Through the doorway I saw a kind of airplane, coming low over the village. It was a fascinating kind of plane, black everywhere and dull, unreflective. The planes I had seen before resembled birds in a rudimentary way, with noses and wings and chests, but this machine looked like nothing so much as a cricket. I watched it as it flew over the village. The sound was rich and black, louder than anything I had ever known, the vibrations shaking my ribs, pulling me apart.
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:17 (seventeen years ago) link
He has the capacity to write well but he always seems in need of a better editor.
― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:21 (seventeen years ago) link
Yeah. This is my biggest problem with him. He like, re-released YSKOV with a new title and 50 extra pages or something and called it Sacrament? Dude, get thee to a fuckin editor.
jaymc, you should submit that to McSweeneys' Convergences Contest.
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― akm (akmonday), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link
You mean within the last four months?
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link
How about this para:But it was strange. Adults were running from the machines, falling, screaming. I looked at the people running, though I was too dazed to move. The volume of the machines held me still. I felt tired in some new way, as I watched mothers grab their young sons and bring them back into their huts. I watched men run into the high grass and throw themselves to the ground. I watched as one of the crickets flew over the soccer field, flying lower than the other machines; I watched as the twenty young men playing on the field ran toward the school, screaming. Then a new sound pumped through the air. It was like the cutting and dividing of the machine, but it was not that.
Why is there the semicolon that late in the game? I assume its to accelerate the rhythm, but it just sticks out. Why did they run "toward the school, screaming" instead of saying they "ran, screaming, toward the school". Why does he need to keep mentioning he watched. Why can't the parallelism just be with "as" or even better yet, fade away. How does a sound pump through the air? Like a sump pump? Things don't even pump themselves through anything! They need to pump something else? What exactly is it that the sound is pumping through the air then?
The last sentence of the preceding para is: "I saw other boys in the village staring up as I was, some of them jumping, laughing and pointing to the crickets with the chopping sound." So where's the "it" that was strange? There is not "it" -- just more filler. He already established that it was an airplane that looked like a cricket -- the character doesn't need to keep calling it a cricket, either -- that's what people do when they don't know what it is, not when they just are reminded of something else. If he was staring up, then how did he see the other boys, by the way? Wouldn't they have been, y'know, level? Did the crickets have the chopping sound or the boys? Just the jumping ones, or all the ones?
Ok, enough, you see the problem here.
― sterlclover, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:45 (seventeen years ago) link
It's just kind of funny. I mean, I think the dude is a douchebag and a terrible writer, but I solve this by not reading his stuff anymore, but there are just some people who HATE him and look for any reason to start a Eggers jihad.
― Allyzay knows where the interfacing goes., Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:47 (seventeen years ago) link
So also it feels like an American actor slipping in and out of a poor, say, Scottish accent.
― sterlclover, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― sterlclover, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:50 (seventeen years ago) link
I think it's an effective use of the parallel, it's a poetic image.Other than that, yeah I agree with everything you said just about. Except for the pumping. And I think the "it" refers to the situation.
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:52 (seventeen years ago) link
http://rakesprogress.typepad.com/
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link
These words actually cause me more pain than anything else on the thread. (Not because of 'oh how the time has gone' nonsense but because the concept is annoying.)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost: Seriously? Infinite Jest is mind blowingly awesome and I will buy you a copy for you to read, if you will agree to try to read it.
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― sterlclover, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr.Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― Allyzay "Doris Lessing" Eisenschefter, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― grady (grady), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:14 (seventeen years ago) link
It took me two times, too. The first time was when it first came out, I gave up after 25 pages. Then I tried it like 5 years later when I had very little else to do and it kicked my ass. I've been thinking about big books a lot lately, you have to put up with a LOT of bullshit (boring sections that would go on for a page at the most in a normal size book stretch on for 10 pages in big books) but in the end it is soooooo worth it. But if you don't want to put up with the footnotes and stuff I can see where it's offputting and annoying.
Seriously it's a really really awesome, hilarious (very very very funny) book.
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:14 (seventeen years ago) link
Okay, I missed the nickname at first there. (Am I the only one to have read all the books in the Canopus in Argos series?)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:17 (seventeen years ago) link
xposts
― grbchv! (gbx), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― molly (molly d), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Allyzay is a town of people, people who DIED, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link
The first 100 pages are rough(the Canadian spies bored me senseless). But now I can't stop reading it, to be honest.
― molly (molly d), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett is doing a little practice firing at the clouds (Ned), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link
waht
― grbchv! (gbx), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:25 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost- As for footnotes, the Filmography of James O. Incandenza is the best thing ever.
― molly (molly d), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:26 (seventeen years ago) link
yeah jaymc, I hear you. Poor Nicholson Baker.
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:26 (seventeen years ago) link
I was going to say. (The desk is right behind me to the left.)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:34 (seventeen years ago) link
I read somewhere that John Krasinski (Jim from The Office) is trying to put out a film version of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
― molly (molly d), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― molly (molly d), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 23:28 (seventeen years ago) link
In everyday conversation,I could say "She walked confidently down the street", "Confidently, she walked down the street", or "She walked down the street confidently". I'm sure one of those is more gramatically proper than another, but in the end, they all get the meaning across, they each have different rhythms that might sound more attractive at the moment of writing or saying it, so who cares?
It's like listening to music for notes that are out of the key instead of just letting yourself feel the emotion of it.
― Zachary Scott, Wednesday, 29 November 2006 23:35 (seventeen years ago) link
Reeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaallly? How deliciously perverse! (Sort of an essential part of the turn-off, personally.)
― literalisp, Thursday, 30 November 2006 01:28 (seventeen years ago) link