I was so disappointed to be bored by "Lady Chatterley's Lover."
This isn't a come-on. I'm in a very serious relationship with a landscape architect.
Oliver ,'Conviction (1)'
We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good
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."
Connie Neil - Jul 13, 2004 12:51:43 pm PDT #5094 of 10002
brillig
Polter-Cow - Jul 13, 2004 12:52:54 pm PDT #5095 of 10002
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
Apparently, Peyton Place is supposed to be all scandalous, but I didn't get past the first chapter.
Topic!Cindy - Jul 13, 2004 1:11:35 pm PDT #5096 of 10002
What is even happening?
Well, we live in Babylon, pretty much. Things that were shocking then, aren't so, now. I've read neither Lady C, nor Peyton Place--nor Lolita, for that matter.
Connie Neil - Jul 13, 2004 1:25:12 pm PDT #5097 of 10002
brillig
It wasn't even that the naughtiness in Lady C's Lover was that ho-hum, I just thought all the characters deserved all the misery they were wallowing in. "You don't need a lover!" I yelled at the book, "you need a backbone!"
Connie Neil - Jul 13, 2004 1:28:52 pm PDT #5098 of 10002
brillig
Lawrence suffers terribly from datedness, I've found. His characters are these dreary, languid, ennui-ridden creatures who seem ashamed of themselves for having feelings.
§ ita § - Jul 13, 2004 1:44:18 pm PDT #5099 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
What's going to age like that that looks okay right now?
Connie Neil - Jul 13, 2004 1:56:34 pm PDT #5100 of 10002
brillig
Very little. That's the point.
P.M. Marc - Jul 13, 2004 1:57:48 pm PDT #5101 of 10002
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Heh.
DH doesn't feel dated to me. Certainly not to everyone's taste (I think his writing was often overly-facile, his prose a touch purple when it goes for blue, and were you to add one final chapter to Lady C, I could see it shelved in romance fiction--it's got that sort of feel to it), but it doesn't feel dated.
§ ita § - Jul 13, 2004 2:06:27 pm PDT #5102 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
No, some books date, some books come across like a snapshot, and some remain real.
I was wondering, in your opinion, which books you like now you thought would suffer a similar fate.
Is Jennifer Crusie still going to be sexy? Or that Anita Blake stuff? Is Emmanuelle still?
I don't know -- I suspect that Crusie won't, since she's very much talking about women right now, but not in a way that will carry its context with it into the future. It's been almost 30 years since I read Emmanuelle -- I certainly didn't know from sexy then, though I do still have vague memories of a certain dress.
Betsy HP - Jul 13, 2004 4:24:09 pm PDT #5103 of 10002
If I only had a brain...
I'm guessing that the body of chick lit is toast. All the issues that those young women are agonizing over are going to look like whether to roll your stockings and rouge your knees in forty years.