I agree with Typo boy. I remember hearing John Irving talk about Garp. He deliberately doesn't tell us what happened in the accident. As you are reading the next part of the book, you start noticing Walt isn't there and then you flip back and look for a mention and you read on with a feeling of dread. This is the experience that Irving wanted the reader to have and it is exactly the experience I had. He kept information from the reader, but it was in service of a specific experience.
I think that's what Diaz was doing as well. Now, you may not LIKE that feeling of being a bit "at sea," but in both cases the writer is constructing his work in order to give the reader something, which is not selfish.
This years' nominees for the Bad Sex award, [link]
I think that's what Diaz was doing as well. Now, you may not LIKE that feeling of being a bit "at sea," but in both cases the writer is constructing his work in order to give the reader something, which is not selfish.
Fair enough. I'm the first to say that I often have incredibly knee-jerk reactions and as I said, it's not that I was saying *insert big booming voice o'doom* this is how it is, just how it seemed to me and I'm kind of rolling it around in my head and trying to figure things out.
Then again, I also didn't care for Garp either. I don't like feeling as if I've been left out of something and I don't like flipping back and forth in a book to make sure "did I read this? Did I miss something?"
I can appreciate that that was just the effect he was going for and I can respect the hell out of the mastery of craft it takes to accomplish something like that. It's just not a reading experience I particularly enjoy.
Which of course, then leaves me questioning if I'm lacking something as a reader. And consequently, is it something that holds me back as a writer?
I love Garp, and that packed quite a punch, especially since the car accident almost leaves you laughing in its ridiculousness, as well as the tragedy.
However, his most recent (Until I Found You) really disturbed me because I almost felt he was indulging in a personal fantasy of a young, pubescent boy having sex with an older girl.
I remember hearing John Irving talk about Garp. He deliberately doesn't tell us what happened in the accident. As you are reading the next part of the book, you start noticing Walt isn't there and then you flip back and look for a mention and you read on with a feeling of dread. This is the experience that Irving wanted the reader to have and it is exactly the experience I had. He kept information from the reader, but it was in service of a specific experience.
I vividly remember going page after page and saying to myself "Hello, where's Walt?". I love that experience as a reader.
Congratulations, Jilli! Is author the most prevalent profession here at b.org? I used to think librarian or programmer or actuary. But published writer is up there now.
I vividly remember going page after page and saying to myself "Hello, where's Walt?".
I haven't read
Garp
yet, but were you perhaps going, "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!!!!"?
I love that experience as a reader.
Yeah, the
Garp
thing sounds like something I'd like. I like when the author withholds information in a realistic way; that is, there's no reason for the characters to explain to the reader so they don't engage in awkward exposition.
Is author the most prevalent profession here at b.org?
Seriously -- sometimes I forget and just assume that most people I know would have books out. Congrats, Jilli!
Yay, Jilli!
Seriously -- sometimes I forget and just assume that most people I know would have books out.
I was talking to this woman in a bar who was telling me she just wrote a book, and I was asking her questions about her agent, her word count and stuff like that, and she was like, "Are you a writer, too? How do you know all this?"
