- Solitair
- Feb 18, 2014
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TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
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Glad to be following this thread. I'm almost done reading D.O.D.O. right now, and I don't hate it, but I agree that the strike-through stuff in Melisande's sections is a detriment to the book and I'm always thankful when someone else takes over, which happens with increasing frequency once the time travel actually starts.
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Mar 16, 2019 12:33
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May 22, 2024 18:12
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- Solitair
- Feb 18, 2014
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TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
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Xotl's posts are exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to see from this new thread. I hope to see more of them, from more people.
Not to step too far away from the current discussion, but those excerpt from DODO had me wondering: are there iconic instances of books where the prose is subjectively "bad" by technical or widely accepted aesthetic standards, but work in favor of the thematic "goal" of the book, and succeed in creating an artistic whole?
Maybe that's a dumb question, and admittedly I don't know that I have the literary vocabulary to express my question any better, but hopefully I got across what I'm asking.
I doubt it, but I can't say for certain that there aren't. For context, the quoted section of D.O.D.O. is written from the perspective of a character trapped in a stressful situation, and also in 1850s England, writing in haste with a fountain pen, which is the diegetic reason for the struck-out text. D.O.D.O. is an epistolary novel written from multiple different perspectives which increasingly crowd out this first one, which range in style from diary entry to letter to bureaucratic report to chat log. My personal favorite POV comes from letters written by a native of 1603 London, which is distinct in style from everything else given the time period (though it may not be historically accurate). I don't get the sense of deliberate stylization from the quoted section; it's more likely that what bothered OnsetOutsider are either the result of then-58-year-old Stephenson attempting to write much younger characters, or otherwise unrelated mistakes.
Solitair fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Mar 17, 2019
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Mar 17, 2019 18:15
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- Solitair
- Feb 18, 2014
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TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
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gently caress it, why not? I just finished the book and I'm in no mood to defend or play devil's advocate for it right now.
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., Gráinne's POV posted:
Tristan Lyons had only his underclothes on, of course, but in this part of town that hardly draws attention, no matter he was such a large fella. Crowds were streaming into the Globe’s gates. Trumpets did sound from within, and then I recognized Hal Condell’s voice like an oratorio, which meant they were beginning some fool play. Tristan’s attention turned toward the gate as if he were curious to go in.
“'Tisn’t that way we’re going,” I said.
“That phrase,” he said, looking surprised. “Even I know that phrase. ‘Star-crossed lovers.’ They’re doing Romeo and Juliet in there. The original Romeo and Juliet.”
“No, the original had Saunder Cooke as Juliet,” I said. “That was much better than whoever’s doing it since Saunder grew a beard. Anyhow it’s a shite play, just a stupid court-sponsored rant against the Irish.” I grabbed his arm and began to pull him through the floods of people streaming back into the theatre. We must need get around to the back of the stage where the tiring-house was.
“How is it anti-Irish?” Tristan asked.
“The villain is a Catholic friar,” I pointed out. “He being a meddling busy-body who traffics in poison—he’s the reason it’s a tragedy and not a comedy, and everyone knows Catholic is code for Irish.”
“Aren’t the French Catholic?” asked Tristan. “And the Spanish?”
“The friar’s name is Lawrence,” I countered, as I pulled him along. “So obviously named after St. Labhrás. He was martyred by drinking a poison of his own concocting. The whole play is just a coded insult to the Irish, a demonstration of how amoral we supposedly are. It’s bollocks. You be missing nothing. Especially now that Saunder’s grown a beard.”
“I don’t want to see it, I just never heard that Shakespeare hated the Irish before,” said Tristan, only it was so crowded there that he was shouting just to be heard as all the people pressed past us to get inside.
“Why would anyone in your time give a shite about Will Shakespeare’s politics? But, aye, he does,” I said. “I can quote reams of examples, same as anyone. Worst of all was just the other year, one of them plays about some English king, and there was a terrible drunk Irish character staggering about the stage wailing about how all the Irish are villains and bastards and knaves. And awhile before that he had a play about some other English king who went to conquer Ireland, and he said the Irish live like venom. Venom. That’s poison, so it is. He’s obsessed with the Irish and poison. Trying to convince the masses that one of us is planning to poison the Queen.”
“Are you?” asked Tristan.
“Course not. Not worth the risk. She’ll be dying soon anyhow and ’tisn’t as if she could suddenly produce an heir at her age. There’ll be chaos soon without us meddling.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
“It is not fair enough. It would be fair if she’d died years ago. ’Tis always the wrong ones living too long and the wrong ones dying too young.” And then because this touches a subject near to my sensitive heart, of course I pressed on: “Like my Kit Marlowe.”
“Who’s Kit Marlowe?”
I stopped walking, and let the crowd bump past me as I turned to him. “Christopher Marlowe? Are you telling me you’ve never heard of Christopher Marlowe?”
“Christopher Marlowe. Of course I know the name.” He thought a moment. “He was a spy and a writer, but I was not briefed about him in depth because he died years before I needed to arrive here.”
“Briefed? There’s nothing brief about him, except his life, he is only the greatest playwright that ever was, who only wrote the greatest play that ever was.” And because no light of recognition went on in his pretty eyes, I prompted, “It’s Tamburlaine I mean.”
