Rant: Possession

[ase]

I am on page 128 of A. S. Byatt's Possession and I want to smack Mortimer Cropper, who has spent the last fifteen pages driving while quoting his autobiography to himself, opening a letter, and preparing to quote himself for another - excuse me while I flip ahead - three and a bit pages. I wouldn't mind shaking several other characters either. Which goes to show that my appreciation of "high" art remains fairly theoretical and it's very well that I've never had any ambitions to study literature.

I'm fairly infuriated with how the characters inter/act. There's a great deal of menial mundane misery on display, a fair amount of non-communication and daily existence in the depressingly petty, without the small things that make the pettiness endurable: oozing out the door in time for a striking sunrise, the pleasure of appetizing food (speaking as someone who eats her own learning-by-experience cooking, bland, slightly scorched or otherwise, this is seriously underrated), the electric moments of little discoveries: an excellent gift, the sale at the video store, the five you left in a pocket last summer when you had money to lose. Everyone's living very much in their heads, where they're all obsessed with the same fictitious Romantic/Victorian poet, who I can't bring myself to give a damn about. Except when they're sniping at each other over who's more obstructionist to the study of Randolph Henry Ash's life, with which everyone seems to identify with to an unhealthy degree. If this is academia, I'll run screaming into the night, thanks. Don't any of these people have friends? As in, people they call up, write, occasionally dine or play cards with?

(The lack of "with"-ness is what's really killing me, I think. I'm only a sixth of the way in, granted, but so far interpersonal interactions feel very limited: there's pauses for extensive backstory when characters are introduced, which trips up the pace, and many of the people who seem to be major or prominent secondary characters all seem fairly dissatisfied with their lives. People, get a hobby. One that doesn't involve your deep suspicions you've been subsumed by a dead poet.)

Page 128 of 605. I hope Val has the good sense to leave her unemployed postdoc boyfriend to his emerging academic partner of the cornsilk and bound-up hair. I really hope Mortimer Cropper takes some pratfalls on his Anglicized "American" dignity. And most of all I hope the rest of the book isn't as tedious as chapter six.

In other news, corn was on sale today: eight for a dollar. I spent $1.50. I plan to have a sickening amount of corn on the cob this week, and see if anyone's interested in dinner at my place. Potatoes are also on sale this week, and it's fairly hard to mess up the basics.

Comments

Books

[nwl.livejournal.com]

and I want to smack Mortimer Cropper

I know the feeling. I'm reading Jay Caselburg's Metal Sky and even half way through it, I feel like the story hasn't started. It's an SF detective story and very leisurely, imho. The detective goes here, he goes there. A mysterious woman comes in and wants him to find someone who has something, all very Maltese Falcon. So again he goes here, he goes there and finally to where the guy is staying. Since the guy isn't there, the detective goes home to dream about the case. (Did I mention the detective is psychic, which means getting vague vibes.) Currently he is on a different planet, getting info on the missing object. Sigh. Maybe Earnest will take a lukewarm review.

Hmm. Corn. I thought about getting some to do with tonight's turkey legs, but it would be too much. Maybe tomorrow.

Re: Books

[ase.livejournal.com]

It's frustrating when you're reading a book you know other people have enjoyed and your own reaction is... less enthusiastic. ("Page 198... how longer is this chapter? . . . Oh dear God no.")

In some ways, lukewarm is good. I like reviews that point out the strengths and weaknesses of a book. Entirely positive or negative reviews feel a bit incomplete to me.

[meril.livejournal.com]

I think the book gets much better after the first bit, as soon as it starts going into the past and as soon as the little additional texts come in.

The present bits are not the best...

[ase.livejournal.com]

I hope so. At the moment I have a great desire to scream at all the contemporary characters to please get a life, preferably one that involves sneaking out from Ash's not-that-overpowering shadow. (Try to be happy, folks. You're all playing in the same self-referential English ballpark, which is a giant social construct anyway.)

Incidentally, I'm impressed with your "I did mean this post to be public" entry today. I'm not sure if it's a respectful impressed or a "how nice, excuse me while I duck into the asbestos bunker" sort of feeling, but I look forward to seeing how the thread develops over the next few days.

[meril.livejournal.com]

The contemporary characters do need to get a life. I realize I never reviewed this book on my blog, or I'd point you to what I said about it when I read it the first time. My mother had almost the same reaction to the book you did, so you're not alone in this. I wasn't too impressed with Ash either. LaMotte is more interesting (almost typed that LaFollet...O_O...am being bad, bad fangirl)

I probably liked it more because I was trapped at AnimeIowa 2001 with only one book and it was that one. I kept running out of books. (I bring literary fiction and SF to anime cons to read and manga to read at SF cons. I am odd that way.)

Well, about that post: there's, gack, about 4 years of history between me and the blogger I called out. She keeps dropping people when she changes fandoms--not just defriending, but not talking to them, etc. She's come slinking back starting to read my stuff again, but my opinion of her has lowered due to some hijinks she got up to in HP fandom. You probably shouldn't get involved: most of the people commenting in that thread have had the same experiences, including some really bad RL encounters. We were all part of what got jokingly dubbed "this corner of blogland," a loose association of blogging anime fans who linked each other. This was when practically everybody was blogging on Pitas or running Greymatter off their domains.

[ase.livejournal.com]

I probably liked it more because I was trapped at AnimeIowa 2001 with only one book and it was that one.

Only one book? *Gasps* (Of course, I'm one to talk; on one family vacation I filled most of a suitcase with library books. Hardcovers, mostly.)

It seems to me that Byatt's a very talented writer, but I hate how she uses her skill. There's a cramped feel to everyone's lives that I'm not used to reading. If I want cramped and unhappy I don't have to look very far.

Well, about that post: there's, gack, about 4 years of history between me and the blogger I called out.

Aha. I didn't know the backstory; I'm sorry you've gotten burned by her. I'll cower in the asbestos bunker and wish everyone luck in settling this peacefully.

Isn't is amazing how long we've been online? And still running into the same people. *Waves at Bujold fen*