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Writer's Block: Easy Like Sunday Morning
Dec. 28th, 2008 03:53 am[Error: unknown template qotd] Unconscious. *zzz*
Dec. 28th, 2008
Return of the Relatives
Dec. 28th, 2008 12:53 pmStrike that previous mention X_X. My aunt has impulsively-decided to visit anyway (despite the reason she gave last night for not coming). I'm cautioned not to say anything about her hair.
Also, she said she would call before she left (she said at 11 AM). But no call yet.
I've been kinda indifferent about her since she completely dropped her interest in Clay Aiken's music, just because he announced he was gay.
Edit - She came anyway...but made us wait for four-ish hours after the time she said she would come.
Also, she said she would call before she left (she said at 11 AM). But no call yet.
I've been kinda indifferent about her since she completely dropped her interest in Clay Aiken's music, just because he announced he was gay.
Edit - She came anyway...but made us wait for four-ish hours after the time she said she would come.
The book started with promise. There were long digressions. But they were interesting digressions. There was some lantern hanging and post-modern quiping.
And it didn't freaking....stop. Nothing but digressions from developing and adding to the character of Callie (the intersexed 'main character').The lantern hanging got really old. The quipping has its limit.
I don't know why the author bothered to write about an intersexed character when the entire story is about everything BUT that character. Sure, it's an epic but a lot of it doesn't hook together well.
The opening segment with incest was probably the most enjoyable section. Then comes the dull generation (Callie's parents).
The problem with Callie is that she's just a stereotypical girl in flashback and just a stereotypical man in later parts. The author has Callie say that "latent inside me... was the ability to communicate between the genders, to see not with the monovision of one sex but in the stereoscope of both." He tells that but he doesn't demonstration how/that he/she has this ability.
And there's no real foreshadowing before Callie decides, from seeing a doctor's report, that, "I'm not a girl! I'm a boy now!". And then he goes off to appear in a striptease show in San Fransisco. And at which point...the novel virtually has ended. There's a random chase scene where a previously-friendly character casts off all development to kill a main character. It's a narrative device to get Callie back home.
More than anything, the presentation and lack of development of Callie takes the novel down with it. It doesn't mesh. I just can't believe in her as a character.
In the end, it feels more like the author transposed his own family and cultural experiences into a half-considered shell of a character/avatar. The characters that are clearly drawn from real people, are wonderful and enjoyable. But the narrative voice of the story is clearly beyond the author to credibly embody. It's a heart-breaking shame because of the massive organization and detail put into so many other aspects of the novel.
This review really sums up all my complaints - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15794
Lesson learned - Winning a Pulitzer doesn't mean shit about a book.
Edit - It should be no surprise that I read around and the author "never even talked to any intersex people or organizations before/during writing the book".
And it didn't freaking....stop. Nothing but digressions from developing and adding to the character of Callie (the intersexed 'main character').The lantern hanging got really old. The quipping has its limit.
I don't know why the author bothered to write about an intersexed character when the entire story is about everything BUT that character. Sure, it's an epic but a lot of it doesn't hook together well.
The opening segment with incest was probably the most enjoyable section. Then comes the dull generation (Callie's parents).
The problem with Callie is that she's just a stereotypical girl in flashback and just a stereotypical man in later parts. The author has Callie say that "latent inside me... was the ability to communicate between the genders, to see not with the monovision of one sex but in the stereoscope of both." He tells that but he doesn't demonstration how/that he/she has this ability.
And there's no real foreshadowing before Callie decides, from seeing a doctor's report, that, "I'm not a girl! I'm a boy now!". And then he goes off to appear in a striptease show in San Fransisco. And at which point...the novel virtually has ended. There's a random chase scene where a previously-friendly character casts off all development to kill a main character. It's a narrative device to get Callie back home.
More than anything, the presentation and lack of development of Callie takes the novel down with it. It doesn't mesh. I just can't believe in her as a character.
In the end, it feels more like the author transposed his own family and cultural experiences into a half-considered shell of a character/avatar. The characters that are clearly drawn from real people, are wonderful and enjoyable. But the narrative voice of the story is clearly beyond the author to credibly embody. It's a heart-breaking shame because of the massive organization and detail put into so many other aspects of the novel.
This review really sums up all my complaints - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15794
Lesson learned - Winning a Pulitzer doesn't mean shit about a book.
Edit - It should be no surprise that I read around and the author "never even talked to any intersex people or organizations before/during writing the book".