The Crow Road by Iain Banks
I finished The Crow Road and had a little time to think about it. I'll put my thoughts under a Keep Reading in case anyone is trying to avoid spoilers.
As I speculated before, I think it's likely that The Crow Road is more related to Good Omens in philosophy than in plot. I mean, it's not that the plots necessarily have nothing in common, and we could be very surprised in the end of course, but now that I've read the whole book, its philosophical commonalities with GO are both apparent and kind of inspiring. Also, if I were a writer, I'd be more interested in dropping hints about what themes are important than telegraphing my whole plot ahead of time.
So here, I will describe the book and point out themes that I believe may reappear in Good Omens 3.
This is a long post. If you read it, make a cup of [beverage of choice].
Below are mentions of suicide, death/murder, and sexual acts.
The Crow Road centers around a character named Prentice McHoan, a university student in Scotland who starts to sort out his complicated relationship with his complicated family as he explores the mystery of his uncle Rory's disappearance. Although the book is mostly from Prentice's perspective, the narration jumps around in time with the McHoan family. There are quite a lot of important characters to keep track of; the bare-bones summary I put below doesn't even include some of the important ones. I wanted to make the summary even shorter and simpler than this, but the truth is that this book is not short or simple, and if I made the summary any simpler, it might be downright misleading.
There are at least three major cultural aspects of The Crow Road that I am inexperienced with: the overall culture in the 1950s-1980s (I was born in 1988, so of course wasn't here for the relevant decades), the international experience of the Gulf War (again, born in 1988), and the history and culture of Scotland itself (I'm USAmerican with only reading as a source). As a result, I'm sure there are important dimensions to the book that I've missed. If someone has a different perspective taking some of these things into account, I'd love to know about it.
Also, keep in mind, there is a great deal of descriptive writing in this book. There are a lot of pages about the geography of Scotland, and about Prentice as a kid, and about Prentice's father and uncles hanging out together in their youth, and about various family incidents, and about Prentice spending time with his brothers and friends. At first, these passages seem to just make things more confusing, and in my head, I accused them of being "filler." But they definitely serve a purpose. They're a way of showing and not telling the characters' attitudes and relationships to each other. More importantly, because we get to actually live these experiences with the characters, they are what give all the plot points below their deeper emotional impacts. In other words, the everyday experiences give the plot its deeper meaning. They resonate with one of the core themes in the novel: that our experiences in life, rather than any supposed existence after death, are what matters.
The Crow Road's story is like this:
Prentice is rather directionless in life, and he seems to have trouble investing any energy in his own future as he moons over his unrequited feelings for an idealized young woman named Verity. Soon, Verity ends up in a romance with Prentice's brother, Lewis, and Prentice feels that Lewis "stole" her from him. Prentice has also become estranged from his father, Kenneth, over spirituality. Prentice believes there has to be something more after death because he feels it would be incredibly unfair if people didn't get anything other than this one life; Kenneth is not only a passionate atheist, but is offended by the notion of an afterlife.
Prentice's uncle Hamish, Kenneth's brother, has always been religious, although his religion involves a number of bizarre and offbeat ideas of his own, with inspiration from more traditional Christian notions. Prentice is not really sure about this ideology, but he's willing to talk to Hamish about it and even participates during Hamish's prayers, whereas Kenneth is openly scornful of Hamish's beliefs. Hamish interprets this as Prentice being on "his side."
Prentice has a few opportunities to go back and talk to his father, and is begged to do so by his mom, Mary, with whom his relationship is still good. Mary doesn't want either of the men to give up their inner ideas about the universe; she just wants them to agree to disagree and move on as a family. Prentice says he will visit, but he just keeps putting it off and off and off.
