BoM/TWS Message Forum

"A Day Like Any Other"  and "A Night Like None Before" : There's not much to say about these chapters, except that they're meant to contrast how the duplicates act as their originals in school, and how they conference behind the scenes. Together they make a variation on the "personalty on/personality off" bits that were in earlier chapters.

I honestly don't know how realistic is Number Five's disquisition on who, how, and why Kirkham would jump into a threeway. That whole thing just sort of appeared while writing the chapter. (For me, most branches are 10% planning and 90% sheer, terror-struck improvisation.) But it does amuse me vastly to think of an odious reptile like Kirkham basing his decisions less on his prick (as he pretends) than on social cred, and on imagining how much careful and scrupulous thought must be given to whether and under what circumstances someone of his reputation can afford to be known to have banged a girl. It's like some hideous parody of a Henry James or Edith Wharton novel of social manners.