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mrissa1. Already read Remains of the Day. Did not need to read another author's attempt at The Day: Now! With 33% More Remains ABSOLUTELY FREE!
2. Am bored stiff by tales revolving around infidelity of dumb people. If I can't tell why anyone would ever sleep with any of the parties at any time (including motivations like "fate of world depended upon it" or "last [person of preferred gender] on earth"), the intricacies of who did what to which are unlikely to enthrall me.
3. Just plain bored.
4. Tired of historical protagonists always having all the convenient modern virtues and all the picturesque historical ones.
5. The quotation mark: use it. Love it. It is your friend. I don't care if you use the single or the double. I can parse either way. But an entire novel of indirectly reported dialog makes me go like this:
I am not reading another one of those again. Why not, she said. Because they suck, I said. Oh. They do suck. Lots. I don't know who's saying which line any more, she said. Or what is in authorial voice. Or what is thought by one of the characters. Yes, I know.
6. Drugs may or may not make you interesting to yourself. They do not make you interesting to me. Something additional is required. I am really not as picky as I might be on this; an obsession with terns might do.
7. If you're going to retell a famous novel, pick one that didn't suck in its original incarnation, so that when I realize, "Oh, they're retelling X," I don't think, "That's why I don't like this book! I hated X!"
8. Animal narrators who sound like humans: bad. Animal narrators who don't sound like humans: upsetting when something bad happens to the animals and they totally don't understand why because they are just animals. See the catch-22 here?
9. "I have too much money and time on my hands," is a problem that requires extremely creative solutions to be interesting. Lying around the house all day and occasionally whining to shallow friends: not creative. (Psssst. Writing a booka bout lying around the house all day and occasionally whining to shallow friends: still not very creative.)
10. I am okay with children's/YA books featuring bad parents, abusive parents, or parents who Just Don't Understand. I am not okay with children's/YA books where the narrative seems confused about the line between abusive parents and parents who mildly frustrate their children. In either direction, this is not a good spot for confusion.
11. Cutesy wittle pwose style. Tonstant Weader wead somefing else.
12. Really well done, except that I found that it was making me sad without actually making me care who murdered whom, when, and why. So I stopped.
2. Am bored stiff by tales revolving around infidelity of dumb people. If I can't tell why anyone would ever sleep with any of the parties at any time (including motivations like "fate of world depended upon it" or "last [person of preferred gender] on earth"), the intricacies of who did what to which are unlikely to enthrall me.
3. Just plain bored.
4. Tired of historical protagonists always having all the convenient modern virtues and all the picturesque historical ones.
5. The quotation mark: use it. Love it. It is your friend. I don't care if you use the single or the double. I can parse either way. But an entire novel of indirectly reported dialog makes me go like this:
I am not reading another one of those again. Why not, she said. Because they suck, I said. Oh. They do suck. Lots. I don't know who's saying which line any more, she said. Or what is in authorial voice. Or what is thought by one of the characters. Yes, I know.
6. Drugs may or may not make you interesting to yourself. They do not make you interesting to me. Something additional is required. I am really not as picky as I might be on this; an obsession with terns might do.
7. If you're going to retell a famous novel, pick one that didn't suck in its original incarnation, so that when I realize, "Oh, they're retelling X," I don't think, "That's why I don't like this book! I hated X!"
8. Animal narrators who sound like humans: bad. Animal narrators who don't sound like humans: upsetting when something bad happens to the animals and they totally don't understand why because they are just animals. See the catch-22 here?
9. "I have too much money and time on my hands," is a problem that requires extremely creative solutions to be interesting. Lying around the house all day and occasionally whining to shallow friends: not creative. (Psssst. Writing a booka bout lying around the house all day and occasionally whining to shallow friends: still not very creative.)
10. I am okay with children's/YA books featuring bad parents, abusive parents, or parents who Just Don't Understand. I am not okay with children's/YA books where the narrative seems confused about the line between abusive parents and parents who mildly frustrate their children. In either direction, this is not a good spot for confusion.
11. Cutesy wittle pwose style. Tonstant Weader wead somefing else.
12. Really well done, except that I found that it was making me sad without actually making me care who murdered whom, when, and why. So I stopped.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-08 07:31 pm (UTC)But yes, I see your point. It's sort of like the Lemonheads' "Mrs. Robinson": it wasn't offensive, but neither did it add anything, and we already had the Simon & Garfunkel version.
But that doesn't mean Eddie Vedder's remake of that car wreck song was any less excruciatingly bad.
I think there's room for equal awesomeness, especially if they're using an extremely loose version of the plot. But when you're not changing media (making a book of a ballad or a comic of an opera or dancing about architecture), the question of what you bring to the experience is a big one. It's just that some clouds, contrary to popular opinion, are entirely devoid of silver lining, no matter what talents or production values you bring to bear.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-08 08:38 pm (UTC)