First of all, don't blame me. Blame the many excellent writers who keep publishing - it's all their fault!
The Sacks autobiography is not unremittingly cheerful - the WW2 evacuation did nothing good for young Oliver Sacks - but it's probably more fundamentally happy than wacky neurological clinical descriptions. However, the loving descriptions of youthful chemical experiments, the history of chemistry, accidents with cuttlefish, and chemistry and lightbulbs are wonderfully engaging. I am deadly envious of the ways Sacks was allowed to try to damage himself with chemicals in his early teens.
Bujold... I think LMB's writing to entertain, with depth? She's trying to say something about the human condition, or maybe people as they are in her day and age? I'm tempted to invoke Austen, which doesn't help much since I've read only Pride and Prejudice. I have no idea what Cherryh is trying to do in her writing, but I've enjoyed it a great deal. (Bacon.) Write to work out ideas, and incidentally inform? I don't think it's character arc, I think it's plot. Cherryh and Bujold don't approach book construction the same way, which may reflect two authors trying to do two different things. See me try to talk my way toward an understanding!
I haven't read Rand, and nothing I've heard makes me think I'd enjoy doing so. I'm a little sad I'm missing out on a significant contribution to the 20th C literary conversation, but not sad enough to do anything about it. I'm glad her characters occasionally stand up for themelves!
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baggyeyes
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-04 07:06 pm (UTC)The Sacks autobiography is not unremittingly cheerful - the WW2 evacuation did nothing good for young Oliver Sacks - but it's probably more fundamentally happy than wacky neurological clinical descriptions. However, the loving descriptions of youthful chemical experiments, the history of chemistry, accidents with cuttlefish, and chemistry and lightbulbs are wonderfully engaging. I am deadly envious of the ways Sacks was allowed to try to damage himself with chemicals in his early teens.
Bujold... I think LMB's writing to entertain, with depth? She's trying to say something about the human condition, or maybe people as they are in her day and age? I'm tempted to invoke Austen, which doesn't help much since I've read only Pride and Prejudice. I have no idea what Cherryh is trying to do in her writing, but I've enjoyed it a great deal. (Bacon.) Write to work out ideas, and incidentally inform? I don't think it's character arc, I think it's plot. Cherryh and Bujold don't approach book construction the same way, which may reflect two authors trying to do two different things. See me try to talk my way toward an understanding!
I haven't read Rand, and nothing I've heard makes me think I'd enjoy doing so. I'm a little sad I'm missing out on a significant contribution to the 20th C literary conversation, but not sad enough to do anything about it. I'm glad her characters occasionally stand up for themelves!