and it was on the side of a residential street next to a busy road linking to an even busier road. Had the window been opened very recently? And even so, how was it no-one noticed it for three or more days?

People are oblivious and you can only see it from one angle?

Alright, so you can only see it from the road. But if it was open for any amount of time I refuse to believe someone wouldn't have have noticed it sooner or later. Pullman must've had a reason, because the only other window in our world was in a place where no-one would ever find it, while this one is in the middle of Oxford suburbia.

The argument was that you could only see it at an angle, and only from the road. Now this was the Oxford ring road, the argument being people were driving past and wouldn't see. Having driven past where the window should be, I can believe that it'd go unseen. Obviously a combination of luck, and the fact that it is fiction have helped ... but who's to say that no one has ever seen it? People may have passed through from Will's world, that we don't know about...

It's in a residential area, I'm sure someone will have walked past it or next to it or through it at some stage. I think this is one of the weaker points of an otherwise strong book.

You can't find what you arn't looking for.

And the window looked onto an exact patch of grass in both worlds, and was in between the main road. Very little people would have passed it close, if any. And those that did would be trying to avoid speeding traffic.

moonflash wrote:I think this is one of the weaker points of an otherwise strong book.

Quite the opposite, really. It is playing on the human ability to ignore a lot of things.

Like Will and Serafina Pekalla, I find that dubious as well. But maybe that's just because I notice a lot of things and watch people intently in buses.

There's always a weirdo on every bus.

Yesterday there was a crazy drunk guy on the bus who tried to grope me

The day before there was a mad woman who thought the bus was a ship and kept calling the driver 'Cap'n'. It was rather amusing.
Note: Australia is one of the few countries in the world without mental asylums.

There was a woman who was talking to herself on the bus the other day. She was singing christmas songs, methinks.

moonflash wrote:Note: Australia is one of the few countries in the world without mental asylums.

That's because Down Under is a mental asylum in itself. The British just sent all the crazy lunatic people down there and it's self evident from the way they developed their own strange brand of English, and invented corky hats...

angelofboox wrote:

moonflash wrote:Note: Australia is one of the few countries in the world without mental asylums.

That's because Down Under is a mental asylum in itself. The British just sent all the crazy lunatic people down there and it's self evident from the way they developed their own strange brand of English, and invented corky hats...

Hey-she's right, you know.


EDIT:

Ian wrote:

moonflash wrote:I think this is one of the weaker points of an otherwise strong book.

Quite the opposite, really. It is playing on the human ability to ignore a lot of things.

Of course, someone could have noticed the window and made their way through to Cittagazze...the chances are good. Fanfic subject matter!

silversong wrote:

angelofboox wrote:

moonflash wrote:Note: Australia is one of the few countries in the world without mental asylums.

That's because Down Under is a mental asylum in itself. The British just sent all the crazy lunatic people down there and it's self evident from the way they developed their own strange brand of English, and invented corky hats...

Hey-she's right, you know.


EDIT:

Ian wrote:

moonflash wrote:I think this is one of the weaker points of an otherwise strong book.

Quite the opposite, really. It is playing on the human ability to ignore a lot of things.

Of course, someone could have noticed the window and made their way through to Cittagazze...the chances are good. Fanfic subject matter!

Shh! Shh! Stop straying on-topic!

The English are no better, Jaya. I mean, half of them sleep with sheep!

That's not English, that's WElSH, and might I remind you of a certain someone who is your accomplice in turtledom and comes from the LAND OF SHEEP.

And what is there to say we don't partake in sheep-stalking on occasion?

Well, your sheep-related actions are obviously justified by the fact that you reside in a mental asylum.

There's... er... there's nothing I can actually say to that...

So, back on topic, perhaps? I still find it dubious a window couldn't be open and unseen for a long period of time. Did it say anywhere how long it was open for?

I don't have sex with sheep. I settle for dead people