Feast of Souls by Catnip

[splix.livejournal.com]

Title: Feast of Souls

Author: Catnip

Rating: PG

Pairing: Q/O, of sorts

Warnings:







I feel a little stupid for even doing warnings
since the fic follows canon - ie, Qui-Gon is dead,
but: character death. Also, possible food squick. :)














Author's e-mail, web site and/or LJ id:
wcoomber@coppervalley.bc.ca

Link to story:
http://www.masterapprentice.org/archive/f/feastofsouls.html

Reasons for recommending: Most of my favorite Q/O
stories are quite long and plotty. This one's
neither, but it's found its way onto my hard drive
as one of my all-time favorites. It's a
beautifully written, succinct little fic about
grief and acceptance. It also cleverly explains
canonical events in the original trilogy that
don't quite match up with another event in TPM.

Caveat: Don't eat while reading.

Quote from story:

He listened, enchanted by the beauty of it, the
stark simplicity of that one pure note that
carried such longing and grief. He could sit here
forever and listen to it, meditate with it, let
his soul weep with it ...

Until the echoes returned, adding ugly, discordant
notes to the beautiful sound. The keening turned
into harsh, barking sobs, blaring to his ears, as
though they were coming from right next to him.

He felt the broad, callused palm of Qui-Gon's hand
resting on his forehead, as it had done a hundred
times in the past. It was warm and moist against
Obi-Wan's cold skin, still pulsing with life. It
soothed him and touched the places in his heart
and soul he thought had died and shrivelled.
Unconsciously, he leaned towards it.

Comments

[gloriana.livejournal.com]

I attribute my lack of reaction to that bit of the story to my Catholic upbringing. This is my body, so chug it down...

Bangs head against keyboard...never made that connection! And me with the ex-Catholicism enough to have thoroughly enjoyed 'The Passion of the Christ'....

I was thinking more the cannibal elements: the idea of taking in and absorbing the strength and essence of the person with the flesh. So it wasn't gross-out for me either, but I did wonder why this would have been hidden from the initiates and thus be such a hard thing for Obi-Wan to get used to.

Catnip seems to me to be treading two tightropes. One is the modern v alien pov, in which Obi and also then Yoda are the intermediaries between the culture in the text and the culture of the average reader. (I expect there might be the odd anthropologist amongst us who's had to do worse in the name of research, but probably they are few in number :)) That worked pretty well for me, except I think Obi should have been a little bit more aware of the custom beforehand, even if still very ambivalent in his reaction to it.

The second is the tension between grief and humour, between taking the story seriously, or more tongue-in-cheek - and I don't think there is a right way or a wrong way, but rather she's using that balancing point to keep the story taut. Unfortunately, I think I fell off the tightrope too early, so I really didn't get into the grief/relief part of it as I would have had to for it to really work for me :(