Just Be
Bandwagon jumping is easy because usually, by the time the wagon rolls around (if it is a bandwagon), it is completely full and someone on it finds themselves obligated to help you up. Such was the case with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". I heard of the movie coming out, saw the books on the shelves of my favourite bookstores, and thought, "Well, I've been meaning to read it for a while... might as well be now that everyone is going to be talking about it." (In this case 'everyone', more specifically the 'everyone that was going to be talking about it' helped me on to the wagon.)
But I've been meaning to read the book since Matthias first mentioned it in grade nine... So it took 6 years, a Hollywood blockbuster production, and mountains of publicity to get me to do something I've been "meaning to do". Seems like a bad sign.
I don't even talk to Matthias anymore.
Probably the last time I heard from him was like... last November.
I know, because I distinctly remember walking in front of the South Building, being on the phone with him (probably planning a never-to-be lunch) when my ex boyfriend called me on the other line to cancel our previously arranged date. I was mad. That's why I remember.
Back to the topic at hand, I jumped onto the wagon, finished the book in slightly under 24 hours (in between playing The Sims 2 - because my computer is UTTER CRAP and I have to let it cool down every once in a while), and am now working on the second in the trilogy of five.
The problem with bandwagon jumping is that sometimes in your haste to get onto the wagon, you don't really get a very good look at the people already riding it. (In this case, mostly nerds). And once you're on it, well, no one's about to jump off of a wagon and into a ditch at 100km/h, so you stay on it and engage in cognitive dissonance reduction and hope that you'll eventually start enjoying the ride.
Such might be the case here. Because I finished the book having "liked" it. And before bedtime, I found myself raving on about it like a drunken lunatic (it is about aliens and whatnot, after all... no, I wasn't actually drunk Paul...) to my entire family. I even raved about it to Nelly, whom I haven't had a proper conversation with since... I can't even remember.
So, if I start raving on about it to you - take what I say with a grain of salt. That being said, it is a really good book (objectively speaking). The author has a simple, humorous style - he doesn't go on and on with useless descriptions, which I like, because my imagination works just fine with a few supplied descriptive details thankyouverymuch, and the story is entertaining. He uses interesting metaphors, and a lot of his dialogue is surprising - much like a real conversation between real people. Very cool. Possibly most surprising about the book(s), is that there actually appears to be some character development, which I wasn't expecting from a science fiction author. He also does some very colourful, insightful, and creative commentary on people and our priorities. And somehow, in 200 pages or less, he manages to get you really thinking about the meaning of life (probably because he blatantly puts the question out there to be answered) which is, although blatant, still admirable. Stuff like "the meaning of life" doesn't usually get touched by the same authors who's books later become cult-classics. The best-seller books usually have one too many 'heaving bosom' or 'chiseled jawline' references. Not that I would know...
Not that I don't buy bestsellers...
Just not that kind.
Your average consumer (me) puts a lot of trust in the title "Bestseller" because they (I) can't be bothered to read little-publicized books by unknown authors with weird, far out plots. Firstly, getting your hands on a little-publicized book at a major bookstore is next to impossible because ALL of the books there are receiving major publicity and publishing house backing in order to make it on those shelves in the first place. Lots of people write books that get published. Most of them never see the light of day. Secondly, I've read one-too-many books from the discard bin at the library by some obscure author that have left me gagging because they were so wretchedly boring. Most of them had putrid descriptions of what the main character looked like or how he sounded or what he was wearing and where he was sitting - GOOD LORD! Tell me what he DID and I'll put the picture of what he looked like doing it IN MY OWN DAMNED HEAD. Most of these authors just get carried away with their 'vision' of how things should be and they don't really focus too much on the plot itself. The plots are variations on a theme - just different puppets acting them out. That's the mark of a bad book - a bad (or in any case already used and re-used) plot glossed over with too much description (think Stephen King) because, as we all know, any plot worth using has already been worked by Shakespeare - probably in more than one of his plays - and replacing Macbeth with a ginger-haired, sage-looking gentleman isn't going to change matters much.
We need something new.
