The Nihilist's Pocket Survival Guide to Modern Society

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silvergoose: Mar 18, 2006; IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS

antivehicular you have come through with comedy in the face of...well, not nihilism, as you said

# ? Mar 22, 2024 12:51

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 09:00

Cassian of Imola: Feb 9, 2011; Keeping her memory alive!

A kind of Mephistopheles character in The Recognitions employs the protagonist to make counterfeits of the paintings of Dutch masters, and his name is Recktall Brown. Maybe you guys just missed one of op's many literary references

# ? Mar 22, 2024 12:55

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Antivehicular posted:

All right, I'm home from work, let's take a look at Chapter 6, The Supermarket.

Before I get into the detailed critique, there are two main points I want to make here: two elements that are vital for satire and that, in my opinion, this chapter does very badly.

1. Specificity. Satire, above all, needs to be sharp: as carefully observed and specific as possible, both about the world it's creating and about the world it's commenting on. There needs to be clear themes and a strong, pointed thesis. This chapter has none of these things. The initial topic is tepid and flabby on its own ("the grocery store: we buy food there! And get this -- the store wants to make money from us buying food!!"), but there's a huge lack of description and specificity throughout, and the few details that are observed go nowhere and do nothing. They're not fresh, they're not funny, they're not interesting, and they're not even particularly accurate; I can't even guess at authorial intent for most of this. There are also a few half-hearted attempts at theses, and none of them go anywhere.

2. Character. If you want to write a "protagonist struggling against an absurd or malicious world" story, the protagonist's character and voice are of critical importance. Are they a disoriented outsider, a relatable everyman, a sardonic mastermind, a buffoon? I can tell which of these R.L. (I would love to keep writing out his name, but if I do, I'm gonna go into a fugue and this is just going to turn into "RECTUM LEVITICUS, BROOKS CRACKTACLE, CHERRY VENUS" for pages and pages) is supposed to be, but in practice, he's just a cipher. We get shockingly few details of what he's doing (besides "the smart thing"), and in general everything is focused on how cool and smart he is, not who he is. This chapter fails to answer the most basic question about its protagonist for any genre of fiction: "who is this guy, and why should I care about what he's doing?" In a sample chapter! This is poison.

Anyway, onto a closer reading:

The first two paragraphs, taken on the whole, are worthless, just vague bloviation about how big supermarkets are and how they separate us from our roots, or something -- the first sentence is particularly bad, just archetypal "high-schooler padding out word count" stuff. If you told me an AI wrote this, I frankly wouldn't be shocked. We have a hint of a thesis here, the idea that the supermarket destroys "meaningful human interaction," but no glimpse at all of what kind of interaction R.L. wants. Does he want to be connected to the people who grow his food? (Farmer's markets exist; why is he at the supermarket?) Does he want to speak to professionals about his grocery needs? (Upscale grocery stores with expert staff exist; why isn't he going to one of those?) Does he just want to hit on cashiers?

This is the first example of lack of specificity, lack of character, and weak observation of the world. It's absurd to have the narrative voice bemoan the world's insufficiency when we're given no clue what R.L. wants, what interaction need the supermarket isn't meeting (and whether that's remotely reasonable for R.L. to expect!), and what his options are. Even a casual glance at the modern shopping landscape shows that there's a world of options for food shopping these days, many of which might address R.L.'s needs and his complaints about the supermarket selection, so... why is he here? Even a basic "he can only shop at Crapmart, because he lives in a crummy small town/it's the only place within walking distance and he has no other transport/freelance work is tight and he can't afford Nicefoods right now/he gets out of work at 2 AM and Crapmart is the only place open" would go a long way towards making R.L.'s predicament here more sympathetic and towards defining him as a character. Instead, we are merely told that he enjoys this and has a "love-hate relationship" with the grocery store, which suggests that R.L. is the kind of person who does poo poo he hates because it's more fun to feel smug and superior than to take initiative for your own happiness. I suspect this is a theme.

