Pretentious. Pompous. Overwritten.
Boring.
At least the first five pages. I couldn’t get into Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter any farther .
I used to like literature. I did. I was a lit major in college. Read everything I could get my hands on. Didn’t like all of it, obviously, or I wouldn’t be the reader I am today, but I liked a lot. Faulkner. Austen. Flaubert. Twain.
But there is something so patronizing about most modern literature. I’d rather read Conan, and I’m not much of a Conan fan. Take this sentence from the second page of the book:
“Why, you might ask, would a man give up a promising literary career–there were some good notices–to become a sportswriter?”
That’s the modern literary worldview in a nutshell. How could anything possibly compete with the wonderfulness of a literary career? Really. Personally, I can think of many reasons why a man might give up a promising literary career (or a woman, but that’s an entirely separate complaint about this sort of writing - note that Ford didn’t write, “…would someone give up a promising literary career...” he’s only addressing men).
The modern literary type can’t imagine anything as sublime as literature. Which is the problem right there.
It’s a failure of imagination.
The Market is full of Idiots. I’m not saying I’m any smarter, but at least I know I’m an idiot.
Or, to be glib, why Blue States are more likely to achieve what Red States preach.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/socialstudies.php
What everyone else who didn’t like it said. All movies are now video games.
My latest post, Heroines Who Don’t Kick Ass, is up at SFNovelists.
Anyone ever hear of Conspiracy of Calaspia? Apparently it’s the Eragon of India. In English, of course. I’ve followed a few of the links posted at the end of the Wikipedia article - either this is the greatest deadpan spoof in the history of epic fantasy, (which isn’t saying much), or the authors put ALL of their creative energies into their writing. Cause there ain’t no imagination evident anywhere else.
One, Ian Tregillis’s Bitter Seeds, is a debut. Scientifically enhanced German supermen against magically enhanced English warlocks. During WW II. Very cool.
The other is Melinda Snodgrass’s second Edge book - The Edge of Ruin. Monstrous (literally) religion vs secular reason, with swords. Also very cool.
Buy them both!
Definitely one of the better zombie pics out there. For a while, during the Bill Murray scenes in the middle, I thought the flick might transcend the genre completely. But it didn’t. Still. a fun movie.
My father’s 80th birthday was three weeks ago. My mother’s will be in two weeks. So of course we celebrate the landmark events in between the two - today. My sisters are in charge of everything else, but I’m in charge of the birthday cakes. Homemade, old-fashioned, birthday cakes. My mother is the easy one - angel food with lemon buttercream frosting. Made that yesterday evening. But my father gets the chocolate cake with fudge frosting. It’s the frosting that’s the hard part, boiled and beaten and spread before it hardens. There’s a one in five chance you won’t get it right the first time, and only a one in ten chance you’ll get it perfect. But it’s still delicious even when imperfect.
Wish me luck.