Now, that being said, I know you're all thinking "But every single damned classic they made me read in English class was description-heavy: 'Great Expectations', 'Crime and Punishment'... actually those are the only two we read in English class that were description heavy - the rest of them were pretty good." Exactly. Some people can work it. Like Dickens or Dostoevsky - but even they only did it because Dickens was writing these books on the spot - a chapter a week or something directly for the audience. I'm sure that occasionally he lost inspiration and so entered a little extra garble in there. Plus, both Dickens and Dostoevsky were writing before television and computers. I'm sure that for those prissy people who had enough money to subscribe to Dickens' rantings, sitting in saloons and drinking tea and whatnot, a few extra words about the exact shade of the curtains were only icing on the cake... or at least they had to pretend it was being part of a totally repressed, prim and proper society and whatnot. But I have things to do, Sims to raise, and I honestly couldn't care less about Dustin's eyes - which appeared to be flecked with dust. WTF? Maybe Dustin should see an optometrist... or at least someone about a name-change... because that's hella ironic and I'd be damned if I didn't do something about something like that...
All's I know is that when I was reading Dickens AND Dostoevsky, I was skipping paragraphs at a time. (Same with Tolstoy. I'm telling you: too much time on their hands.) Which is why "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupery is the best book ever.
It tells you exactly how to live life and what is important in a truly poetic fashion in under 110 pages, illustrations included. And I didn't find myself skipping a single word. In fact, I was re-reading lines because they were so simple, so beautiful, and so moving.
That's the trick, the mark of a great author: Say what you gotta say, say it beautifully, and people will listen. People will re-read if it catches them. If you can't make people care in one sentence, you sure as hell aren't going to make them care by adding on 49 extra ones. I'm clearly not a great author... But you get my point.
They're making a movie out of it soon (the book, not my point), I heard, and I shall refuse to go see it when it comes out just as I shall never see "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie because if "Harry Potter" taught me one thing it was that no one's vision, description, and re-enactment of events can ever parallel the magic going on in my head when I read a good book that lets the magic just be.
P.S. Another really good author who just tells an excellent story and lets you fill in the blanks is Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn - look into them if you haven't already.)
But I've been meaning to read the book since Matthias first mentioned it in grade nine... So it took 6 years, a Hollywood blockbuster production, and mountains of publicity to get me to do something I've been "meaning to do". Seems like a bad sign.
I don't even talk to Matthias anymore.
Probably the last time I heard from him was like... last November.
I know, because I distinctly remember walking in front of the South Building, being on the phone with him (probably planning a never-to-be lunch) when my ex boyfriend called me on the other line to cancel our previously arranged date. I was mad. That's why I remember.
Back to the topic at hand, I jumped onto the wagon, finished the book in slightly under 24 hours (in between playing The Sims 2 - because my computer is UTTER CRAP and I have to let it cool down every once in a while), and am now working on the second in the trilogy of five.
The problem with bandwagon jumping is that sometimes in your haste to get onto the wagon, you don't really get a very good look at the people already riding it. (In this case, mostly nerds). And once you're on it, well, no one's about to jump off of a wagon and into a ditch at 100km/h, so you stay on it and engage in cognitive dissonance reduction and hope that you'll eventually start enjoying the ride.
Such might be the case here. Because I finished the book having "liked" it. And before bedtime, I found myself raving on about it like a drunken lunatic (it is about aliens and whatnot, after all... no, I wasn't actually drunk Paul...) to my entire family. I even raved about it to Nelly, whom I haven't had a proper conversation with since... I can't even remember.
So, if I start raving on about it to you - take what I say with a grain of salt. That being said, it is a really good book (objectively speaking). The author has a simple, humorous style - he doesn't go on and on with useless descriptions, which I like, because my imagination works just fine with a few supplied descriptive details thankyouverymuch, and the story is entertaining. He uses interesting metaphors, and a lot of his dialogue is surprising - much like a real conversation between real people. Very cool. Possibly most surprising about the book(s), is that there actually appears to be some character development, which I wasn't expecting from a science fiction author. He also does some very colourful, insightful, and creative commentary on people and our priorities. And somehow, in 200 pages or less, he manages to get you really thinking about the meaning of life (probably because he blatantly puts the question out there to be answered) which is, although blatant, still admirable. Stuff like "the meaning of life" doesn't usually get touched by the same authors who's books later become cult-classics. The best-seller books usually have one too many 'heaving bosom' or 'chiseled jawline' references. Not that I would know...
