Enough to wring dry

[nightdog_barks]

Kittens, the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife. The temperature here is 72 degrees (22.2 degrees Celsius), and the humidity is 78%. Which is actually down from the 84% it was earlier. No sun, no breeze, just still.

Currently reading (and almost finished with) Scott Hawkins' The Library at Mount Char. Dear friends, it has been a long, long time since I've read such a bananapants monkeyhouse of a novel. I am just saying.

Comments

[nightdog_barks]

A: In this case, in my opinion ... yes. The author throws the reader into the proverbial deep end on the very first page -- which is not always a bad thing! -- but by the end it has become clear that if characters can be resurrected at will (which is a thing that happens in this book), then what's the point of caring about them? There was just too much Edgy Crazy in it for me.

[blackmare]

Ah, I see. Like, Snow Crash, I felt thrown directly into the house of mirrors on the very first page, but that worked. I learned my way around (and learned that authors can get. Away. With. Murder. Hiro Protagonist, dude? Really? Why am I even okay with that?).

But you gotta know how high you can stack the Crazypants Jenga before it crashes down.

[nightdog_barks]

Yes, this. Neal Stephenson pulls you into the hallway of mirrors. Joe Hill does it in Horns. Kafka does it in The Metamorphosis (one morning, a guy turns into a bug! Go with me here!). Nathan Ballingrud does it in "You Go Where It Takes You," when he asks the reader to see what Toni the waitress is seeing, the man who sheds his skin.

Hawkins wants us to go on this crazy journey with him, but for me it didn't work, because he hadn't made me care about the characters at all. There's some dazzling writing, but. When I finished the book, I was like, that's it? What was the point?

OH WELL SOMETHING BETTER UP NEXT WHATEVER IT IS :DDD

[silverjackal]

C'mon man, he's the Deliverator! (I obviously loved Snow Crash). Also I was just interrupted in making this comment by having to rescue a copy of the Rubaiyat (the Fitzgerald translation, with illustrations by Dulac) from Titus' jaws because we're working towards puppy-freedom while I'm home. I don't know what to make of the fact that he's apparently working his way towards the Stoic philosophers and leaving the natural history untouched.)