Helen

Masquerade is an excellent book!  Don't worry about the reading order now, just start the book! 

Originally Posted By Caroline (9 APR 2012 6:30pm)

Ah Trav,

You are doomed now to forever read critically as a consequence of your studies I'm afraid.  I find novels difficult because I constantly question dialogue and often wish I could edit out superfluous scenes and rewrite the endings.  And yes, I look for padding... lol

 

 

Sigh.  Is that what it is. 

It certainly spoils a bunch of popular novels for one, doesn't it? 

 Some of them can be pretty fun, but I also look at content, and when a book aimed at teenagers glorifies killing and violence, my eyebrows immediately shoot up and my mouth corners curl down.
  Children as young as 9 are apparently reading the Hunger Games, in which a boy and girl are glorified for being able to kill and survive their way through a field of 22 other contestants in which only one contestant is allowed to emerge alive.  To me the author/narrator seems to  lose sight of the fact that those other contestants are people - human teenagers just like the two protagonists.

..and since it's written in first person that sticks to only a single character, you only see events through the eyes of the protagonist, of course, you don't get to see the other contestants' POV.  It has the effect of dehumanising the opponents, and the protagonist keeps acting the same way she does when she hunts animals for food... ugh... this is exactly how Nazis and KKK members tend to think; - their killing was made easy by a POV that their victims aren't really human ... so, scary territory she ventures onto, I'd say.

Oh boy.... yep, your studies are really showing there Trav. 

But as young kids are now playing games on their TVs where they kill Nazi Zombies isn't it simply an extension to let them read such ideas too?  Afterall, it's modern culture.   Or is it?  My father was 8 when the war broke out and I'm sure all of England's young kids read about Japs and Huns and could identify all the planes that flew overhead, what their fuel range was, airspeed, weaponry, etc.  Yet they grew up not to be mass murderers.

I contend that violence and death have always been a part of our society and that children are quite capable of dealing with it, whether it is part of their reality or just make-believe.   Didn't you ever play cowboys and indians as a kid and stalk each other around the house, pretending to shoot to kill and then fall down 'dead' yourself? 

I think pretend violence helps kids understand the darker side of life.  And when they grow up they'll no doubt enjoy watching the constant nightly diet of murder shows on TV.   The single most important aspect of all this fictional violence is that the good guys always win in the end. 

Helen - that is certainly a good idea and I used to do that very thing. Nowadays, I need the wind-down so I will take it up again! Sometimes the simple obvious things escape me the most.

What is your neice's reasoning for the 1st person thing? That is certainly unusual.

Val, I have no idea. And everytime I mention a book thats the first thing she asks. Not that she never reads 1st person, but she complains and has a hard time getting thru she says.

  Definately strange, Im glad I dont have a problem with that, just sometimes 1st person games.

Good luck with the night time reading.

Me too on 1st person games! I refuse to let them win, however. I play until the nausea is almost unbearable then I take a break.

Originally Posted By Caroline (10 APR 2012 7:13am)

Oh boy.... yep, your studies are really showing there Trav. 

 

But as young kids are now playing games on their TVs where they kill Nazi Zombies isn't it simply an extension to let them read such ideas too?  Afterall, it's modern culture.   Or is it?  My father was 8 when the war broke out and I'm sure all of England's young kids read about Japs and Huns and could identify all the planes that flew overhead, what their fuel range was, airspeed, weaponry, etc.  Yet they grew up not to be mass murderers.

 

I contend that violence and death have always been a part of our society and that children are quite capable of dealing with it, whether it is part of their reality or just make-believe.   Didn't you ever play cowboys and indians as a kid and stalk each other around the house, pretending to shoot to kill and then fall down 'dead' yourself? 

 

I think pretend violence helps kids understand the darker side of life.  And when they grow up they'll no doubt enjoy watching the constant nightly diet of murder shows on TV.   The single most important aspect of all this fictional violence is that the good guys always win in the end. 

 

 

Violence is fine as long as it's not marketed to children and glorifies children killing children.  Not even Lord of the Flies did that.  But it's really painful when it's so badly written that you can hardly force yourself to swallow down gulps of the ham-fisted prose.

Regarding the POV of the novel, I must stress that what Collins seems to not be able to handle well, is 1st person present tense.  In other words, she is sort of radiowaving thought waves to you as they are happening. Example:  "X kisses me and gives me a gift in farewell.  This will be the last time that I see X"   If it's only busy happening right at this very moment, how does the narrator know that it will be the last time?