Onward to an extended jack-off session about how R.L. is very smart and marketing doesn't work on him, he does couponing, blah blah blah. What strikes me first is how absurd it is for this book to present smart shopping as some brilliant ubermensch lifehack -- R.L.'s approach is sensible, but it's also common. (You know who tends to be really good at it? People on limited incomes, whom I'm sure the rest of this book thinks are all idiot sheeple. Just a hunch.) We're already in the realm of "lifehacks" that the rest of the world would call "everyday household hints," but have to be presented as galaxy-brain stuff to convince pseudointellectuals that they're worth their time. This is also a huge missed opportunity to characterize R.L.; we're talking about his shopping habits, but all we're told is that he's "highly selective," and that he buys generics. (Once again, this is not brain genius stuff.) Is he the kind of guy who can shop on the cheap because he doesn't care much about what he eats, so he can stock up on rice, beans, and whatever protein is on sale? Does he enjoy the challenge of turning whatever's on sale into an interesting meal for himself? Are there any treats that tempt him, and does he indulge or deny himself? Who knows! We're told that he cooks for himself (once again: THIS IS NOT RARE), with the implication that he primarily cooks for himself so he can prepare food to "his own preferences instead of market research." What those preferences are, who knows, except that they're better than the sheeple's, clearly. At this point, there's a sense that the book is dodging telling us anything about R.L. except how great he is, because otherwise the reader might form their own opinion, I guess?

(A digression: good satire and commentary on consumerism and material culture recognizes that a great deal can be said about how people interact with objects and commodities, what choices they make in personal consumption and expression, and that everyone at every level of consumption culture is making interesting decisions in this regard. This is where specificity shines. We're clearly not getting it here.)

Now we come upon one of the first times the text chooses to give us detail: R.L. counting objects! Specifically, the concept that all the options at the supermarket are "nearly identical!" This is pretty well-trod satirical ground (although as observed above, you could write something interesting about how and why people make the choices they do and what those choices mean to them), but it's not pursued in any way besides the statement that there are many different kinds of soap and pet food. (Why is R.L. in the pet food aisle when he only owns a gecko, which he observes the store doesn't carry anything for? Is this the kind of guy who walks the aisles when he doesn't need anything? Who knows.) We get a lengthy chunk of speculation about the store carrying fewer varieties of cat food than dog food because of the need for shelf space for cat litter, as one of R.L.'s first concrete observations, and... okay? I mean, maybe? I'd have to talk to someone who does grocery store planograms, and that would be way more interesting than anything happening on the page. It's not funny, it's not absurd, it's not even interesting, it's just something R.L. saw, slapped down on the page and going nowhere. If you're going to give concrete descriptions of this little, what you do give has to hit, and this whiffs.

In quick succession, as if to mock me, we get two more concrete observations that whiff: speculation about why supermarkets also sell some home goods (because a lot of people use them as a centralized shopping location? It's not like having non-food items in the supermarket make the food go bad, dude), and everyone's favorite bugbear, food additives! Here we get R.L. musing on "drinking sodium silicialuminate," which approximately thirty seconds of Googling reveals to me a} is called sodium aluminosilicate, b) is a powder anti-caking agent/desiccant added to other powders, not anything you'd drink and not a preservative, c) is not listed by its chemical name on food labels, and d) is completely safe for human consumption. Satire needs to be sharp, and if you're taking as tired an anti-intellectual bit as "boy, there are a lot of big words on this food package!", you need to do way loving better than this. If the cat-food bit is a swing and a miss, this is fouling the ball off your own groin.

And now we come to the checkout line, and the first establishment that other people exist, aside from a reference to "naive" shoppers earlier. (One presumes in this universe, they're just knocking every box on the shelf into their carts like a Supermarket Sweep player in the diaper aisle, because only minds on R.L.'s caliber display behavior like "choosing less expensive products" or "buying bulk necessities.") We get a vaguely amusing anecdote about someone loving up the express lane and the person behind them being mad, which is... almost a concrete description, and actually kind of a real joke, to my immense surprise? The fuckup here (because of course this gets bobbled) is that, after starting this piece, R.L. merely watches in "bemused fascination," and then we get an aside about now that he's older and a proper nihilist, he understands how meaningless everything is, even the checkout-line rules. (Because the cashier is "oblivious" and doesn't care, of course!) There are two huge unforced errors here, to go back to the well of baseball metaphor:

1. Having R.L. reflect on how he was "a bit younger and less nihilistic," and now he's much smarter, is somehow a high-water mark of adolescent characterization even for this piece. It is 100% a 13-year-old talking about how punk they are, not like when they were 12 and a baby! Mortifying.

