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I've had Perdido Street Station sitting on my shelf for months and just never got around to it until now. I'm a little over 100 pages in and I just can't seem to get into it. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it's the fact that I can't identify with the main character at all (I have a big problem with cruelty to animals, for instance). Maybe it's because the author is just spraying me with proper nouns without actually defining any of them (people, places, political parties, technology, etc.) and it makes everything in the story too abstract. Maybe it's Miéville's use of language; the man seems to be a human thesaurus and I find myself regularly tripped up by the more esoteric words. Having to stop and think about the meaning of a term pulls me out of the story. I don't know. I've given it several chances but it's failed to catch my interest. Has anyone else had the problems I'm describing, or do I just need to put down the urban fantasy for a while and read some "actual literature?"
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Apr 11, 2010 08:16
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SaviourX posted:It sounds like it may not be your thing, but then again, I guess I don't understand folks that don't like things in novels that they personally don't agree with. It's a novel, people are supposed to be imperfect and bad things will happen (in good novels anyway). It does get better plot wise, but the rest of the stuff you have trouble with stays too. It's not just that I don't like him, it's that I can't identify with him on any level. The animal cruelty thing was just an example. It's not just him either, I can't form a connection to any character so far, and I need to be able to do that to be interested in a story. I've enjoyed the hell out of some pretty dark books, but there was always at least one character in the story that I was really vested in. I may try and stick with it for a while longer though, since it sounds like I'm very close to at least a change of pace. The introduction to a brand new universe can bog things down, so hopefully most of that is done and he'll start moving things along soon.
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Apr 11, 2010 20:59
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