Originally Posted By Andromus (9 APR 2012 7:12pm)

Oh, yes! I read through the first 6 books some years ago, and found them to be rollicking good adventures. You remind me that I've never read the entire series, I'll have to dig up the rest.

 

On the subject of pulp sci-fi, and having read through them relatively recently, I'll put in a plug for E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series (the original books, from Galactic Patrol up to and including Children of the Lens). Pulp fiction on the grandest scale, with truly epic heroes and villians, and titanic space battles.

Youre in for a treat then since some of the later books are among the best - The Mastermind of Mars and The Synthetic Men of mars especially, and none of the other 4 or 5 you havent read were shabby. The early illustrations by Allen St. John were incredible as well.

EE Doc Smith. I have the series because I used to collect paperback SF for the cover art, and they were pretty cool. I've heard they are good too, in the "ray gun romp" manner.

Other SF I've gone back to over the years: Van Vought's Null-A series, Pritcher Mass [Dickson?] , the Dune saga - though I find the entries later written by his son to be very be let downs and gave up after a couple.

In more of a fantasy vein I love Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea and Zothique, and though I've yet to actually completed even the first volume, The Worm Ourboros trilogly awaits completion since grade school... I've also re-read lesser known kid fantasy novels I enjoyed years ago, like The Weirdstone of Brisningamen and Giant Under the Snow, which really make me regret the passing of the more "secret worlds only accessible to kid" sensibility of the pre-Rowlinson days... and Naria still holds up, at least the first couple. 

As this is something I feel very strongly about I shall put in my tuppence worth about the difficulties of writing/reading text in 1st person point of view.  Straight up, I must say that when I pick up a book and after checking out the blurb on the back, decide to look at the first page - if I see it is 1st person, then I put it down in disgust.

I love reading biographies which I have no difficulty accepting in 1st person - but a novel?  Damn but that is hard to do well.  There is such a limited viewpoint.  Clumsy devices must be engaged to give the reader extra information.  One of the main problems for me as a reader is one of identification.   Reading 1st person is so intimate that if I cannot relate to or take a keen interest in the central character, then I have no interest in the book.

Even when it's being told in past historic - 'I said, I did' - the narrator can add hindsight but there will always be the difficulty of inserting dialogue so that it flows easily and it creates technical difficulties for the author to describe scenes not personally witnessed by the lead character. 

I liken it to games.  I prefer 1st person games that don't put idiotic dialogue into my mouth: that way I can identify easily with the main protagonist because it's ME.    I feel odd playing 3rd person games if the avatar is a male but especially when they say things I wouldn't.  Hell, Kate Walker offended me every time she opened her mouth she was so rude!   It's a question of getting the reader to identify with the main character.  So much easier in 3rd person where they simply need to take an interest.

There is another kind of novel - the collection of letters - that I avoid as well.  However, The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society is an outstanding example of how such a device can be used to give a novel the 1st person voice  with the wider perspective of 3rd person simply by including letters written by other people as well.  Very clever, excellently well done, absorbing storyline, interesting characters and a great story to boot. 

Paperbacks are expensive in Oz - $25-$30, so as I refuse to finish a poorly written book or one I don't like, I tend to be very cautious about buying fiction. 

Caroline.. as far as games are concerned I'm in your camp entirely. Literature? I don't think I've ever condsidered the question of point of view as a matter of preference before - interesting. I know there are many first person narrative I like; Robinson Crusoe, Doctor Jekyl/Mr Hyde, or House on the Strand that I recently re-read. I will have to mull this over...

One technique I really don't like though is historical fiction where the writer/narrator affects priviliged internal knowlege of the actual thoughts of actual historical characters.

Originally Posted By Caroline (15 APR 2012 6:15pm)

As this is something I feel very strongly about I shall put in my tuppence worth about the difficulties of writing/reading text in 1st person point of view.  Straight up, I must say that when I pick up a book and after checking out the blurb on the back, decide to look at the first page - if I see it is 1st person, then I put it down in disgust.

 

[...]

This kind of narration became popular with the Modernists, and I suppose it's been popular because it suggest a kind of immediacy that the distance of historicity and a third person narration removes from the text.