2. We started this piece with two insufferable paragraphs about the idea that the supermarket prevents "meaningful human interaction." This scene was an opportunity to have R.L. search that out! Even something like having him nod in commiseration to the woman stuck in line, creating a tiny moment of connection between these two strangers about a common human frustration, would have called back to that and suggested something much more interesting about R.L. than anything we've got here. Instead, he gets to keep himself above it all, Much Smarter Than You, Placid, Unbothered, Nihilistic. All I can assume about the character is that he doesn't want to connect with people, he just wants to feel superior to people; it's a characterization moment, but the character it's developing is "shithead."

(Another note: isn't it interesting that the two people we see here, the stupid rule-breaking 25-item lady and the irrational angry three-item lady, are both women who exist so a man can feel calmly superior to them? I think that's very interesting! I suspect this may be a running theme!)

Onto the apparent delights of the checkout aisle. We get a description of tabloids that would have been trite in 1985 and suffers once again from a lack of specificity -- no description of the headlines and what might be amusing about them, merely that it's all relationship gossip, of course! And the sheeple eat that up! (Hmm, what kind of sheeple in particular would that be? Who are checkout-aisle magazines usually marketed at? No matter. I'm just collecting data points.) R.L. being snide about the magazines being written at a "fifth-grade reading level," as if increasing the difficulty of the prose in popular journalism would serve any purpose at all, hits that right tone of smugness before the further smug observation that there are twelve different kinds of mints on the rack. (Why would there be any demand for different flavors of mint, after all?) And then... oh, look, condoms! And a stupid pun, which is at least identifiable joke-shaped content, before we get to another interminable observation of a "clever" mind.

R.L.'s ruminations on the condoms being left behind is a good example of a major flaw of this text, which is assuming a situation is inherently stupid and absurd when it's no such thing. We saw it before with the cat-food shelving (not remotely absurd) and the product varieties (people have different preferences for soap scent and mint flavor, who knew?), but now we have it with the question of why someone would abandon condoms if they came up short on grocery money. Anyone with even a vague awareness of how grocery shopping works, and the slightest ability to imagine coming up short on cash at the checkout, can come up with plenty of plausible reasons: condoms are pretty expensive, they're not covered by food-assistance benefits, they're a lot easier to survive without until payday than staple groceries or toiletries... but all the mind of R.L. can conjure up is the vague idea that someone might have made that decision while looking at an utterly mundane array of groceries, with no further interest or speculation. Are we supposed to find it funny or droll that the theoretical shopper bought an issue of the Enquirer? That they bought light beer? There's more unpleasant odor of "stupid sheeple" here (this guy R.L. made up likes alcohol! And tabloids! And having sex!!), but it's not even detailed enough to get angry at, just another vague idea thrown on the pile to rot, without either R.L. or the narrative bothering to explain why this deeply ordinary situation is worthy of laughter or scorn. When you presuppose everyone and everything around you is completely stupid, you don't have to try and prove it to the reader, I guess?

At last, God help us, R.L. has purchased his groceries. He's saved a lot of money, and he's very proud of how smart he is, in case we haven't intuited that element of his character yet. We're now told that he's getting "stares of disbelief" as he "rip(s) off the unnecessary cardboard boxes and other assorted packaging and thr(ows) them away." The extreme paucity of detail about what he's actually doing here, and what products he's doing it to, makes it very hard to picture this scene. Presumably, in this sort of midcentury-phantasmagoria Generic Horrible Supermarket, all products come in bulky unnecessary cardboard boxes; in the real world, most products in cardboard boxes need to be and are more conveniently carried home packaged, even for someone going with a backpack on foot. It doesn't matter, though, because we have no visual on what he's doing! Are people staring at him because he's scattering cardboard everywhere? Because he's standing in the middle of the exit blocking foot traffic? (As people leave in a "hasty and harried rush," a good example of using three words that add nothing to each other.) It makes no sense that people would stare because he's repacking his groceries to fit in his backpack and bags; people do that all the time, at least in the real world. (In this one, maybe it's another concept that only R.L., the only sapient being alive, has discovered.) I'm just picturing him peeling raw meat off the tray so he can put it in his own Tupperware, then opening his bags of chips to squish the air out and crush them into his backpack. Is this stupid? Yes, but it's exactly as textual as any mental image of R.L. doing something that makes sense.