Prentice acquires a folder containing some of his missing uncle Rory's notes in the process of hooking up with Rory's former girlfriend, Janice Rae, who seems to have taken a shine to Prentice because he reminds her of Rory. Using the contents of the folder, Prentice wants to piece together the great literary work that Rory left unfinished, which Rory titled Crow Road; however, it becomes apparent that Rory didn't turn his concepts into anything substantial and only had a bunch of disconnected notes and ideas. He hadn't even decided whether Crow Road would be a novel, a play, or something else. The few bits of Rory's poetry for Crow Road read are bleak and depressing.
Prentice also spends a lot of time with a young woman named Ash. They've been good friends since childhood and seem to have a somewhat flirtatious dynamic now, but they aren't in a romantic relationship; mostly, they drink and hang out together. Ash tells Prentice bluntly to get his life back on track when she finds out he's failing at school, avoiding his family, and engaging in shoplifting. She is a voice of reason, and when Prentice insists to her that he's just a failure, she reminds him that actually, he's just a kid.
Prentice's efforts to figure out Rory's story or location stagnate, and he continues to fail at school and avoid his father. He then receives word that Kenneth was killed while debating faith with Hamish. In fact, Kenneth dies after a fall from a church lightning rod, which he was climbing in an act of defiance against Hamish's philosophy when it was struck by lightning; Hamish is convinced that Kenneth had incurred God's wrath. Ash is there for support when Prentice finds out about the death.
With Ash's help, Prentice returns to his hometown again to help manage Kenneth's affairs. Prentice speaks with a very shaken Hamish, who is handling Kenneth's death with extreme drama and making it all about his own feelings. Hamish tells Prentice that Kenneth was jealous that Prentice shared more in common with Hamish's faith than with Kenneth's lack of faith. However, this isn't really true, and as he contemplates his father's death, Prentice begins to internalize one of the last things Hamish reported that Kenneth had argued: "All the gods are false. Faith itself is idolatry."
As the chapters go on, Prentice is compelled by some of the meaningful items related to Rory that he discovers in his father's belongings. He gains a renewed sense of purpose trying to solve the mystery of where Rory went and what happened to him. Among the interesting items are an ancient computer disk of Rory's that Prentice can't access with any equipment he can find; Ash uses her connections in the US and Canada to find a computer expert who can finally open the files on it. This takes quite a while, since the disk has to be mailed and Ash's connection is investigating the disk only in his free time.
Prentice also discovers that his feelings for Verity have changed. He no longer feels angry with Lewis for "stealing her." At first, Prentice's narration describes this as his feelings "cooling" as a result of the trauma of losing his father, but interestingly, this soon means Prentice gets to know Verity as a sister-in-law without getting caught up in jealous romantic feelings. Verity gets along well with the family, and Prentice is actually happy to discover that she and Lewis have a baby on the way. Prentice's relationship with Lewis improves greatly as well, partly because he is no longer jealous and partly because he realizes he does not want to lose Lewis, too.
Ash's connection who was looking at Rory's computer disk comes through and sends the printed contents of the files to Prentice. The files reveal to him that Rory likely knew Prentice's uncle, Ferg, murdered his wife by unbuckling her seat belt and crashing their car. Rory had written out a fictional version of events and considered using it in Crow Road. I'm not clear on exactly how certain Rory was about Ferg's crime, or whether Rory would have intentionally reported Ferg, or whether Rory even had enough proof to publicly accuse Ferg of murder, but people would likely have connected the dots in Rory's work and become suspicious of Ferg. For this reason, Prentice believes Ferg murdered Rory as well.
Prentice confronts Ferg. He doesn't get a confession and leaves Ferg's home with no concrete proof of anything; Ferg denies it all. But Prentice is soon physically assaulted in the night, and it seems Ferg was almost certainly the culprit, because he hadn't been home that same night, and he had injuries (probably from being fought off) the next day. A day or two later, Ferg's body is found unconscious in the cockpit of a plane, which crashes into the ocean. It's uncertain whether this was a suicide, but Prentice suspects it was. Rory's body is then soon recovered from the bottom of a waterway near Prentice's home, where Ferg had sunk it years ago.