I'm actually more forgiving that you are regarding this, Caroline.  When it bothers me and feels clumsy to me, is when the character is actually sort of talking to you as if you're a complete stranger sitting there in her head, that she feels she has to inform about facts, -like this:

"Right now, it’s silent as a stone.  Concealed by a clump of  bushes,  I  flatten out  on my belly
and slide  under  a two-foot  stretch that’s  been loose  for  years.  There
are several  other  weak spots  in the  fence,  but  this  one  is  so close  to
home I almost always enter the woods here.
As soon as I’m in the trees,  I retrieve a bow and sheath of arrows
from a hollow log.  Electrified or  not,  the  fence  has  been successful  at
keeping  the  flesh-eaters  out  of  District  12.  Inside  the  woods  they
roam freely,  and  there  are  added  concerns  like  venomous  snakes,
rabid animals, and no real paths to follow.  But  there’s also food if  you

know how to find it. My father knew and he taught me some before he
was  blown  to  bits  in  a  mine  explosion.  There  was  nothing  even  to
bury. I was eleven then.  Five years later,  I still  wake up screaming for
him to run.
Even  though  trespassing  in  the  woods  is  illegal  and  poaching
carries the severest of penalties, more people would risk it if  they had
weapons.  But  most  are  not  bold  enough  to  venture  out  with  just  a
knife. My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others
that  I  keep  well  hidden  in  the  woods,  carefully  wrapped  in
waterproof  covers.  My  father  could  have  made  good  money  selling
them,  but  if  the  officials  found  out  he  would  have  been  publicly
executed  for  inciting  a  rebellion.  Most  of  the  Peacekeepers  turn  a
blind  eye  to  the  few of  us  who  hunt  because  they’re  as  hungry  for
fresh meat  as  anybody  is.  In fact,  they’re  among our  best  customers."

Who the heck is this girl talking to? If I was just thinking thoughts and observing things, surely I wouldn't be telling myself things that I already know?

The parts that I bolded, are pure present tense - these are actions that are taking place in the here and now.  The rest is a sort of ruminatory daydream, a stream of consciousness type of thought process. ..but she is "thinking" in a way that a person would have been telling someone else information about her surroundings.

For me Collins just does it badly.   To me, the way an author I'm currently reading, Michael Hermann, does it, it seems so natural as to be almost effortless; it seems to me to be a more natural mix of thoughts and observations:

Harks is waiting. His face is pale and his collar digs into the surrounding skin as if it’s choking him. His forehead is damp and I smell his sweat.

“Good afternoon, Sethric.”

“ Doctor.”

Harks motions to a workbench that’s cluttered with impact crates.

 “Please, sit.”

He brushes strings of gray hair from his eyes and forms a subtle sign with his fingers. I must watch his hands carefully when he speaks.

“Today,” Harks says as he lays one finger into the palm of his opposite hand, “we have a backlog of material to sort and catalogue.”

“I understand.”

“This book was excavated last week,” he says. “It has a badly burned cover but the pages are intact. It was written by someone named Baker.”

 Baker. It’s time. My own hands rest on the table, fingers loose, I simultaneously speak and sign in return. “Is the print in good condition?”

“Very good condition.”

Here is some more of it, a part that doesn't have dialogue:

"We must be directly over our drop zone. My pulse is mounting and a mental command activates my bio-display. It helps to actually see the numbers, to concentrate on them and focus on making them fall. Evaporating sweat cools my skin and a series of deep breaths dulls the fear. Gradually, my heart rate slows to normal.

Psyching.

A green light in the center of the cargo area blinks.

Psyching.

Guards shout for us to let go of the stanchions and cross our arms against our chests. As we obey, the telescoping poles retract. An alarm buzzes.

Psyching.

Hydraulic hatches whisper and my stomach is in my throat.

Falling.

Faint screams over the roaring engines, buffeting air, hot exhaust, our lines are unravelling. Nineteen others plunge around me, some so close I can almost touch them. A bald man’s arms are spread to his sides and he flips end over end. He slams into another. Both careen into a third and their syrtex lines weave in the air, dancing like tangled worms. The lifter is far above us, engine noise faint, and now I hear their screams. Ignore the fear and howl into the whipping wind. I am birthed from the heavens, a human meteor. I am fire from the sky. My spool has played itself out and the line stretches. Three flailing men dive past me and the bald man passes near enough to spray me with red droplets. Their lines have been cut and the ends coil away from the lifter.