Finally, we come to "Survival Tips," which appears to be "the author tries to retell us the jokes he liked the best," and make it clear that there's nothing even remotely resembling a thesis here. We get a weird non-joke about a website, the idea that grocery shopping is still superior to hunting-gathering (not suggested or supported by the text), a repeat of the "food labels have funny words on them" joke, and a suggestion that people are gross, while the previous reference to sanitizing wipes suggested that people were stupid germophobes. So are the sanitizing wipes useful or not? I guess it doesn't matter, as long as we make it clear that everyone except R.L. is stupid!

Now, with the details out of the way, I'd like to circle back to the two ideas I discussed at the beginning of the critique: specificity and character. The failure of specificity in this case comes from both the paucity of concrete detail and in the confusing choices of what to describe when detail is chosen, giving us pointless anecdotes about cat-food shelving and incorrect chemical names. The fundamental issue here is that old truism, show vs. tell: specifically, the idea that the author has decided that everything around R.L. is obviously absurd by first principles, telling us at great length how above it all R.L. is without ever showing any evidence that anything ridiculous or even unusual is happening. R.L. isn't a great wit surviving in a mad world; he's an ordinary person doing ordinary things in a rational world. (It's very conspicuous that, for a "survival guide," R.L. never seems to encounter any struggle or conflict, nor is any suggested by the text. He's not coupon-cutting because he's struggling with money, just because he's Really Very Smart; he shops at the crappy supermarket because he enjoys it, not because his options are constrained; he doesn't make any purchasing decisions he isn't smugly satisfied with. He doesn't even get caught in the checkout line behind an rear end in a top hat! That happens to someone else! If he's supposed to be just surviving, shouldn't something negative happen to him at some point?) Some of this, I suspect, is because of weak authorial observation skills, such that there isn't anything interesting to put in R.L.'s brain, but there's also a sense of self-satisfaction here that makes me think the author wasn't trying very hard.

On the subject of not trying very hard: character! As I mentioned repeatedly, it's shocking how little detail we get about R.L. and his life, aside from "he does the smart thing, because he is smart, and he is bemused because he's a nihilist." We learn he cooks for himself, but we have no idea of his relationship to food except to feel smug about how much better his choices are. We learn he has a pet gecko named Mephisto, whom he envies for the "nostalgic hunter-gatherer lifestyle" (???) of an animal, although he also prefers the grocery store to hunting and gathering, I guess? (I have no idea what's going on with the hunting-gathering motif. I'm not sure anything is.) We learn by implication from the first two paragraphs that he craves human connection, and yet the only two other humans he sees he regards with silent scorn -- er, "bemusement!" -- and then he makes up a guy to be disinterested in. R.L. is a cipher, but the one thing that comes through loud and clear is that the thing he values most is his perception of superiority over other human beings, without the text ever making him remotely clever. In short, this guy is a prick, and five pages of him going to the grocery store was insufferable. Who could read an entire book of this?

surviving The Nihilist's Pocket Survival Guide to Modern Society

# ? Mar 22, 2024 16:36

AcidCat: Feb 10, 2005

lol thanks Antivehicular for the thorough dismantling of this dreck.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 16:40

Tungyn Cheque: Jan 26, 2024

Many comments since yesterday when I last checked the forum. I'll address some of them specifically but most generally.

Rob Filter--I used a private professional editor that I had previously worked with on another project.
SS--No further excerpts, partly because of the pinata reception but mostly because they are out of context.
Story arc and character arc build throughout a novel. To draw any conclusions about story or character based on a single chapter or excerpt from a chapter invites misinterpretation. I only included a sample chapter in the media kit because that is recommended, but I hardly think it's a valid way to make any determinations about the book as a whole.

This has generally been a tough crowd with respect to my original post. Folks are critical of the cover, the editing, the writing, the reviews, the marketing, and just about every aspect. That's fine. I can take it and the cover art criticisms are valid to a point. Nameless, faceless urban masses are a reality that Rectum Levitcus has a unique perspective on. The AI image needs some photoshopping. For folks who haven't read the book, I offered to gift up to 10 copies. I haven't had any takers but the offer still stands through March 29. My intent with that offer was simply to share something with a readership that I thought would vibe with the story and the character. If a person likes it, maybe they recommend it to another person. I still think most of the people on this forum would enjoy the book. A lot of criticism that's been levied, I take with a grain of salt. If someone hasn't read the book, the criticism says more about that person than the book. I don't appreciate criticism directed at me personally. You don't know me. Would you criticize the food at a restaurant you never ate at and don't know anyone else who has? Thus far, I haven't attacked anyone beyond a mild smack down of MM. Yet, I abide multiple criticisms from people who don't know me and haven't read my work. I don't know how many others of you have written books. If you have, congrats, that is a fine achievement. Criticizing a book is a lot easier than writing, publishing, and marketing one. Getting feedback from readers is one of the ways writers improve their craft. So, I value that feedback even if it isn't positive. If your MO is to throw stones go for it but do it after reading the book. Aim your stones at the person in the jean-pocket photo. That's my own rear end so you have a nice target. Chill.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 16:47

