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Comments
So, I just finished the first Dark Tower book. I didn't enjoy it much.
Roland was cool, I guess, but I didn't find him exactly likeable. He was kind of a douchebag. Walter was fun, but he didn't have enough presence in the story. And the ending confused me a little.
It feels like this series probably has a great story, but Stephen King's writing style bugs me here. I'm not sure what it is exactly. I think it's that he spends too much time time on describing the environment and there's too little payout for the end of the book plus I don't feel like there's a good sense of transition.
On the other hand, I started to read "It" and that's pretty good.
It's been a long fucking time since my last time, but from what I remember, the first Dark Tower book is really, really weird, and tonally way different than the rest. Whenever I reread the series, I usually just skip it. I'd recommend giving the second book a shot, if you already finished The Gunslinger.
I like It.
Well, alright, I'll try. I got the second book last week anyway.
Hopefully, Roland gets better. He's kind of a bore. Although, I did find it funny when Walter congratulates him and he responds by shooting him.
Obviously, Pennywise the Dancing Clown is Big Good of the series.
I'm also reading The Sandman. Not bad, but I've only gotten to Volume 3 so far.
I love Azazel and Beezlebub's designs. Very aprop. I wish Lucifer didn't look like such a girl though.
I started reading The Dark Tower series with The Waste Lands (not by choice, mind you) and honestly didn't feel like I was missing much thanks to the nice little plot summary of the first two books that was at the beginning. Thought it was a pretty interesting read. Wizard and Glass was also pretty interesting, though the fact that most of it was a big flashback was pretty unexpected. But Wolves of the Calla... That shit got boring pretty fast, honestly. Don't think I even reached the halfway point before I grew totally apathetic and returned it to the library.
Which is Wizard and Glass? Is that the fourth one?
Also, I introduced my friend(who introduced me to The Sandman) to Y: The Last Man. Go me. >: )
Is this going to be one of those things where comics you like count as literature and graphic novels and other stuff is just comics? If so, I am going to have to cut a bitch.
Bitches need to be punched.
So I don't know if y'all find Felix Gilman an interesting author (I know nothing about the man) but I picked up Thunderer at the library today and am finding it a pretty good book.
Of course it's the first I've read in almost two years. So maybe that's why.
So I think I've discovered a new guilty pleasure of mine - the old Star Wars Rogue/Wraith Squadron books. It's Star Wars + fighter pilot nonsense + merry bands of fuckups + easy to read. It's like they were made to be my kind of boilerplate crack.
Started reading Storm Front. It is certainly a book that exists. ...Yeah, I don't have much to say about it ATM.
That's fine. The first few books are generally considered to be weaker than the later books.
Yeah Storm Front was...well, it was good, but not really a standout.
It includes the phrase "wizard version of Arnold Schwarzenegger" though, so that's a plus.
Does anyone else here have a Goodreads account? I made one today, and I've spent a good chunk of the day reading reviews of things I've already read. Mostly negative reviews, to see if I agree or disagree with people, e.g. there are definitely valid criticisms of Blood Meridian, but a lot of people missed the point or just didn't want to grapple with what the book was saying. Also, there were some pretty dumb criticisms of Crime and Punishment (ALL THESE RUSSIAN NAMES ARE SO CONFUSING MAAAAAAAN). But my biggest current impression is that holy shit I still have so much more reading to do.
Speaking of which, I'm not sure if I'll use today or tomorrow morning to finish The Song of Roland for class, but either way it probably won't be fun because it's not a good book.
Finished The Song of Roland this morning. By current literary standards, it was a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible poem, and it exemplifies a heavily outdated and unhealthy mindset, but I think I at least learned something from it. It was good to get this early window into that worldview, as well as seeing an early example of a character archetype (mostly the two buddy characters who stay friends even when one is unhealthy for himself and the other), and a class discussion on the interplay between lords and vassals was cool. Plus, it was an easy read, and didn't take too long, so I can't be too upset over that time spent. tl;dr Historically significant, but not something I can recommend based on its own merits.
