Re: I noticed that too
WED, 5/15/02, 5:24 a.m. - In Response To: I noticed that too (RJWPostal)

The reason that I left out the last page from the collection, is that if you read Scarab before you read Metamorphosis (which many new readers are doing), it takes out much of the mystery and suspense from the Metamorphosis story, and you read Meta in a totally different way than you do if you read it first. I felt like having that last page in the collection had potential to destroy much of the impact of Meta if the Scarab collection was read first.

I like the idea that each of the books have thier own vibe seperately, but have different layers of meaning if you read them in sequence.

That last page only works for me if you have read Metamorphosis first, and you are reading Scarab as part of a much larger story. Without it, it is much more of a POINT OF VIEW story the way I intended both Metamorphosis and Scarab to be an experiment in opposite points of view of some of the same scenes.

This way, if you read Meta first, then Scarab, the last scene is Scarab still hits you like a train wreck. But if you read only Scarab, or Scarab first, it is much more from the point of view of Scarab and it is a little more open to interpretation. Still, if you look closely at the shots of Scarab and Yukio on the bike at the end, they are from her memory of them when they were younger. And if that isn't enough, I think the new page with the shot of her walking in the dark/rain with Seiko pretty much says it all. But this time more from her POV.

If you read meta first, then the Scarab ending is a twist ending that rewards your reading all the different volumes. Both versions work in this order. But for those that have only read Scarab, or are reading if first, that last page strikes me as not so much of a twist, as just a blatant shock. And it seemed to make the book more just about that moment than everything else that built up to it. And with the page I put there instead, it hearkes back to what the rest of the book was about, and reminds the reader of Seiko, and the themes of friendship in the book, puts a new spin on that (sort of posing some ideas about Seiko still being with her in more ways than one).

But it really came down to the fact that for me that page only works if you are reading Scarab after Meta. And I felt like as a stand alone book it needed a little more finesse. And it was important for me to make sure that each of the books have thier own vibe seperately, but have different layers of meaning if you read them in sequence.

It changes the entire tone of the last chapter, in my opinion. If someone were to read it who hadn't read the series before, who didn't know what the outcome of the fight was, it reads as though Scarab won and rode off with Yukio. I'm wondering if this was done on purpose, to make a different story out of it, or if this was a mistake. This pretty much contradicts the ending of Metamorphosis, doesn't it?