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

if its your own rear end and not an AI photo why is there an extremely similar photo of an entirely different person in an AI written review of your book

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ? Mar 22, 2024 17:04

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Tungyn Cheque posted:

Many comments since yesterday when I last checked the forum. I'll address some of them specifically but most generally.

Rob Filter--I used a private professional editor that I had previously worked with on another project.
SS--No further excerpts, partly because of the pinata reception but mostly because they are out of context.
Story arc and character arc build throughout a novel. To draw any conclusions about story or character based on a single chapter or excerpt from a chapter invites misinterpretation. I only included a sample chapter in the media kit because that is recommended, but I hardly think it's a valid way to make any determinations about the book as a whole.

This has generally been a tough crowd with respect to my original post. Folks are critical of the cover, the editing, the writing, the reviews, the marketing, and just about every aspect. That's fine. I can take it and the cover art criticisms are valid to a point. Nameless, faceless urban masses are a reality that Rectum Levitcus has a unique perspective on. The AI image needs some photoshopping. For folks who haven't read the book, I offered to gift up to 10 copies. I haven't had any takers but the offer still stands through March 29.

I want a free copy give me a free copy

# ? Mar 22, 2024 17:08

Tungyn Cheque: Jan 26, 2024

Wrong again, MM. That's a real person who received an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) and posted a review. And the questions in the media kit are not AI generated.

MM if you want a free copy, message me with your email. Amazon will send you a redemption code to download a copy.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 17:09

AcidCat: Feb 10, 2005

Tungyn Cheque posted:

Nameless, faceless urban masses are a reality that Rectum Levitcus has a unique perspective on.

There is zero evidence of a "unique perspective" displayed by your character in the shopping excerpt you shared. It simply reads like completely banal "I am smarter and better than all the dumb people around me" perspective that millions of teenage boys go through. Maybe by the end he realizes that these "nameless, faceless masses" are not in fact NPCs for him to feel superior to, but humans all with their own interior lives and problems? I doubt it.

AcidCat fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Mar 22, 2024

# ? Mar 22, 2024 17:10

Tungyn Cheque: Jan 26, 2024

Thank you AcidCat. You just proved my point. You know nothing about the character because this excerpt is from the middle of the book. You would understand his unique perspective if you understood the character.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 17:14

AcidCat: Feb 10, 2005

If he has a unique perspective then why didn't you share an excerpt that actually demonstrates that even a little bit.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 17:15

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

Antivehicular posted:

Presumably, in this sort of midcentury-phantasmagoria Generic Horrible Supermarket, all products come in bulky unnecessary cardboard boxes; in the real world, most products in cardboard boxes need to be and are more conveniently carried home packaged, even for someone going with a backpack on foot.

This part amuses me because most of the things it would apply to are highly processed foods like crackers, cereal, boxed cookies, and so on that comes in a sealed plastic bag inside a cardboard box--stuff that you would think are for indiscriminate consumers and not a thrifty discerning home cook.

The uncharitable interpretation is that this was written by someone who wants to make simple frugal meals but doesn't really cook, so they assume that bulk rice and beans come packaged the same way as their junk food.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 17:16

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

burner account is a go

very excited to be corrected by reading the complete work and realizing that I was being unfair

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Mar 22, 2024

# ? Mar 22, 2024 17:18

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Gonna be real the fact he actually earnestly sent me a copy has drained like 50% of my bullying energy

# ? Mar 22, 2024 18:13

Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

Antivehicular posted:

At last, God help us, R.L. has purchased his groceries. He's saved a lot of money, and he's very proud of how smart he is, in case we haven't intuited that element of his character yet.

I actually read this particular line totally differently. I read this as RL having a laugh at the fake "savings of $X! Wow!" line that stores include on receipts as marketing. I actually found that part sympathetic, because it really is goofy and demeaning to be fed a line about how the store totally saved you $30 after buying a bunch of tiny, shrinkflated tins for prices that are somehow 20% higher than they were a year ago. If that line is actually meant to be read straight then yikes, lol.