As the mysteries are solved, Prentice realizes his feelings for Ash are romantic love. However, it's too late, he thinks, because Ash is about to take a job in Canada, where she may or may not stay. Prentice also hesitates to approach her because he's embarrassed about his previous behavior, venting all his angst about Verity and his father. He isn't sure she would even want to be in a relationship with him after that. But the very night before Ash leaves, she kisses Prentice on the cheek, which leads to a deeper kiss. They finally connect, have sex, and confess their mutual feelings. Ash still goes to her job in Canada, but says she'll come back when Prentice is done with his studies that summer.
The relationship's future is somewhat uncertain because something could come up while Ash is in Canada, but Prentice is hopeful. The book ends with Prentice getting ready to graduate with his grades on track as a history scholar, fully renouncing his belief in an afterlife while he acknowledges the inherent importance of our experiences in our lives now, and enjoying his time with Lewis and Verity and his other family members.
What's the point of all these hundreds of pages?
Well, look at all of the above; there's definitely more than one point. But the main point I took away is that we get this one life, with our loved ones in this world here and now, and this is where we make our meanings. There is no other meaning, but that doesn't mean there's no meaning at all. It means the meaning is here.
It's not death that gives life its meaning. It's the things we do while alive that give life its deeper meaning.
The Crow Road is described (on Wikipedia) as a Bildungsroman, a story focusing on the moral and philosophical growth and change of its main character as they transition from childhood to adulthood ("coming-of-age novel" is a similar term that is interchangeable, but more vague and not necessarily focused on morality/philosophy). And, indeed, all of the plots ultimately tie into Prentice's changed philosophy.
After his argument with Kenneth, Prentice feels childish and humiliated, and as a result, he refuses to go back home, which leads to a spiral of shame and depression. Kenneth dies and Prentice realizes it's too late to repair the relationship, which also leads him to realize it's what we do in life that matters, and that therefore, his father's argument was correct after all.
At the end of the novel, Prentice outright describes his new philosophy. However, I can't recall one specific passage where Prentice describes the process of how he changed his mind (if anyone else can remember something I missed, do let me know). There is, however, a moment when his narration indicates that Hamish seems less disturbed by his own part in the incident that led to Kenneth's death and more disturbed by the notion that his beliefs might actually be true: there might actually be an angry, vengeful God. In other words, Hamish's philosophy was selfish at its core.
My interpretation is that when his father died, Prentice realized three things: how utterly self-serving Hamish's devout faith is, how Kenneth's untimely death proves the importance of working things out now rather than in an imaginary afterlife, and how much profound meaning Kenneth had left behind despite having no faith at all. After these realizations, a determined belief in an afterlife no longer makes our lives here more profound like Prentice once thought it did.
Also, it's worth noting that this incident changes Prentice's idea of partnership, too. He loses interest in this distant, idealized woman he's been after. In love as in the rest of life, Prentice lets go of his ideals, and in doing so, he makes room for true meaning, both in a sincere familial, platonic connection with Verity and a sincere intimate, romantic connection with Ash.
But what about the sex scene?!
Yes, indeed, at the tail end of the story, Prentice and Ash have sex and admit they want to be in a relationship together. Prentice's narration describes them sleeping together and having intercourse not just once, but many times, including some slow and relaxed couplings during which they flex the muscles in their private parts to spell out "I.L.Y." and "I.L.Y.T." to each other in Morse code. This is relevant because earlier, they had been surprised and delighted to discover that they both knew Morse code; it isn't a detail that came from nowhere.
I didn't get the impression that this scene was trying to be especially titillating to the reader. It was mostly just a list of stuff the characters did together. I felt the point was that they were still anxious about being emotionally honest, a little desperate to convey their feelings without having to speak them out loud, and awkward in a way that made it obvious that their primary concern was the feelings, not the sexual performance. They cared about each other, but they weren't trying to be impressive or put on a show; contrast this with previous scenes where Prentice would act like a clown in front of Ash to diffuse his own anxiety. I've always thought that being able to have awkward sex and still enjoy it is a good sign.