He shrugged. “I do not know it.” I was incredulous and I expressed my incredulity with colorful language. “More famous than Hamlet?” he asked.
I figured he was codding me and almost fell over with the laughter. “Are you taking the piss, Tristan Lyons?” I asked. “Hamlet’s a dull gently caress of a story where a fellow stands around lamenting how useless he is even to his own self, and then there’s one pansy swordfight and it’s over. The only good part of that is what he nicked from Kit’s Dido.”
Tristan shrugged again. “I’m not much of a theatre-goer.”
“No theatre, no whoring . . . pray what is it you do for recreation, then?”
But before he could answer, we’d reached the back of the Globe, and they know me in the tiring-house, so I grabbed him by the hand and in we marched.
I like seeing a good chapter-by-chapter readthrough, but I think with a lot of sf/f books the moment you start to do that you realize, like I did with Emperor's Blades, there's not really much to talk about without getting very repetitive.
Yeah, several years ago I tried to do a chapter-by-chapter blind readthrough of the first Wheel of Time book on a blog, and that's probably the worst way to read a book like that. Even if the book didn't suck, there would be just as little to talk about as Karia is finding in The Way of Kings.
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Mar 20, 2019 02:37
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- Solitair
- Feb 18, 2014
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TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
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I do not recall Malazan spending much time trying to make some explicit Sanderson-like Magic system. I'm also not sure how big of a deal the various different names for all the various different peoples are.
I've read the first book. There is a magic system, but like a lot of other things, Erikson doesn't explain it.
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Apr 10, 2019 07:15
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- Solitair
- Feb 18, 2014
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TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
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make dragons great again
Eh, I want to avoid making it seem like I am summoning the horde on the dude by linking to it.
lemme just share a taste
The joke he keeps referencing is "Wow, look at how big his number has gotten", which I still find a hilarious summary of DBZ
yeeeeeeees
Guess I won't be writing that effort post on modern Donaldson.
Wait, has his modus operandi changed recently?
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May 15, 2019 08:38
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- Solitair
- Feb 18, 2014
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TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
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Oh god please do All the Birds in the Sky, it's a disaster.
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Jun 18, 2019 07:29
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- Solitair
- Feb 18, 2014
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TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
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Oh, with a genius like Akiva Goldsman on board, how can this go wrong?
jesus loving christ
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Aug 23, 2019 14:50
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May 22, 2024 18:12
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- Solitair
- Feb 18, 2014
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TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
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I'm about three quarters of the way through Titus Groan on BotL's recommendation from the previous thread and it's really illustrating to me the difference between pre- and post-LotR fantasy. In spite of being old as hell this book presents such a different view of the fantasy novel archetype that it feels like something fresh and new. It's dark and dreary and oppressive, and all of this reflects in the psychology of the characters inhabiting the world. The book takes place almost solely in the massive castle of Gormenghast, a sprawling, rotting mishmash of the eccentricities of the past, which casts an indelible shadow over the present and the characters who are forced at every moment to adhere to the precedents set for them, no matter how nonsensical they are for any modern consideration. Ridiculous ritual that has to be observed to the letter every day forms the central backdrop of the lives of everyone, but in particular the royalty, who inhabit the castle. Virtually everything is rotten and lovely, rusted, leaky, just dreadfully old, so much so that age seems to absorb even the new in very short order. Of course, one man's attempt to secure a position for himself outside of the role imposed upon him by tradition is central to the story, but I won't talk much about that yet since I haven't finished it.
The novel is squarely fantasy but it lacks all the elements of a "traditional" fantasy novel save for the fact that it isn't based on a real place and that it takes place in a castle and centers around the royal family, giving the book a sense of being out of time. There are some anachronistic technological presences, like hypodermic needles, that serve to disrupt what would be an otherwise very medieval environment. There's virtually no magic in the novel, or if there is it's all very subtle.
Most of all, the writing is very baroque and visual, and Mervyn Peake knows how to use color imagery in a very emphatic way as a contrast and highlight against what is otherwise a very grey book. Everything about Gormenghast itself feels black and grey and dim, while the characters have their own distinct color palettes. The Countess of Groan has her flaming red hair, her mass of white cats, her ink black robes; Fuchsia, in spite of her name, has Raven black hair and is always wearing crimson dresses; Steerpike is the color of straw and tallow, pale; the Earl is melancholy, weary, black and phantasmic; the twins, Cora and Clarice, are basically defined by their purple outfits; Swelter is a mass of chef's white, huge and commanding with an imposing presence, while at one scene his evil machinations are bathed in a vivid and unnatural green light. Everywhere color is significant, and from what I know about Peake he was a costume designer for stage plays, and it shows in his writing and the way he thinks about how to present his world.
If you're a fantasy fan and you're craving something out of the ordinary Sanderson tripe and want to read something with some more challenging writing, I recommend picking this up. It's about 400 pages, but it's a pretty smooth read in spite of its language. Peake doesn't shy away from using some very obscure and uncommon word choices (I frequently have to look things up) but it never feels like thesaurus trolling.
Titus Groan and Gormenghast are two of the best books I've ever read. Titus Alone has very different aims, and in my opinion doesn't achieve them as well.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:58
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Mar 16, 2019 12:33