Hmm... was it terrible because of the plot/characters or because of the translation?
It was terrible for a lot of reasons, which are mostly not the fault of the translation. As far as I could tell, the only weird translational thing (aside from the meter not always matching up so well, as tends to happen) is that apparently the original author sometimes switched tenses egregiously on the same line, and the translator kept it that way.
But where to begin with the actual story. The gist of my complaint is that it's meatheaded Crusades propaganda via shallow action-heroics (paraphrasing a reviewer on Goodreads, Roland is almost a sort of ur-John McClane), but for detail:
--lots of telling, e.g. "The battle is awesome and intense" (literally a line at the beginning of a stanza) and stuff along the lines of "you would never hear greater grief" and "all five/hundred thousand Franks fainted in sorrow/wept for [this or that dead person]" From a purely technical standpoint, it's the shoddiest kind of telling.
--loooooots of repetition of lines; some stanzas began with almost the exact same words, and the first ten people to die are killed with minor variations of "He shattered his shield, destroyed his hauberk/And plunged his great spear right through his body./He gives him a firm push and sends him reeling to his death" followed by some remark either on the part of the vanquisher, or some narrative quip along the lines of "his soul was carried off to Satan." And the action is always the same; it's always a blow that strikes through the skull all the way to the teeth, and brains spill out, and armor is never helpful, and the one man is almost wounded, but then comes back to brutally kill the other guy. Hell, for a piece that so glorifies violence and makes it into the proving grounds of masculinity, the action sequences are entirely unengaging beyond the first kill.
--on that note with Satan and all that, it's pretty blatant pro-Christianity and anti-Islam propaganda to the point of that taking precedence over telling an engaging, well-written story, and on the pro-Christian point it's contradictory by our current standards; the writer always takes pains to mention how the people on the other side were wrong, and how God was watching over the Franks and would not allow harm to come to King Charlemagne, and how that one foe would have been a great man if only he was Christian! At the same time (and I understand that this was part of that period, so it's more an unsettling observation), the focus on vengeance on the part of the main characters seems remarkably anti-Christian to me, and the end of the book, wherein the traitor Ganelon is faced with Trial by Combat to see whether or not he is given life or a second chance, his champion, seemingly able to outmatch his opponent championing King Charlemagne, is killed as God or Gabriel granted favor to the other (oh, yeah, Gabriel himself actually intervenes on behalf of the Franks and counsels Charlemagne. Isn't that cool?), and Ganelon is promptly drawn and quartered, and the narrative focus is on how he deserved this. Uh, yeah, admirable.
--while it's kind of a given that women in this time were not central characters in a war story, they're further and needlessly reduced into basically being trophies; Roland's fiancee/Oliver's sister, Aude, is only featured in a scene where King Charlemagne informs her after fighting "the pagans" that Roland is dead and dies of grief on the spot (one-upping all the swooning and weeping and fainting that is also ever-present), and King Marsile's wife Bramimonde (god that was tough to type) is there to be that member of the enemy team who is skeptical and fears the heroes, and in the end it's mentioned almost as an afterthought that she was brought to the light of Christianity and given a Christian name and everything. As my teacher pointed out, a central female figure (mother of Roland, sister of Charlemagne, wife of Ganelon) is never seen or mentioned, even regarding events that tie into multiple character arcs. What sticks with me most, though, is that any of the characters who are slipping out of life only ever mention the great deeds of their fellow men on the battlefield; there's never regard for families or lovers left behind, or wishes that the women should be safe. None. The grief is all fraternal. Hell, some of Roland's last thoughts are that he doesn't want his sword falling into enemy hands, and he's more concerned with trying to destroy this sword (and failing, because, after all, this sword and others like it render armor entirely obsolete, so how can it break upon mere stone?) than with, I dunno, his lover and his mother. It's just weird that women are left out of these thoughts entirely.
Phew. I think that covers it.
When I read The Song of Roland, I thought it would make a badass medieval equivalent of 300.
