(Text-)Books
2007-01-30 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rodoMy flatmate has the coolest textbook ever.
It's her Chinese one, so it does not really make much sense to me, but today she translated some of the dialogues for me. In one of these dialogues a mad Takeshi Kaneshiro fangirl was praising his films/looks/singing and tried to get her friend to understand her. She did not give up until the other girl gave in.
I want a textbook like that as well. All mine were boring as hell. Except maybe this one dialogue in the Japanese textbook in which the characters were standing at a traffic light, and all they did was talking about the traffic light. But that's not very practical. Mad fangirls are.
And I just came across someone saying there are so many Harry Potter fanfictions out there because JKR's world has so many "plot holes". And the people who discussed that seemed to think that was a bad thing, or something that is a result of JKR's not so good writing. Personally, I don't quite understand that. While I don't think that she is the best writer living on this planet (I think her style is okay), I really love the world she created, and that is because of these "plot holes".
In fact, I don't like it all that much when writers try to invent a world that is complete in itself and explained in detail. I just don't think such a thing is realistic. Worlds are always full of contradictions and unlogical things, and most of the stuff these writers tell the reader about the world is more than useless. I know what I am talking about, I read The Lord of the Rings, and it annoyed me a bit that Tolkien explained the whole history of Middle Earth. I only accepted it as a part of the books because his writing reminded me of old legends I read that were full of unnecessary information as well.
But in most other writers I think of it as a flaw when the fantasy world is too developed. It just seems too artificial to me, something Tolkien avoided with his style. Not understanding or knowing every detail reminds me that I am not part of this world, and thus I should not be able to understand everything. It's like reading a book from a foreign country, there are things not even a translation can help you to understand, so the books have an exotic feeling to them, and that's what makes them interesting to me. Isn't it the main purpose of fantasy literature to be exotic?
Which brings me to my next topic: This month, I read two fantastic books. They are fantasy books, and I generally dislike the genre because most are just too... well, like you imagine a fantasy book. A bit like Tolkien.
But these two are not. Not only are the two main characters totally adorable (even though one of them is OOC in the first book, but he has his reasons), the author does not bother to explain much about the world at all. Just enough to understand the story that takes place in it. And I loved that about the book. Not as much as I loved Felix and Mildmay, but still.
The books are Mélusine and The Virtu by Sarah Monette, if anyone is interested.
Plus, yesterday I finally finished a chapter of the story I have been working on since I was sixteen. Once I finish it (the first part), I will probably rework it again, it would not be the first time.
It's her Chinese one, so it does not really make much sense to me, but today she translated some of the dialogues for me. In one of these dialogues a mad Takeshi Kaneshiro fangirl was praising his films/looks/singing and tried to get her friend to understand her. She did not give up until the other girl gave in.
I want a textbook like that as well. All mine were boring as hell. Except maybe this one dialogue in the Japanese textbook in which the characters were standing at a traffic light, and all they did was talking about the traffic light. But that's not very practical. Mad fangirls are.
And I just came across someone saying there are so many Harry Potter fanfictions out there because JKR's world has so many "plot holes". And the people who discussed that seemed to think that was a bad thing, or something that is a result of JKR's not so good writing. Personally, I don't quite understand that. While I don't think that she is the best writer living on this planet (I think her style is okay), I really love the world she created, and that is because of these "plot holes".
In fact, I don't like it all that much when writers try to invent a world that is complete in itself and explained in detail. I just don't think such a thing is realistic. Worlds are always full of contradictions and unlogical things, and most of the stuff these writers tell the reader about the world is more than useless. I know what I am talking about, I read The Lord of the Rings, and it annoyed me a bit that Tolkien explained the whole history of Middle Earth. I only accepted it as a part of the books because his writing reminded me of old legends I read that were full of unnecessary information as well.
But in most other writers I think of it as a flaw when the fantasy world is too developed. It just seems too artificial to me, something Tolkien avoided with his style. Not understanding or knowing every detail reminds me that I am not part of this world, and thus I should not be able to understand everything. It's like reading a book from a foreign country, there are things not even a translation can help you to understand, so the books have an exotic feeling to them, and that's what makes them interesting to me. Isn't it the main purpose of fantasy literature to be exotic?
Which brings me to my next topic: This month, I read two fantastic books. They are fantasy books, and I generally dislike the genre because most are just too... well, like you imagine a fantasy book. A bit like Tolkien.
But these two are not. Not only are the two main characters totally adorable (even though one of them is OOC in the first book, but he has his reasons), the author does not bother to explain much about the world at all. Just enough to understand the story that takes place in it. And I loved that about the book. Not as much as I loved Felix and Mildmay, but still.
The books are Mélusine and The Virtu by Sarah Monette, if anyone is interested.
Plus, yesterday I finally finished a chapter of the story I have been working on since I was sixteen. Once I finish it (the first part), I will probably rework it again, it would not be the first time.
