Sorry, didn't mean to be a Bradbury buzzkill
But somebody was wrong on the internet in the fantasy canon!
When we landed here you said you needed a few days to get space worthy again and is there somethin' wrong with your bunk?
Mal ,'Out Of Gas'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
DavidS - Jul 10, 2012 6:20:48 pm PDT #19321 of 28343
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Typo Boy - Jul 10, 2012 6:48:52 pm PDT #19322 of 28343
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
I rather like Hemingway, though, despite the hypermasculinity. He can tell a story, and his sentences don't go on for pages.
That makes at least two of us. Wonder if there are any others. In my experience most Buffistas loathe Hemingway.
-t - Jul 10, 2012 6:56:00 pm PDT #19323 of 28343
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
I like Hemingway. Not enough to want to find and read everything he wrote, but what I have read I liked fine.
It always tickled me to hear the calliope playing on the river when I was on Calliope St.
JZ - Jul 10, 2012 6:56:52 pm PDT #19324 of 28343
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.
During my brief encounter with Hemingway, I found him kind of tedious--I'm definitely an utter whore for elaborate, positively rococo literary style and to the best of my recollection his sentences seemed to plonk along leadenly. Which is, of course, itself a very conscious literary choice, but not one that especially resonates with me. Or, resonated -- I mostly read the fishing stories, mostly in high school. I should give him another try.
Kat - Jul 10, 2012 7:44:11 pm PDT #19325 of 28343
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
I think all writing is cilantro. I mean, there will be people who actively resist and resent any writer because it's not their cup of tea. That's to be encouraged, I guess.
I think the biggest divide is that there are people who read for plot and people who read for character and people who read for language and people who love it in various percentages. Most readers, myself included, are plot readers. We are the reason for the success of thrillers and Harry Potter and almost all bestsellers. We plot readers love to know what is happening next, even if the characters are a bit flat.
The people who love the character development are different creatures. They are the ones who don't care if nothing happens. They don't mind the flawed asshole characters. They dig the nuances. (Shakespeare, IMO, excellent character development with ludicrous plot).
The language people are the ones who often stop to admire the beauty of what is written. They read Franzen and are arrested by the way he uses words. They don't care that the characters are foolish and the plot (is there one?) is thin.
Typo Boy - Jul 10, 2012 8:11:25 pm PDT #19326 of 28343
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
I agree with the everything is cilantro. But I'm not sure anyone is pure plot or pure character or pure language. I want everything. And I enjoy world building too which is different from plot. Also even there we can differ. JZ finds Hemingway's language leaden, where I find it close to poetry! We both enjoy language but we see this particular instance very differently.
BTW, I think to like Tolkein you have to enjoy world building equally with plot and character.
I have dipped into Thursday. It has very little of the stuff that sometimes enraged me about Chesterton, but it just does not grab me.
Cass - Jul 10, 2012 9:50:46 pm PDT #19327 of 28343
Bob's learned to live with tragedy, but he knows that this tragedy is one that won't ever leave him or get better.
The people who love the character development are different creatures. They are the ones who don't care if nothing happens.
I always think this is who I am but then I look at what I've unashamedly loved reading and I think I'm wrong about myself.
Confession: I donated a bunch of books today. The gaps on my shelves look sad.
Gris - Jul 11, 2012 2:22:27 am PDT #19328 of 28343
Hey. New board.
I like Harry Potter much because of character, actually. Not so much realistic character development, but character fascination. And in a few cases, the character development is pretty great too.
Not that I don't dig the plot, because I DO, but character is often my driving force.
sj - Jul 11, 2012 4:49:22 am PDT #19329 of 28343
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
I loathed Hemingway in high school, and I haven't tried to read him since. However, I loved The Paris Wife by Paula McClain, about Hemingway's first wife, and the books had me wondering if I would like Hemingway if I tried to read him again. I love James and Hardy. I haven't read my Melville, other than Bartleby the Scrivener which I loved.
Fred Pete - Jul 11, 2012 6:01:17 am PDT #19330 of 28343
Ann, that's a ferret.
I'm okay on Hemingway but not overly enthusiastic. I had to read Henry James in college -- he put me to sleep. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Theodore Dreiser. An American Tragedy turned out to be just the sort of thing I could get lost in.
I'm probably more character-driven than anything else, but I'm not too picky about the hook that grabs me. In shorter works, I'll sometimes get fascinated by the world that the author builds in the first few chapters, then feel disappointed that things happen to change that world.