Job Discussion Forums

[johnslat]

Heck, I grew out of Banville's stuff in my late 60s. Now I'm rereading Dr. Suess.
You can find some REAL wisdom there.

Regards,
John

[Sashadroogie]

Dear Johnslat

But have you actually read any of his? And how many have you, actually?


With Communist greetings

Sasha

[johnslat]

Ach, Bainville -well, I find his work rhetorical in the extreme, dramatically elaborated, wholly unnatural, synthetic and clotted.

Now, for his bad points . . . .

Regards,
John
(Inside joke above)

[Sashadroogie]

Dear Johnslat

So, the answer is... Zero, then : )


With Communist greetings

Sasha

[johnslat]

Dear Sasha,

Your response shows me you didn't get the "inside joke."

Guess you didn't read THAT one of Banville's, but we ancients have seen the light.

Regards,
John

[Hod]

I have to come to the defence of Stephen King, and I'm not even American! I admit a few books are far fetched, long-winded and a bit boring, and I wish he'd see there's life outside of New England.

These are some books I liked, from memory so I will have missed a few. What's so bad about these?

Green Mile
Shawshank Redemption
Apt Pupil
The Stand - OK, too long, but what an epic and scary (and plausible) story
Misery

Under The Dome - haven't managed to finish it yet!

On Writing has some great sections on how not to be wordy (do as I say...?), adverb avoidance and just not writing badly (adv). I'd even recommend On Writing to those who avoid his fiction.[/b]

[Sashadroogie]

Dear Johnslat

I'll yet see the light if I cleave to it, eh?


With Communist greetings

Sasha

[Sashadroogie]

[Hod]

Him too, although he wasn't as prolific as Stephen King, and I have to admit Homage to Catalonia is one of the few books I struggled with and never finished.

[johnslat]

Love Orwell, Like King - The Stand, well, I'll let this gentleman tell how it affected him:

"The Stand is a masterpiece, and I don't use that word lightly. King says in the novel's introduction that he "wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting", and that's absolutely what he did. I didn't read Tolkien when I was a kid, I read this. These pieces are about me rereading King's work, and with The Stand, there were sections that felt almost as if I could recite them. It made me who I am, I think. It started me thinking that I really wanted to write a novel, not just play with stories. It made me want to practise and work at my writing, and then write drafts of books that wouldn't ever come to anything, and then, after years of turmoil, write a novel that finally got published, called The Testimony. And it wasn't until I was sitting in an editorial meeting about it, and somebody mentioned The Stand that it all fell into place. The Testimony is a novel where everybody in the world hears what might be the voice of God; and then people start falling ill, some awful flu-like symptom destroying them. Some, a small percentage, are immune to God's words, and – it seems – the illness. It's written from the viewpoints of many different characters, all of them showing different shades of humanity, of morality. Things go nuclear. It's nothing like The Stand, when you actually get down to it, but as I sat in that editorial meeting, and as I read The Stand again, I realised that I am wholly, totally indebted to King's book. I couldn't have written The Testimony without wanting to capture some of what The Stand did in me; and so I wouldn't be who I am without having read it, and having had it in my life. I don't think it's King's best novel – there are many more to come that could lay claim to that title – but, to me, it's easily his most important."

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/03/rereading-stephen-king-the-stand

Can I get an AMEN?

Regards,
John

[Hod]

[Sashadroogie]

James Joyce wasn't that prolific either. Just four or five books...

How do posters feel about Barbara Cartland then? Or Jackie Collins. Plenty of life-changing output to choose from : )