TWIB-III: 44
Sep. 1st, 2009 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanRemember when I actually managed to get these things posted on Sunday? Yeah. Anyway, I read ...three (I think?) books last week. Here's the one that was in English:
1) Bozo the Storyteller - Tom Glaister
Bozo and the Storyteller is a book whose good concept is marred by poor execution. It's clear from the acknowledgements that Glaister had a lot of enthusiastic supporters while he wrote this book; it's too bad he didn't have at least one equally honest editor.
First, there's the question of tone. Glaister isn't sure if he wants to write a fairytale for children or spiritual novel for adults. He attempts to do both, with predictably unfortunate results. Children enticed by its fantastic elements (a clownish race of blue-skinned, long-tailed beings called "Bloons" live on a planet made of cheese and wine and listen as the godlike "Storyteller" tells them the tale of Earth) will be put off by its slow pace, overabundance of tedious description, and heavy-handed Life of Pi-esque meditations on the meanings of morality and existence. Adults coming to it for the latter, however, are likely to be put off not only by the fantastic elements, but by the two-dimensional characters and overly simplistic narration, as well.
Stylistically, Glaister is extremely repetitive. Entire chunks of the story are frequently recapped, not at, say, the end of a relevant chapter, but at the end of the very passage or even paragraph in which they've just occurred. It's annoying to have the story spoonfed to one in this way. It's as if Glaister distrusts that his readers are capable of remembering what they've just read, or that he's capable of remembering what he's just written. There are frequent grammatical and typographical errors as well.
And then there is the issue of Glaister's authorial blind spots. Glaister's protagonists lie, steal, and destroy property during the course of their quest, but the narrative treats these actions as comical and--more alarmingly for a book that purports to be about morality and big issues--clever. Glaister seems utterly unaware of this dissonance. Furthermore, Glaister's writes capital-letter Good Guys and Bad Guys, not protagonists and antagonists; and this, if not exactly hypocritical, is rather short-sighted in a big issues book, because one of life's biggest lessons is that good and evil coexist in the same person or situation more often than not. Glaister makes this point in a very ham-fisted way with the Storyteller, but seems oblivious to the chance to reinforce it with the rest of his characters.
Final verdict: I was very surprised to learn that Bozo and the Storyteller was not published by a vanity press, because it certainly reads like it was. As it stands, while it undoubtably would have made for a good first draft, it doesn't hold up as a finished novel.
That will be all.
1) Bozo the Storyteller - Tom Glaister
Bozo and the Storyteller is a book whose good concept is marred by poor execution. It's clear from the acknowledgements that Glaister had a lot of enthusiastic supporters while he wrote this book; it's too bad he didn't have at least one equally honest editor.
First, there's the question of tone. Glaister isn't sure if he wants to write a fairytale for children or spiritual novel for adults. He attempts to do both, with predictably unfortunate results. Children enticed by its fantastic elements (a clownish race of blue-skinned, long-tailed beings called "Bloons" live on a planet made of cheese and wine and listen as the godlike "Storyteller" tells them the tale of Earth) will be put off by its slow pace, overabundance of tedious description, and heavy-handed Life of Pi-esque meditations on the meanings of morality and existence. Adults coming to it for the latter, however, are likely to be put off not only by the fantastic elements, but by the two-dimensional characters and overly simplistic narration, as well.
Stylistically, Glaister is extremely repetitive. Entire chunks of the story are frequently recapped, not at, say, the end of a relevant chapter, but at the end of the very passage or even paragraph in which they've just occurred. It's annoying to have the story spoonfed to one in this way. It's as if Glaister distrusts that his readers are capable of remembering what they've just read, or that he's capable of remembering what he's just written. There are frequent grammatical and typographical errors as well.
And then there is the issue of Glaister's authorial blind spots. Glaister's protagonists lie, steal, and destroy property during the course of their quest, but the narrative treats these actions as comical and--more alarmingly for a book that purports to be about morality and big issues--clever. Glaister seems utterly unaware of this dissonance. Furthermore, Glaister's writes capital-letter Good Guys and Bad Guys, not protagonists and antagonists; and this, if not exactly hypocritical, is rather short-sighted in a big issues book, because one of life's biggest lessons is that good and evil coexist in the same person or situation more often than not. Glaister makes this point in a very ham-fisted way with the Storyteller, but seems oblivious to the chance to reinforce it with the rest of his characters.
Final verdict: I was very surprised to learn that Bozo and the Storyteller was not published by a vanity press, because it certainly reads like it was. As it stands, while it undoubtably would have made for a good first draft, it doesn't hold up as a finished novel.
That will be all.
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no subject
on 2009-09-01 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-02 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-02 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-03 02:17 am (UTC)or yoursdown. Feel like a collaboration?no subject
on 2009-09-03 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-10 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-10 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-08 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-10 01:28 pm (UTC)And yes, please do return the favor. I've been trying to work on a few things and it's just really demoralising because they aren't going anywhere.
PS: I like riding crops.
no subject
on 2009-09-10 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-10 10:29 pm (UTC)thank god it's god in the computer lab
feel free to send me anything you'd like some feedback on, complete or no. I'd be honored. I would gladly fall behind on schoolwork to help. (believe it or not, I like catching up, so it would never be a burden.)
no subject
on 2009-09-11 10:59 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-15 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-09-26 01:55 pm (UTC)If it's a choice between writing a novel in the McCrappy--oops! I mean McCarthy mode or never reading anything again, well, I'll just go and poke my eyes out right now...
no subject
on 2009-09-29 06:36 pm (UTC)I tried to read parts of No Country for Old Men, and I seriously wanted to burn the copy. I had my lighter out, flicked it, and remembered that I was still in the supermarket and I hadn't actually paid for the book.