Speaking of which, that section was a huge missed opportunity for some commentary on inflation/shrinkflation/prices. That's something that hits close to home that people really care about. Also could have gone in on instacart and other "gig work" shopping services that are commonly seen at super markets these days. Nothing on self-checkouts? Nothing on those stupid membership cards that stores make you use to get the best price, or having to log into some lovely app to get the latest coupons? Really that entire section felt like it could have been written back in the 90's, all of the most annoying present day practices went totally ignored.

Vox Nihili fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Mar 22, 2024

# ? Mar 22, 2024 18:38

Tungyn Cheque: Jan 26, 2024

Thanks Vox Nihili! Shrinkflation wasn't much of a topic when I was writing the book, but I might just add a line or two and submit a revision.

Mel, I appreciate your comments. I will put my Kevlar body armor in the closet for the moment.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 19:17

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

In all seriousness, read and internalise anti v's critique, it's extremely high quality.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 19:48

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Vox Nihili posted:

I actually read this particular line totally differently. I read this as RL having a laugh at the fake "savings of $X! Wow!" line that stores include on receipts as marketing. I actually found that part sympathetic, because it really is goofy and demeaning to be fed a line about how the store totally saved you $30 after buying a bunch of tiny, shrinkflated tins for prices that are somehow 20% higher than they were a year ago. If that line is actually meant to be read straight then yikes, lol.

You may be right, honestly? I was going off the beginning of the chapter, where we get a lengthy passage about how R.L. carefully shops loss leaders, cuts coupons, and does all the smart-shopper stuff, so in that context it feels like it's supposed to be "look at all the money he managed to save by being So Very Smart." We do get a brief aside about fake bargains earlier in the chapter, but I don't think we're given enough information to tell if this is the product of R.L.'s cleverness or just marketing copy. It's like... more specific details would maybe make the joke land better???

Tungyn Cheque posted:

Thank you AcidCat. You just proved my point. You know nothing about the character because this excerpt is from the middle of the book. You would understand his unique perspective if you understood the character.

Dude, this is your sample chapter. This is all a potential reader has to go on. (And I'm counting the synopsis here, which tells us nothing about R.L. aside from that he's in his thirties.) If the character and narrative voice doesn't make sense without earlier context, your sample chapter needs to be Chapter 1, because giving your reader five random pages and claiming that they won't make sense without the full book is poo poo marketing.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 20:51

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

Tungyn Cheque posted:

Nameless, faceless urban masses are a reality that Rectum Levitcus has a unique perspective on.

No, he doesn't. I had this identical "unique perspective" in high school twenty-five years ago.

Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Mar 22, 2024

# ? Mar 22, 2024 20:58

HopperUK: Apr 29, 2007; Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

'Faceless urban masses' aren't a reality! They're an illusion.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 21:18

Tequila Bob: Nov 2, 2011; IT'S HAL TIME, CHUMPS

Antivehicular posted:

If the character and narrative voice doesn't make sense without earlier context, your sample chapter needs to be Chapter 1, because giving your reader five random pages and claiming that they won't make sense without the full book is poo poo marketing.

He can't make the sample Chapter 1, though, because Chapter 1 is bad. It's actually less funny than the grocery chapter (I have a fondness for subtle puns and the "embalming" joke got a chuckle), and the story of Rectum Leviticus's birth and naming is both much more complicated and much less entertaining than it needs to be.

And the first gendered insult in the book occurs in literally the second sentence.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:01

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I am shocked, shocked to hear that another chapter of this sucks and is misogynist. (Let me guess: our boy has issues with his mom?)

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:03

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

HopperUK posted:

'Faceless urban masses' aren't a reality! They're an illusion.

I like to think that somewhere a cosmic horror protagonist is writing a seething wall of text reply to this post.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:03

Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

HopperUK posted:

'Faceless urban masses' aren't a reality! They're an illusion.

Oh? Then what's that image on the cover??? Checkmate

Tequila Bob posted:

He can't make the sample Chapter 1, though, because Chapter 1 is bad. It's actually less funny than the grocery chapter (I have a fondness for subtle puns and the "embalming" joke got a chuckle), and the story of Rectum Leviticus's birth and naming is both much more complicated and much less entertaining than it needs to be.

And the first gendered insult in the book occurs in literally the second sentence.