Not that I don't buy bestsellers...
Just not that kind.
Your average consumer (me) puts a lot of trust in the title "Bestseller" because they (I) can't be bothered to read little-publicized books by unknown authors with weird, far out plots. Firstly, getting your hands on a little-publicized book at a major bookstore is next to impossible because ALL of the books there are receiving major publicity and publishing house backing in order to make it on those shelves in the first place. Lots of people write books that get published. Most of them never see the light of day. Secondly, I've read one-too-many books from the discard bin at the library by some obscure author that have left me gagging because they were so wretchedly boring. Most of them had putrid descriptions of what the main character looked like or how he sounded or what he was wearing and where he was sitting - GOOD LORD! Tell me what he DID and I'll put the picture of what he looked like doing it IN MY OWN DAMNED HEAD. Most of these authors just get carried away with their 'vision' of how things should be and they don't really focus too much on the plot itself. The plots are variations on a theme - just different puppets acting them out. That's the mark of a bad book - a bad (or in any case already used and re-used) plot glossed over with too much description (think Stephen King) because, as we all know, any plot worth using has already been worked by Shakespeare - probably in more than one of his plays - and replacing Macbeth with a ginger-haired, sage-looking gentleman isn't going to change matters much.
We need something new.
Now, that being said, I know you're all thinking "But every single damned classic they made me read in English class was description-heavy: 'Great Expectations', 'Crime and Punishment'... actually those are the only two we read in English class that were description heavy - the rest of them were pretty good." Exactly. Some people can work it. Like Dickens or Dostoevsky - but even they only did it because Dickens was writing these books on the spot - a chapter a week or something directly for the audience. I'm sure that occasionally he lost inspiration and so entered a little extra garble in there. Plus, both Dickens and Dostoevsky were writing before television and computers. I'm sure that for those prissy people who had enough money to subscribe to Dickens' rantings, sitting in saloons and drinking tea and whatnot, a few extra words about the exact shade of the curtains were only icing on the cake... or at least they had to pretend it was being part of a totally repressed, prim and proper society and whatnot. But I have things to do, Sims to raise, and I honestly couldn't care less about Dustin's eyes - which appeared to be flecked with dust. WTF? Maybe Dustin should see an optometrist... or at least someone about a name-change... because that's hella ironic and I'd be damned if I didn't do something about something like that...
All's I know is that when I was reading Dickens AND Dostoevsky, I was skipping paragraphs at a time. (Same with Tolstoy. I'm telling you: too much time on their hands.) Which is why "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupery is the best book ever.
It tells you exactly how to live life and what is important in a truly poetic fashion in under 110 pages, illustrations included. And I didn't find myself skipping a single word. In fact, I was re-reading lines because they were so simple, so beautiful, and so moving.
That's the trick, the mark of a great author: Say what you gotta say, say it beautifully, and people will listen. People will re-read if it catches them. If you can't make people care in one sentence, you sure as hell aren't going to make them care by adding on 49 extra ones. I'm clearly not a great author... But you get my point.
They're making a movie out of it soon (the book, not my point), I heard, and I shall refuse to go see it when it comes out just as I shall never see "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie because if "Harry Potter" taught me one thing it was that no one's vision, description, and re-enactment of events can ever parallel the magic going on in my head when I read a good book that lets the magic just be.
P.S. Another really good author who just tells an excellent story and lets you fill in the blanks is Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn - look into them if you haven't already.)
posted by captain obvious at 2:09 a.m.
2 Comments:
Here comes the literary critic, Dunja. Just to note, you were drunk, always were, don't deny it.
If you'd like to read something from a fantastic author, try Vonnegut on for size. Amazingly dark satire that intrigues every corner of your mind, that puny thing that's in your skull that is. Unfortunately, I don't read novels much, but hopefully that'll change this summer. Good readings to all!
Vonnegut reminds me too much of Derek - cynical, caustic, sarcastic... and worst of all, right.
Creeps me out.
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