"

(The excerpt above is from the first novel by a brand new author, Michael Hermann, called "The Legend of T93" )

I can see why this very difficult tense might have a place where you're describing a very visceral sort of very immediate kind of action.

To be fair though, here is an example of Collins' most visceral action:

A boy, I think from District 9, reaches the pack at the same time I do and for a brief time we grapple for it and then he coughs, splattering my face with blood. I stagger back, repulsed by the warm, sticky spray. Then the boy slips to the ground. That’s when I see the knife in his back. Already other tributes have reached the Cornucopia and are spreading out to attack. Yes, the girl from District 2, ten yards away, running toward me, one hand clutching a half-dozen knives. I’ve seen her throw in training. She never misses. And I’m her next target.

All the general fear I’ve been feeling condenses into at immediate fear of this girl, this predator who might kill me in seconds. Adrenaline shoots through me and I sling the pack over one shoulder and run full-speed for the woods. I can hear the blade whistling toward me and reflexively hike the pack up to protect my head. The blade lodges in the pack. Both straps on my shoulders now, I make for the trees. Somehow I know the girl will not pursue me. That she’ll be drawn back into the Cornucopia before all the good stuff is gone. A grin crosses my face. Thanks for the knife, I think.

At the edge of the woods I turn for one instant to survey the field. About a dozen or so tributes are hacking away at one another at the horn. Several lie dead already on the ground." {How does she know they are dead?}

"Those who have taken flight are disappearing into the trees or into the void opposite me. I continue running until the woods have hidden me from the other tributes then slow into a steady jog that I think I can maintain for a while. For the next few hours, I alternate between jogging and walking, putting as much distance as I can between myself and my competitors. I lost my bread during the struggle with the boy from District 9 but managed to stuff my plastic in my sleeve so as I walk I fold it neatly and tuck it into a pocket. I also free the knife — it’s a fine one with a long sharp blade, serrated near the handle, which will make it handy for sawing through things — and slide it into my belt. I don’t dare stop to examine the contents of the pack yet. I just keep moving, pausing only to check for pursuers.

I don't know.. to me the Collins' rendering is made more clumsy with bits like " I see"  "I think"  "I guess"  "I run"  "I gasp"  etc. and so forth, even when we're talking high action.  Note that that kind of thing is mainly absent from the other author's narration.

Examples of Herrmann's  visceral action:

"Follow it. Don’t bother with a spear, just follow it. A blue, pulsing beacon flashes amid the machinery on its back. Looks like a modular receiver, the kind we have in the lifters. Have to get my hands on it, but the beast is barrelling down on a man who cowers against the barrier wall. Sprint after it, arms pumping, legs working like pistons. Breath is fire in my chest and I’m almost there when it skids into its victim in a cloud of dust and roaring violence and something yellow flies into the air. Two long, final strides and I leap"

{I'm cutting out a bit because it's spoiler-ish, so I'll include a snippet from further on} 

"Torture. The tiny muscles in my thighs stretch and I clench my teeth to keep from screaming. We spin yet again. Through the flashes and the shocks my view changes: two survivors in yellow suits have pinned a guard. One jams the tip of his spear into the crease below the helmet and blood sprays his wild-eyed companion. Spin. Flash of light to the front, the crack of a stunner, burning ozone. Another flash, another crack, and the thing roars with such energy that my bones vibrate. 

 Spin again and it, we, are sprinting. It crouches mid-stride and tension gathers in its shoulders and torso. Brace myself. We leave the ground." 

Etc.   Hermann's prose seems more terse and elegant to me.

I had been meaning to track down a copy of an old book I remember from my childhood.  It took a ton of googling to find out the name but I finally did and man, the book is oop/expensive as hell.

It's called The Scarlet Ibis. Basically about these two brothers, one who's born fragile/weak  (I think he had some kind of disease) and how his brother resented him for it (he wanted a normal brother to play with like most kids do).

Quite a touching story for a 7th'ish grade class, that's where I read it, well the teacher read it and we listened.

This + The Giver were two of the man books I remembered from my Childhood.

I don't read books too often (usually get audio books to listen to ) but wish i could find that one for a fair price.

