lumpy writing
Nov. 3rd, 2006 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm reading one of the suggested books about the Ibsen play, and I really want to be reading it with highlighter so I can pick out the interesting bits. But it is a library book. So I stomp along reading all the words. And little details of the language are making me feel like is rolling over cobblestones.
Like, it keeps saying "Obviously". Words like 'obviously', 'clearly' and 'naturally', I'm used to reading as wallpaper words, there to cover over the cracks. They make me want to peel them off and see what's underneath, how they got from text to statement in this case. And this isn't being helpful, when what I want to do is read quick to see what the book is about. And also when it is so stuck on its one little point of view it probably only means it is obvious to the writer.
It keeps on saying something "means" and something "is", and in my brain these are the wrong words to use about interpretation, because it is always "can be read as". And it uses "connotation" to mean "we decided it means this even though it didn't say it", which isn't quite the impression I got for the meaning of the word.
I'm not so much set on arguing with the stupid thing. I don't entirely mind that set of opinions. I'm just repeatedly being irritated by the assumption they're the only ones.
And it summarised the play, and I wouldn't phrase it that way if I were to write a summary. Not in any part. They seem to me to be distorting things, and pinning down what is left unpinned.
Is a book about the performance texts, so I can't see how it can't notice there's a bazillion ways to read the thing on account of every performance reading it different to make it their particular version of 3D. They surely couldn't get a whole book out of calling all the other ways wrong! So I try to skim past the language and find the useful.
There is useful. Interesting bits of theory, and a useful way of writing out which characters are in a scene (in columns and rows, so you can skim down and across and find patterns) which seems obvious now I've seen it but I hadn't used before. And I've barely started reading it.
I just find reading it a bit of a chore for reasons not entirely to do with content.
I also sulk, because I set myself one chapter before Torchwood, and that seems unlikely. I might have to skip Torchwood. Or change my goal. Either would irritate.
Like, it keeps saying "Obviously". Words like 'obviously', 'clearly' and 'naturally', I'm used to reading as wallpaper words, there to cover over the cracks. They make me want to peel them off and see what's underneath, how they got from text to statement in this case. And this isn't being helpful, when what I want to do is read quick to see what the book is about. And also when it is so stuck on its one little point of view it probably only means it is obvious to the writer.
It keeps on saying something "means" and something "is", and in my brain these are the wrong words to use about interpretation, because it is always "can be read as". And it uses "connotation" to mean "we decided it means this even though it didn't say it", which isn't quite the impression I got for the meaning of the word.
I'm not so much set on arguing with the stupid thing. I don't entirely mind that set of opinions. I'm just repeatedly being irritated by the assumption they're the only ones.
And it summarised the play, and I wouldn't phrase it that way if I were to write a summary. Not in any part. They seem to me to be distorting things, and pinning down what is left unpinned.
Is a book about the performance texts, so I can't see how it can't notice there's a bazillion ways to read the thing on account of every performance reading it different to make it their particular version of 3D. They surely couldn't get a whole book out of calling all the other ways wrong! So I try to skim past the language and find the useful.
There is useful. Interesting bits of theory, and a useful way of writing out which characters are in a scene (in columns and rows, so you can skim down and across and find patterns) which seems obvious now I've seen it but I hadn't used before. And I've barely started reading it.
I just find reading it a bit of a chore for reasons not entirely to do with content.
I also sulk, because I set myself one chapter before Torchwood, and that seems unlikely. I might have to skip Torchwood. Or change my goal. Either would irritate.