You can read chapter 1 in the Amazon preview thing, so that's probably the sample most people will actually see lol

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:04

Tequila Bob: Nov 2, 2011; IT'S HAL TIME, CHUMPS

Antivehicular posted:

I am shocked, shocked to hear that another chapter of this sucks and is misogynist. (Let me guess: our boy has issues with his mom?)

Rectum doesn't, in the sample anyway, but Tungyn does. He calls her "ditzy" and says her brain is "ravaged by too many dubious drugs" for no apparent reason; these traits aren't referenced again. And the mother actually has some normal, sensible dialogue later in the chapter, the only error being a tiny misnaming of Braxton Hicks contractions. ("The ditzy drug ho can't even name medical terms precisely, ha ha!", we are supposed to think.)

Tequila Bob fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Mar 22, 2024

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:13

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Tequila Bob posted:

He can't make the sample Chapter 1, though, because Chapter 1 is bad. It's actually less funny than the grocery chapter (I have a fondness for subtle puns and the "embalming" joke got a chuckle), and the story of Rectum Leviticus's birth and naming is both much more complicated and much less entertaining than it needs to be.

And the first gendered insult in the book occurs in literally the second sentence.

buddy how can you read this and then go "oh no a gendered insult"

Its critiquing the paint on the titanic

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:15

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Lmao there's no way this guy is for real, right?

(from the amazon sample)

"Warning: weaponized cringe ahead"

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:23

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

Mel Mudkiper posted:

buddy how can you read this and then go "oh no a gendered insult"

Its critiquing the paint on the titanic

Gendered insults are worse than Hitler.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:24

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Tequila Bob posted:

Rectum doesn't, in the sample anyway, but Tungyn does. He calls her "ditzy" and says her brain is "ravaged by too many dubious drugs" for no apparent reason; these traits aren't referenced again. And the mother actually has some normal, sensible dialogue later in the chapter, the only error being a tiny misnaming of Braxton Hicks contractions. ("The ditzy drug ho can't even name medical terms precisely, ha ha!")

I was going to make a followup post on "so is the mom a screeching fat harpy who trapped the dad in a loveless marriage, a stupid slut who can't keep a man, or an exciting combination thereof," but I guess that answers that! ("The mom will not actually do anything objectionable on page" and "we'll get some commentary on the mom's appearance and/or fuckability for no good reason" are obvious.)

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:25

SurreptitiousMuffin: Mar 21, 2010

Trying to be remotely productive, I'm thinking of books that do this whole Critique of the Emptiness of Capitalism well and I keep coming back to Joe Wenderoth's Letters to Wendys (available for free via IA!), a poetry collection about a man so alienated by capitalism that he sees "we care!" on a feedback form and takes it 100% earnestly and proceeds � over the course of a year � to write 365 poems that each fit on a Wendys customer feedback form, of increasing derangement when his dear friend Wendy doesn't answer him.

Look, he's alienated by the big food place!

He thinks he's better and smarter than the other customers!

It's very Gen X fiction, parts of it haven't aged well, but it hits the snarky cynical wry iconoclasm that OP seems to be aiming at, and I think core to it is that its protagonist only THINKS he's the smartest person in the room and the collection knows it. Like he talks up how much better and smarter he is while spending every day for a year sitting in a Wendys leering at the employees and writing erotic poetry about shoving sandwiches up his rear end. He's a pretty horrible dude, but it becomes increasingly clear that he's a product of the world around him, he's traumatized and alienated, and the critique of the modern world emerges from that.

If he were actually as smart and cool as he thinks, there'd be nothing here. There's pathos because he's pathetic. He's a weird little guy who makes an allusion to Greek mythology then goes to jerk off while making GBS threads in the toilets of a fast food restaurant. You get a really strong sense of character from him, his ego and his insecurity and his pain, and he's often repulsive to read but it's also kind of fascinating and despite everything you feel bad for the dude. It's not a book for everybody but I think it succeeds at everything OP fails, and could be instructive.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 23:37

SurreptitiousMuffin: Mar 21, 2010

Also like ... Anti's right that our relationship to food is a huge part of our lives and tremendously revealing of both character and world. How does a good writer handle that?