Coro-coro: The world of Scarlet Ibis? check AbeBooks.com

Originally Posted By Caroline (15 APR 2012 6:15pm)

As this is something I feel very strongly about I shall put in my tuppence worth about the difficulties of writing/reading text in 1st person point of view.  Straight up, I must say that when I pick up a book and after checking out the blurb on the back, decide to look at the first page - if I see it is 1st person, then I put it down in disgust.

 

Its funny to me, my niece is the same way. I dont get it. But we all have our preferences. I can read either way and to me, in first person its just someone telling a story and I dont have any problems with it.

Originally Posted By tincup2 (16 APR 2012 8:31pm)

Coro-coro: The world of Scarlet Ibis? check AbeBooks.com

No this one:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Scarlet-Ibis-Collection-Creative/dp/0886820006/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1334670441&sr=8-2

Trav,

Your critical anlaysis post was awesome!    I loved reading it. 

As you so clearly demonstrated, clear concise prose carries a power that verbosity cannot.  Looking at the last example from Hermann and analysing the actual language used, there are certain words he has chosen to omit, thus forcing the reader to take ownership of the ideas.   eg, 'Follow it....  Sprint after it.    It's also the imperative form and contrasts with the almost pedestrian effect of Collins' 'I  continue running until the woods have hidden me from the other tributes then slow into a steady jog that I think I can maintain for a while. For the next few hours, I alternate between jogging and walking, putting as much distance as I can between myself and my competitors. I lost my bread during the struggle with the boy from District 9 but managed to stuff my plastic in my sleeve so as I walk I fold it neatly and tuck it into a pocket. I also free the knife — it’s a fine one with a long sharp blade, serrated near the handle, which will make it handy for sawing through things — and slide it into my belt. I don’t dare stop to examine the contents of the pack yet. I just keep moving, pausing only to check for pursuers.

It must be said that there's nothing wrong with the Collins' paragraph per se, simply that Hermann's sample does the job so much better.

In a first person narrative, the author must choose, present tense or past and stick to it..   Past gives more options to add hindsight and other viewpoints whereas present doesn't and you have the challenge of making action seem immediate and thoughts seem natural.  But, like you, I feel uncomfortable being spoken to directly and when the action is something like crawling on my belly.... well, who are they talking to?

I hate clumsy chunks of information that don't really flow because as you say, who thinks like this?  'My father knew and he taught me some before he was  blown  to  bits  in  a  mine  explosion.  There  was  nothing  even  to bury. I was eleven then.  Five years later,  I still  wake up screaming for him to run.'  So even though this adds to the character's backstory, it manages to distract from the reader immersion in the current action simply because it drifts from stream of consciousness into narrative.   Present action has to stay focused on the present - like Hermann.  

So if we rewrite this passage in Hermann's style we'd have somegthing like:

Silence.  Bushes scratch my face.  Stay still, muscles ache from crouching. Get flat, face-in-the-dirt flat. Crawl under the gap in the fence.  Get bow and arrows from hiding spot in hollow log.  In dangerous territory now, ears on alert for anything moving.  It’s either eat or be eaten out here.  No paths but I know the way.  Past the tree where Dad was blown up when I was a kid.  Memories surface.  Blink the images away.  Focus. Mission tonight: [whatever the purpose in the book is]

I edited out most of the extraneous information which highlights their different approaches, don't you think? 

Tricky thing, writing a book.    And no matter what you decide to do, once the readers get their hands on it, everyone's a critic and everyone puts their own interpretation on it. 

 PS  My 16 yr old son didn't like The Hunger Games movie.  He said there was too much awful violence and that several people walked out every early on, a bunch of teenage girls and some parents who had taken young children to see it.  This from a boy who spends hours killing nazi zombies on playstation! I think I'll give it a miss.

@Tincup2

One technique I really don't like though is historical fiction where the writer/narrator affects priviliged internal knowlege of the actual thoughts of actual historical characters.

Precisely why I find historical 'faction' biographies so impossible to enjoy.  I've picked up books with great excitement only to leave them in the shop when I've realised they are not purely factual.    I'd much rather read pure historical facts presented without the author's imagined dialogue.  Luckily there are such writers around who can bring their subjects to life with years of meticulous research. 

Glad you agree, Caroline! 

Re your son's reaction to the film:  Yes, my main beef is that this kind of violence is being marketed to children.  If it had been sold as adult books/film... but then, see the whole thing is that the protagonist, Katniss, appeals to young-ish girls.

..or so I am told...