Okay, so what does this all have to do with Good Omens?
Here's where I have to get especially interpretive. I'm doing my best, but of course, not everyone reading this will have the same perspective on Good Omens, the Final Fifteen especially. I believe similar themes are going to resonate between The Crow Road and Good Omens regardless of our particular interpretations of the characters' behavior and motivations, but I suppose it could hit differently for some people.
The TL;DR: I see similar themes between The Crow Road and Good Omens in:
The importance of mortal life on Earth
Meaning (or purpose) as something that we create as we live, not something that is handed to us by a supreme being
Sincere connection and love/passion (for people, causes, arts, life's work, etc) as a type of meaning/purpose
Relationships as reflections of philosophy
The dual nature of humanity
Life on Earth as the important part of existence is a core theme in Good Omens, and has been since the very beginning. We all already know Adam chose to preserve the world as it already is because he figured this out, and we all already know Aziraphale and Crowley have been shaped for the better by their experiences on Earth. But Good Omens isn't done with this theme by a long shot. I think this is the most important thematic commonality Good Omens will have with The Crow Road. Closely related is the notion that we create our meanings as we live, rather than having them handed to us. Isn't this, in a way, what Aziraphale struggles with in A Companion to Owls? He's been given this meaning, this identity, that doesn't fit him. But does he have anything else to be? Not yet.
Partnerships as a parallel to the characters' philosophical development also resonates as a commonality that The Crow Road may have with Good Omens. Prentice's obsession with Verity goes away when he starts to embrace the importance of life on Earth and makes room for his sincere relationship with Ash. Note their names: "Verity" is truth, an ideal Prentice's father instills in him; "Ashley" means "dweller in the ash tree meadow" in Anglo-Saxon, according to Wikipedia, and "ash" is one of the things people return to after death. Prentice literally trades his high ideals for life on Earth. We see in Aziraphale a similar tug-o'-war between Heaven's distant ideals and Crowley's Earthly pleasures, so I can see a similar process potentially playing out for him.
I don't particularly recall a ton of thematic exploration of free will in The Crow Road. However, there is a glimmer of something there: Prentice feels excessively controlled by Kenneth's desire to pass down his beliefs, and part of the reason Prentice is so resistant to change is simply his frustration with feeling censored and not being taken seriously. As the reader, I do get the feeling that while Prentice is immature, Kenneth made major mistakes in handling their conflict, too. And Kenneth's mistakes come from trying to dictate Prentice's thoughts. There is likely some crossover with Good Omens in the sense that I'm pretty sure both stories are going to take the position that people need to be allowed to make mistakes, and to do things that one perceives as mistakes, without getting written off as "stupid" or "bad" or otherwise "unworthy."
Suffice it to say that the human characters in Good Omens will also certainly play into these themes, but it's hard to write about them when we don't know much about them except that one of them is almost certainly the reincarnation of Jesus. This also makes me suspect perhaps the human cast will be 100% entirely all-new, or mostly new, symbolic of how Aziraphale and Crowley have immersed themselves in the ever-evolving, ever-changing world of life on Earth. Alternatively, if we encounter human characters again from Season 1 or 2, perhaps the ways they've grown and changed will be highlighted. For example, even in real-world time, Adam and Warlock have already, as of the time I'm writing this, gone through at least one entire life stage (from 11 in 2019 to 16 in 2024). They'll be legal adults in a couple of years, and if there's a significant time skip, they could be much older. If characters from Season 1 do reappear and themes from The Crow Road are prominent, I would expect either some key scenes highlighting contrasts and changes from their younger selves or for stagnation and growth to be a central part of their plot.
The more I write, the more I just interpret everything in circles. Hopefully this post has at least given you a decent idea of what The Crow Road is like and how it may relate to Good Omens.