Here's a sample chapter from a satire of modern capitalist society that involves a sardonic, nihilistic protagonist going to the supermarket. Alice (our protagonist) sucks. One of the first things we see her do in the entire book is (despite intense food precarity) spill a bunch of sauerkraut on a random dude on the bus because he gives her bad vibes and she doesn't like sauerkraut. In this chapter, she's started dating a wealthy man and he's given her money to go food shopping for his daughter. Look how much worldbuilding and character-building the sample chapter does just by having her walk around in the supermarket. What is it saying about this society? What is it saying about her?

quote:

As I moved my trolley around the other shoppers, avoiding eye contact, another feeling in me gathered mass like a storm at sea. I remembered why I never went to the fancy supermarket, even back when Nick and I were together and food wasn�t weirdly priced. What had made me come now? Was it simply that I had $1000 burning a hole in my pocket? Was my conscience actually weaker than I thought? Sociopathic-shopper weak? Was $1000 the threshold at which I could suppress my loathing of this place?

The problem was that I loved and loathed this place. I wanted to rip the end off a fresh baguette and rub it in salty butter. I wanted a giant wedge of runny brie on top. I wanted to eat until I felt the dough and fat forming a glutinous ball in my stomach. And then I wanted to throw it all up and start again. I was the same as all the other shoppers here, moving through the holy land of food souvenirs. Our pantries were shrines, our bodies ruined temples.

I stood stock still by the freshly-pressed-orange-juice guy. I closed my eyes, just like Erika had on my sofa last night. It was possible to meditate in any kind of setting, if you practised enough. The clouds at sea rolled in and lightning cracked.

I inhaled deeply � in and out, in and out � then I opened my mouth and screamed.

SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Mar 23, 2024

# ? Mar 22, 2024 23:50

Semisomnum: Aug 22, 2006; Half Asleep

Vox Nihili posted:

I skimmed the Amazon preview and the story opens by explaining that the man is named Rectum because they misspelled "Rector" on his birth certificate. I hate to say it but I just don't find that scenario at all plausible.

That said, I think I need to read chapter 12, titled "Weird Stuff", before I can form a genuine opinion.

I used to work with a guy named "Riehard" and the rumor around the office is that his name got misspelled/misread on his naturalization paperwork and he never bothered to change it. Everyone called him "Tan".

# ? Mar 23, 2024 00:12

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; Out here, everything hurts.

Antivehicular posted:

NGL, the mental image of a family who intended to name their child Rector, ended up with Rectum on the birth certificate, and just shrugged and said "guess that's the name now! Welcome to the world, Rectum!" is funnier than anything in the sample chapter.

It was funnier when Pratchett and Gaiman did it with Puritans. Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer is funny, rather than sad.

# ? Mar 23, 2024 01:51

Songbearer: Jul 12, 2007; Fuck you say?

Antivehicular posted:

I'm gonna go into a fugue and this is just going to turn into "RECTUM LEVITICUS, BROOKS CRACKTACLE, CHERRY VENUS" for pages and pages) is supposed to be, but in practice, he's just a cipher.

But anyway, MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

# ? Mar 23, 2024 03:26

Solus: May 31, 2011; Drongos.

Tungyn Cheque

# ? Mar 23, 2024 07:01

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Also like ... Anti's right that our relationship to food is a huge part of our lives and tremendously revealing of both character and world. How does a good writer handle that?

Here's a sample chapter from a satire of modern capitalist society that involves a sardonic, nihilistic protagonist going to the supermarket. Alice (our protagonist) sucks. One of the first things we see her do in the entire book is (despite intense food precarity) spill a bunch of sauerkraut on a random dude on the bus because he gives her bad vibes and she doesn't like sauerkraut. In this chapter, she's started dating a wealthy man and he's given her money to go food shopping for his daughter. Look how much worldbuilding and character-building the sample chapter does just by having her walk around in the supermarket. What is it saying about this society? What is it saying about her?

This book owns insanely hard btw

# ? Mar 23, 2024 07:14

Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

Tungsten Chic

# ? Mar 23, 2024 08:34

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

Vox Nihili posted:

Tungsten Chic

My favorite Oliver Sacks book.

# ? Mar 23, 2024 08:49

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 09:00

Songbearer: Jul 12, 2007; Fuck you say?

Solus posted:

Tungyn Cheque

Claire Colpa

Brooks Cracktackle

Jimmy

You can learn a thing or two from Brooks Cracktackle, OP

Songbearer fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Mar 23, 2024

# ? Mar 23, 2024 10:39

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Nihilist's Pocket Survival Guide to Modern Society

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