I am going to revisit this when I don't have a couple different things I really need to do first ( wink hubski newsletter goes out tomorrow morning wink) but here's a couple things: Super long sentences. Sometimes pages long. It kind of reminds me of that one author...Hemingway? I don't know. I read Hemingway in high school and I think they talked a lot about his long, rambling but flowing sentences. Alas, I was too cool to pay much attention so I might be totally off. I'm not sure how much of this is a conscious style. That one sentence that was like 3 pages was for sure, but in general some sentences just seem like it may be the translation. Spanish in general is a much more flowly and longwinded way of speaking. I'm alright the characters. They are the focus of part 1, for sure, since not much really happens. They mostly just are there, and thinking, and occasionally fucking, and at conferences. They don't do much, or at least during reading it it doesn't seem like they do much. Looking back, they have done a good number of things but as you read it it doesn't seem like it. I partially attribute it to the long, winding sentences. I wish Liz Norton had more to her. She seems like a cunt to fuck at times. She allows the other characters to be more fully developed, especially in terms of sexual desires and relationships and friendships. But I wish girls weren't always just cunts to fuck. I particularly loved this passage: I also think this is a really horribly fantastic insult and wish I could use it somehow: I also noted the dreams that they all had throughout. I want to read them all together and see if I can derive anything meaningful for them. The dreams were all really intense and stood out to me. StJohn, DiamondLou86, AnSionnachRua, _refugee_, minimum_wage, flagamuffin, fuffle, b_b, hugitout, JakobVirgil, zebra2, AdSeriatim, mk, thenewgreen, SufficientGrace, ecib, kleinbl00, cliffelam, hootsbox, lil, rezzeJ, cgod, blackbootz, onehunna, AshShields, BLOB_CASTLE, insomniasexx, kuli, cowboyhaze, seatraveler, Floatbox, maynard, hiss, GodOfAtheism, NikolaiFyodorov, Meriadoc Sorry to the above if this is an old list and you do want to be tagged.
Thankfully, I trudged on because the characters did begin to flesh themselves out and although the writing was a bit heavy handed, I became engrossed. -More to come.I particularly loved this passage:
-funny, that was a point pretty early on when I thought to myself, "this writing is excessive and "show-offy."and the earth and the grass seemed to talk, no, not talk, argue, their incomprehensible words like crystalized spiderwebs or the briefest crystalized vomitings, a barely audible rustling, as if instead of drinking tea that afternoon, Norton had drunk a steaming cup of peyote.
-Hemingway may have written "long sentences," but he would have shot himself before he would have written that. .... oh wait, too soon?
Maybe I should read more or pay attention to what I'm reading more. Besides graphic novels and the first half of a couple sales/marketing/advertising books, I probably haven't read a good book since high school. I focus on the plot and characters far more than the writing. Movies, that is another story. insomsbf made me watch a stupid movie called *Extract* Not even Jason Bateman could save it. Piss poor plot, piss poor editing, bad bad bad sound mixing, and Mila Kunis was a manipulative sexy lady who scared me. What I'm trying to say is, the same way I have a hard time watching a bad movie, or even a good movie with technical flaws, is probably how more proficient readers find this book. Since I don't really know what I'm talking about, I'm happy. :P The reason I liked that paragraph was because it nicely described the confusion when you're really really really high. You have this inability to take everything in, while simultaneously taking in the tiniest details. I saw her sudden obsession and fascination and intrigue to be an intense drug. This, along with the other details about Archimboldi and given the other characters' obsessions, worked in reenforcing this strange writer that has a profound effect on our characters.
I'm guessing I misread that piece.Maybe I should read more or pay attention to what I'm reading more.
That was not a criticism of your perception of that piece. I just don't find it to be very Hemingway-esque. Others may disagree. As for the description of a drug induced state, I thought it read like someone that had never had a drug induced state writing about what they thought a drug induced state would be like. Also, is she actually on drugs at this point? I don't recall that she was. Am I wrong here? If I am, then I missed the part where she was literally getting high.
No she wasn't actually getting high, I don't think. I think the author/book is her drug! I mean obviously there has to be something mind-blowing about the author in order to have 4 people utterly obsessed with this guy, right?
Yeah, that's what my take was too. Thanks, now I'm certain this section was over written :)
Yeah, rain seems to be one of several motifs wending their way through the first part. I read that Bolaño began as a poet and turned to writing novels as a way to make better money, which is common enough. I wonder though, if this use of symbols springs from that background and was not fully realized, incorporated and finished, due to his death.
Hemingway wasn't known for such long sentences, but his utter eschewing of commas sometimes made it seem that way. He was often more staccato. I agree with you about Norton, but the same criticisms can be made about Morini, and really about the two main characters as well. I'm not sure what I feel about that.