I'll end this post with a quotation that feels relevant:
Telling us straight or through his stories, my father taught us that there was, generally, a fire at the core of things, and that change was the only constant, and that we – like everybody else – were both the most important people in the universe, and utterly without significance, depending, and that individuals mattered before their institutions, and that people were people, much the same everywhere, and when they appeared to do things that were stupid or evil, often you hadn’t been told the whole story, but that sometimes people did behave badly, usually because some idea had taken hold of them and given them an excuse to regard other people as expendable (or bad), and that was part of who we were too, as a species, and it wasn’t always possible to know that you were right and they were wrong, but the important thing was to keep trying to find out, and always to face the truth. Because truth mattered.
Iain Banks, The Crow Road
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okay very brief munich gig report (mostly under the cut) i probably am forgetting 90% of stuff but let's goooo:
i got EE and i was there by 10 am? i was number 39 and i was pretty okay with this. i did end up getting a really good spot anyway
munich queue 💜💜 i mean, i've already made a post about meeting all of you, but it was truly lovely. i got so many gifts and bracelets! this fandom is full of talented, kind people
the soundcheck was ngvot (every single time i've been to a show i've heard ngvot at some point lol) and vem da greš, both of which i really enjoyed
I GOT TO GIVE NACE MY GIFTS!! like i don't even think he heard what i said BUT THEY'RE WITH THEM. FINALLY. i can be at peace now lol
i really enjoyed both Sector 5 and JC Stewart! they were both pretty good openers! i hadn't heard any of their music before, but i still had fun
WE STARTED WITH KATRINA WHICH I WAS SUPER HAPPY ABOUT
AND I GOT BELE SANJEEEEEE. and bojan said we nailed it the first time which had me like "duh, ofc, i'm here????" I WOULD NEVER FUCK UP MY BELOVED BELE SANJE
we got both Šta bih ja & Schlager. i really really really wanted Bluza so hopefully in london 🤞 i enjoy Schlager more that i've listened to it live lol (and jance were very cute during this song)
on the topic of jance, everyone was mentioning the nacekris was strong last night but as someone who was right in front of jance and barely got to see the others honestly it was kinda hard for me lmao i didn't get those vibes at all. i was so shocked opening tumblr hahahaha. jance were super sweet and smiley and 🥺💕 a solid 95% of what i captured was them and i can assure you they were both very soft and happy
no pijano :((( but he did help bojan at the start of EW and it was very sweet, i love them so much
bojan spit on me. better said, he spit on jan but i was, well, right in front of him, so i got it too lmfao
during the UM bojan was also right in front of me because a little girl got to sing with him (and even went on stage!!!!) and then a super sweet 15yo girl who had her birthday yesterday also got to sing UM - i was next to both of them so i saw bojan VERY WELL. he didn't actually go into the crowd this time
during novi val i made a finger heart at nace AND HE SMILED AND DID ONE BACK AT ME. i know it was for me because everyone got the half hearts lmfao (and then @flananjan told me you could see the heart in a story they posted on their insta and i almost died on the subway back to the hotel)
at some point (i can't remember before which song but i'll probably figure it out when i look at the photos) i put my portuguese flag on stage and jan picked it up 🥺🥺 he then asked me in the softest fucking voice "Portugal?" and i was able to say two entire words to him "yes, Portugal" AND I DIDN'T EVEN DIE ON THE SPOT. he then placed it down and like idk i just!!!! jan knows i exist and i'm portuguese BYE
and when i thought the night just couldn't... well, get any better, JAN GAVE ME HIS PICK. his hand was warm and like way softer than i expected??? this is now my most prized possession. i literally CANNOT believe jan peteh himself gave this to me
the boys didn't come out at the end because they were tired, apparently??? but i was still very happy about all of this. i'm now way less stressed for london (because i won't be carrying around a bag full of stuff for them omgggg) and manifesting i get to meet them then 🙏
munich, thank you for having me 💜💜💜 i can't wait to come back
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In writing my last few posts, I have realized that there is quite a lot of basic(to me) knowledge required to understand most of this stuff. I've done my best to explain as I go, but I think this deserves its own post. So, here we go!
