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Nov. 3rd, 2007 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethFinished the book!
Thankfully.
That was very, very boring.
The introduction says something like the characters are emotionally engaging.
I have to wonder what book the intro-writer was reading, cause really, no.
The story hops around between different people's stories and different points of view so much you could get travel sick. All the detailed descriptions about people are about people being messed up, drunk, scarred, variously diseased, and acting in ways even their own view of the world considers stupid. The only emotional reactions I had to most of it involved disgust and... what's the opposite way around of embarrassed? Like thinking they should be embarrassed? Anyway, not emotions one really wants to go visit.
They spend the whole book fooling each other, fooling themselves, declaring the glories of confidence tricks, or (and it sets this up to look much the same thing) attempting to get others to come over to their own ideologies. Sometimes with the aid of dynamite. There's nobody you'd particularly want to cheer on. Run away from at speed, in general.
The introduction also seems to think it's about writing one's own story rather than allowing oneself to be written. And, yeah, the very last section has a bit where the guy is retelling his own story what we just read in a variety of ways that turn it into a bunch of completely different stories, which goes to show... something. Ways of presenting story-of-self creating different identities. Whatever. But she didn't just reinvent herself on her own like the intro reckons, she needed the awe of a crowd before she could decide she didn't need the props previously used to gain said awe. It's all about how people are to other people, far as I can see.
Also, by the end of the book, it was a catalog of bodily fluids and bodily functions, sometimes used for writing with. Just very messy. I really don't see the point.
When we read Beloved there was a whole lot about how it represents a whole variety of voices and points of view and weaves them together in such a way as to bring identity into question cause you can't always tell who you're reading / identifying with. Or something.
Yeah, okay, very clever.
I say again, I don't like it. I was bored. And mildly disgusted. For 350 pages.
On the plus side, it is now done. And, okay, now we'll talk about it in class a lot, but only for a couple of weeks. I can get on with reading the theory stuff and apply it in my head to much more interesting stories.
Thankfully.
That was very, very boring.
The introduction says something like the characters are emotionally engaging.
I have to wonder what book the intro-writer was reading, cause really, no.
The story hops around between different people's stories and different points of view so much you could get travel sick. All the detailed descriptions about people are about people being messed up, drunk, scarred, variously diseased, and acting in ways even their own view of the world considers stupid. The only emotional reactions I had to most of it involved disgust and... what's the opposite way around of embarrassed? Like thinking they should be embarrassed? Anyway, not emotions one really wants to go visit.
They spend the whole book fooling each other, fooling themselves, declaring the glories of confidence tricks, or (and it sets this up to look much the same thing) attempting to get others to come over to their own ideologies. Sometimes with the aid of dynamite. There's nobody you'd particularly want to cheer on. Run away from at speed, in general.
The introduction also seems to think it's about writing one's own story rather than allowing oneself to be written. And, yeah, the very last section has a bit where the guy is retelling his own story what we just read in a variety of ways that turn it into a bunch of completely different stories, which goes to show... something. Ways of presenting story-of-self creating different identities. Whatever. But she didn't just reinvent herself on her own like the intro reckons, she needed the awe of a crowd before she could decide she didn't need the props previously used to gain said awe. It's all about how people are to other people, far as I can see.
Also, by the end of the book, it was a catalog of bodily fluids and bodily functions, sometimes used for writing with. Just very messy. I really don't see the point.
When we read Beloved there was a whole lot about how it represents a whole variety of voices and points of view and weaves them together in such a way as to bring identity into question cause you can't always tell who you're reading / identifying with. Or something.
Yeah, okay, very clever.
I say again, I don't like it. I was bored. And mildly disgusted. For 350 pages.
On the plus side, it is now done. And, okay, now we'll talk about it in class a lot, but only for a couple of weeks. I can get on with reading the theory stuff and apply it in my head to much more interesting stories.