Except it will be even worse mess when people start looking for messages. Although I am willing to agree the fight scenes get kinda repetitive after a while.
I found it weird that Muslims worshiped Hermes and Apollo.
Yeah, it's not like it wasn't pretty obvious it's not really supposed to be historically faithful. I don't know, people back in the day must have been really meh about history.
As far as I remember, people back in the day had pretty twisted knowledge of the doctrine of Islam. Muhammad was believed to have been a rogue cardinal or something like that. The thing about Apollo might've been this or something along the lines of "they're pagans, who cares".
In other news, inspired by the recent mentions of fascism, I procured a book on fascism by a certain Walter Laqueur. Pretty good read.
It was a commonly held belief in medieval Europe (at least in the early middle ages, obviously that belief diminished over time) that the Muslims worshipped Hermes and Apollo, so it's not just the Song of Roland. OTOH, the Muslims thought the Christian believed in a trinity consists of God, Jesus and Mary... which I guess is not quite as bad...
I remember in Inferno, Muhammad is in hell not for heresy or anything like that, but for creating a divide in the church.
One of the more interesting aspects of the Crusades is how social barriers actually diminished over time between Christian and Muslim cultures. It makes a kind of sense, given how both were benefited by increased trade and the exchange of intellectual concepts. While military disputes between the religions continued well into the Renaissance and beyond, the conflicts become notably less ideological and developed greater economic clarity. While the assurance of trade routs was important all the way back to the First Crusade, by the Renaissance, the conflicts were much more firmly steeped in overt economics where previous religious tensions provided more of a backdrop than anything else.
The history of conflict between Christians and Muslims is probably, somehow, one of the most overlooked aspects of medieval history. Everyone knows about the Crusades, of course, but fewer understand the very early conflicts of the Middle Ages and the familiarity that bred limited instances of tolerance. For instance, while the Normans controlled a significant portion of what is today Italy, one of their military prides was the implementation of Saracen archers in their ranks -- an example of cultural integration that predates the Crusades by over one hundred years.
I'd argue that the cultural conflict ultimately ended with the last dying breathes of feudalism. While some people like to draw comparisons between the Crusades and NATO presence in the modern Middle East, including some frontline soldiers on both sides, I don't think the comparison is particularly apt. The Crusades weren't just ideological wars or conflicts over economic superiority -- at the time, they had a sense of finality to them, synchronising with the vaguely medieval belief that people were currently living in the end times. Each side saw it as a battle of survival, and for most intents and purposes, the Crusades were conflicts between equals. While the modern War on Terror has both ideological and economic elements, it's ultimately a backhanded continuation of colonialism rather than a struggle for survival between equivalent foes.
Hmm. For some reason I've spent these last few days reading reviews of things I've already read, rather than reading new things, but it's actually really interesting. For instance, during my first read-through of A Game of Thrones, I never noticed how bad the writing is, yet here I am, four years later, going, "no shit Ned's voice is thick with disbelief," etc.
You're learning! I'm so proud :'D
I think it's because I had no frame of reference in literature (besides HP, but even if I could remember anything from those books, I don't think it would help) and was used to vidya and anime when I started reading ASOIAF and Dresden Files. Whereas now I've read (most of) Blood Meridian and Crime and Punishment, and my views on passable literature have been forever changed.
On the other hand, I'm already at the point where I'm critical of some of the apparently-professional stuff my writing teacher is having us read, and I find myself reading American Gods and being like, "the descriptive language and dialogue are good, but the rest of this writing, not so much."
Assuming by HP you mean Harry Potter, the actual writing in the book was sub-par, so that likely would've hurt more than helped.
Then again, you gotta consider that the technical writing is usually just a vehicle for delivering the content of the story to the reader. As long as the writing isn't so bad that it jars the reader out of the story, it's usually serviceable.
In the rare case that the writing is excellent, it can enhance the story, but it often helps the author to aim for 'serviceable' more than it would if they aimed for 'excellent'.