Junior Gemology 101
This post is mostly about diamonds! I am well aware it's called Junior Gemology, but 90% of what I deal with on a day-to-day basis is diamonds. Also, a lot of this applies to coloured stones too, so no need to repeat myself.
What is a diamond, actually?
Diamonds are carbon! That's all there is! Except for inclusions. And coloured diamonds. Those have little bits of other materials in them. And are also a topic for later. I digress. Like always.
Specifically, diamonds are carbon atoms bonded together covalently in a tetrahedral shape. Confusing enough yet? This means that each carbon atom is bonded to 4 other carbon atoms. It's ok if you don't get it, I spent about 3 hours trying to understand diamond structure before things started to make sense. This website has a 3D model of the tetrahedral structure seen in diamonds and is what I used to finally wrap my head around it. The important part is: diamonds are made of carbon atoms connected in a pattern. If the pattern was different, It wouldn't be a diamond! If the carbon was bonded in hexagonal rings, it would be graphite! Same atoms, veeeerrrryyy different result.
What makes diamonds so darn special?
I've told you what a diamond is - so why do people care about this very specific pattern of carbon? The answer is(mostly) that humanity LOVES shiny things, and diamonds are great at being shiny. Why have diamonds become THE shiny thing to have? A combination of some REALLY successful marketing campaigns and some of diamond's unique characteristics. These characteristics include things such as their hardness, brilliance, and fire. I went deeper into these characteristics and what they mean in terms of telling diamonds from other stones in this post, but I'll give you a quick run-down here.
Diamonds are very(and famously) hard. They're a 10 on the Mohs scale, and almost nothing is harder than them. This doesn't mean diamonds are impervious to damage - while they are very hard, diamonds can also be brittle, and a hard smack in the wrong place can chip, crack, or even shatter a diamond. Trust me, I know. I've broken a few by accident.
Brilliance and fire are what give diamonds their characteristic bling. Though they are classified as different things - brilliance being the bright white reflections of light and fire being the rainbow reflections - they're both caused by diamond's Refractive Index. Refractive index(RI) is the measurement of the speed at which light travels through different materials - for our purposes though, think of it as how much a ray of light bends when it moves from one material to another. Diamonds have an RI of 2.42, which causes high brilliance and a medium amount of fire. RI isn't super important for most people to know - it really only comes into the conversation when comparing diamonds to simulant materials.
What are the 4 Cs?
The 4 Cs are the meat and potatoes of diamond basics - Carat weight, Colour, Clarity, and Cut. These four terms are used to describe diamonds worldwide, each describing a different part of a diamond's look.
Carat weight is the weight of a diamond. Pretty self-explanatory. What's not clear is what a carat actually is - no, not a carrot. A carat. A carat is 0.2 grams. Therefore, a 5 carat diamond(good lord) would weigh 1 gram. With me? Why do we weigh diamonds in carats instead of grams like sane people? Because way back yonder, carob seeds were used as a counterweight to weigh diamonds, and language did what language does.
Image from loosegrowndiamond.com
Colour refers to - you guessed it - the colour of the diamond. There are two basic systems that GIA(The Gemological Institute Of America, and the accepted authority of these things in North America) use; the normal colour range and the coloured or fancy diamond range. The normal colour range is used for stones that are colourless, light yellow, or light brown. These are the most common colours of diamond, thus the "normal" colour range. These stones are graded alphabetically D-Z, with D being colourless and Z being quite noticeably yellow or brown. Normal range colour grades are sorted into 5 groups based on the general amount of colour; colourless(DEF), nearly colourless(GHIJ), Faint(KLM), Very Light(N-R), and light(S-Z).
Image from GIA article 4Cs Color
Stones that fall outside this range (stones that are too yellow or brown for the scale or show any colour other than yellow and brown) are graded using the fancy colour grades. Fancy colour grades are an entire thing, but generally pretty self-explanatory. The grade will include 1 or two colours(the more dominant of which goes last) and an intensity descriptor such as light, intense, fancy deep, etc. For example, a stone may be graded as a fancy greyish blue - this means that the stone has a middling amount of colour and is blue with a hint of grey. Easy peasy.
Clarity is how many inclusions are in a stone. Well, technically it's more complicated than that, accounting for placement and contrast and type of inclusion etc etc etc. Really, clarity is how many inclusions you see in a stone. Inclusions are things in the diamond that are not diamond, such as included crystals, or imperfections in the diamond itself, such as cracks(called feathers) or chips.
Clarity grades are, frankly, confusing as fuck. There are 11 grades, broken down into 6 grade groups. From highest to lowest, they are; Flawless, Internally Flawless, Very Very Slightly Included(VVS), Very Slightly Included(VS), Slightly Included(SI), and Included(I). VVS, VS, and SI are each broken into 2 grades - 1 and 2. I is broken down into 3 grades - 1, 2, and 3. The lower the number within a grade, the better the grade - a VS1 stone would be less visibly included than a VS2. You know what'll help? Visuals!!
Images from GIA D&DG Chapter 11. Credit to John Koivula/GIA
The diamond on the left is graded as a VVS2 - the red arrow points to the inclusion that gave it this grade. The diamond on the right is graded as an I2. No red arrows are required - this stone has many highly visible inclusions. If you want a little more info (and examples) of clarity grades, GIA has a lovely little tool that explains it quite well.
Cut refers to the shape of a diamond - specifically, the combination of shape(face-up outline) and cutting style(the arrangement of the facets). A classic round brilliant is what most people think of when they think of a diamond, but there are dozens of different cuts. When talking about cut grade, cut refers to how well executed the cut is. Are the proportions ideal? Is everything symmetrical? Is the polish well done? These determine the cut grade of the stone. Cut grades are as follows, best to worst; Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor.
What are the parts of a cut diamond?
Specifically, the parts of a round brilliant diamond. Round brilliant is the name of the most common cut of diamond. Think of a diamond. Is it round? That's almost definitely a round brilliant. Think I've said round brilliant enough? Round brilliant. Whew. Done with that now. This is best explained with diagrams.
The parts we're most interested in are the table, crown, girdle, and pavilion. The way those 3 parts are shaped and proportioned has a huge effect on the looks and value of a diamond.
Knowledge Check
Let's say you're looking at a 1.01 carat round brilliant diamond - it has a colour grade of F, a clarity grade of SI1, and an excellent cut grade. So, what does this mean to you?
Round brilliant is the cut of the diamond. It has a round outline and a brilliant cutting style. 1.01ct is a fairly large diamond - this one in particular is 6.42 mm in diameter (that's a quarter inch!). This stone is colourless - F is the lowest colour grade in the colourless range, but it is still classified as colourless. The diamond will either have one large or several small inclusions that are easy to see under 10x magnification, but hard or impossible to see while looking through the table of a stone with the naked eye(they may be visible through the pavilion with the naked eye). The diamond will be very well cut - the best cut grade possible, in fact! There will be no visible variation in the girdle outline, and all the facets will be well-placed and symmetrical.
It's up to you to decide if this stone matches your criteria - is SI1 a good enough cut grade for you? Is 1.01ct the right size? How "good" a stone is depends on what you want - there will always be bigger, clearer, more colourless diamonds on the market. What makes a stone "good" is if it's the right fit for you. Another stone may be better quality, but if it's out of your price range, then it's not a good stone for you.
In Conclusion
So, you made it this far! Congrats! Hopefully, I haven't bored you too much. We've really just scratched the surface - this was enough information to give you a good idea of what's going on and allow you to navigate the mysticisms of those strange numbers and letters you see associated with diamonds. All information was taken from the GIA Diamond Essentials 130 and Diamonds and Diamond Grading 230 courses and my 6ish years in the jewelry industry. If you have questions about specific pieces of information or want more resources, send me an ask! I will be delighted to answer.
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