Jonas David's Blog, page 17

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Besides being a great story with amazingly developed characters that are intriguing to watch change over the course of the novel (well… most of them change…), this novel pointed out the giant blind spots I have about the world beyond my door step, and has encouraged me to seek out books that feature other cultures and times in history that I know nothing about, which is most of them….

I really loved how distinct the character’s voices were in this. Each chapter is written in first person from the perspective of one of five characters. Sometimes, when resuming in the middle of a chapter, I’d forget who’s chapter it was. I’d only have to listen for a few seconds before I knew, based on the way the characters observed the world around them.

Heartbreaking, entertaining, educational…

Sharp Objects blunted by twist ending

This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen HBO’s Sharp Objects, you’re in for a treat, go watch it. Then come back and read.

 

Sharp Objects is a show you have to pay attention to. It’s smart, and subtle, and you can miss entire plot points if you look away for even a few seconds. What I loved so much about Sharp Objects wasn’t the story as much as how it was told. That is, the story was shown, rather than told. You pick up clues, make inferences, put together implications and build for yourself the picture of what’s going on. It is supremely satisfying to be treated like an intelligent, observant, perceptive viewer.

And that’s why the ‘twist’ ending was such a shock to me. Not because the the actual revelation that Amma was a killer was a shock, there was enough hints and cues and clues throughout this very thoughtful and subtle show to put it together–if we’d been given the chance. The shock was that a show this subtle and evocative felt the need for something as trite as a twist ending at all. I expected a show like Sharp objects to leave me thinking, puzzling, wondering, with as many questions as answers.

Instead Sharp Objects ended like a teen slasher movie with the best buddy who you think has been helping the whole time suddenly baring fangs or pulling out a knife. Oh no, what a twist. Amma may as well have stepped into frame covered in blood and holding a handful of teeth.

At the very least if they’d cut it with Camille finding the tooth in the dollhouse (which had the nice out of focus shot of the doll sitting limp in the window to remind you of the original murder scene), you’d have a moment to think about it for yourself. You might think: ‘why would Amma have teeth… did she take them from her mother… or…’ then your mind rolls back over the show, you make connections, you get that ‘oh, god…’ moment. It’s satisfying to be shown instead of told the answer.

But we get it rubbed in our face by Amma showing up like a ghost who lost their jump scare violins ‘Don’t tell mama!’ And if that wasn’t enough, we have the post-credit scene to really hammer it home for any dummies in the audience who didn’t catch on. It left a disappointing taste in my mouth after such a monumentally impressive show.

All this leaves aside the question of why we need twist endings anyway. I know Sharp Objects was based on a novel, so to leave out the twist would have been a disservice to the author and fans. But why does a good show or movie need a twist at all? Why do so many authors and directors feel obligated to include one? Wasn’t it surprising enough that Camille’s own mother was the killer without having to flip everything on its head in the last seconds of the entire show?

Sharp Objects was about so much more than just who killed those girls. In fact, while watching it I was hardly ever concerned with that question. I wanted to know about Camille’s history, her family, her past and future. And I got to learn all that and more. That is what got me excited while watching Sharp Objects. Ending on a goofy twist that puts all the focus on the ‘who dunnit’ aspect seems like a major disservice.

Anyone who stuck with this show to the end is not going to be afraid of subtlety and ambiguity. Those aspects were the hallmarks of this exceedingly sharp show. It’s a shame it had to end in such a blunt way.

Satantango, by László Krasznahorkai

This one was alternatingly intense, uneasy, claustrophobic and funny.

The story takes place in a small Hungarian town where the collective farm has collapsed and the people have no way to make money. They are all looking for a way out, and have placed their faith in a mysterious and charismatic character who may or may not be scamming them. There is also constant rain that has washed out the roads leaving them all trapped.

I loved the way this was written. The long, cramped pages full of texts and long sentences added to the feeling of inevitability and claustrophobia the characters were feeling. There is another layer added at the end, which also makes sense with the style of writing.

 

Why we aren’t a paying market

a question we get asked a lot…

Lucent Dreaming

Over the past 10 months since our website Lucent Dreaming opened for submissions we’ve been asked several times, both graciously and ungraciously, why we don’t pay our contributors.

It isn’t a tough question to answer: we currently can’t afford it.

When my friends and I started Lucent Dreaming with no money except the savings I had from university–which you can imagine wasn’t very much–I could just about afford a WordPress subscription and domain. Even though we wanted to pay our contributors, we just knew it wouldn’t be feasible right now.

You might be thinking what about all those magazines and t-shirts and notebooks we sell, but don’t judge a creative writing magazine by its social media reach. Our print runs are small and we haven’t sold all the copies of our magazine nor all our merch! We’ve still about £300 to make back to cover our initial costs.

And you…

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Story vault

I’ve started posting my old stories on Wattpad, so they can have a home. I’ve posted 3 so far, and will continue to post them every few days until I’ve posted every story I’m not ashamed of. I expect there should be 20 or so, maybe more. Most of them will probably go through some rewrites first.

No more will they languish in my digital drawer! Welcome to the world, stories!

Read them here: https://www.wattpad.com/user/TheJonas...

The effects of formatting

I’ve been reading Satantango by László Krasznahorkai, and it is formatted in an unusual way, in that it is basically a wall of text with no paragraph breaks. While this sounds odd, and annoying to read (it was at first) it gives the words a kind of overwhelmingness, and endless pressure and urgency that really adds to the story.

It’s interesting that the shape of the words can be such a big part of storytelling. The decision to leave out all paragraph breaks, even between dialogue, almost makes you feel trapped inside the text, just like the characters are trapped in the town in the story. The author also uses very long sentences, which makes it hard to stop reading, as if you’re just being dragged along against your will.

What other kinds of text effects do authors use?

Back on the wagon again again

All that talk about blogging again and I go on vacation for 2 weeks and don’t blog. oops.

I read a book while I was away, called How Fiction Works, by James Wood. It was great, I read it in just a few days cause I couldn’t stop. I learned a lot from it, and got many ideas of what to read next…

Subject of a future post… ‘Nothing kills life so much as explanation’

give it away

I haven’t sold a story in over 5 years, and I’d like to think that I’ve improved in those 5 years… so that leads me to believe that even if my writing is technically better, I must not be writing what sells.

I thought for a minute that I’d better find out what sells, and try to write that. So I read some recent stories published in places that I regularly submit to, and found that I can’t stand them and would be embarrassed to have written them.

So… what does it all mean? In order to be published in the well-paying magazines, I have to write something with a broad appeal… But I don’t really like things with broad appeal… so, I probably should stop submitting to these places. Which I have.

As of now I’m exclusively submitting my stories to nonpaying markets. Because… socialism? And also because places that aren’t trying to make money might actually want to publish something they like, instead of something they are worried about other people liking.

Version two of this blog post:

No one wants to publish my writing so I’m going to tell myself it’s because I’m just too good for this world, and somehow turn this into a positive for myself.

when you want them to fail

I’ve just started listening to The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which is about a missionary family traveling to the Congo. I’m only a short way in, but I’m feeling a sort of anticipation for all the horrible things I know are going to happen to these people.

They are described with just the right combination of naivety, arrogance, western chauvinism and old fashioned racism to make me itch to see everything go wrong.

Nabokov does this with his characters quite often, but with him it’s a slow build up to realize just how full of themselves and incompetent the character is. With The Poisonwood Bible, almost from the first pages I’m rolling my eyes and wanting them to learn hard lessons.

This is really good so far!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

This fantastical little story was my first experience with Gaiman, and it wasn’t a super good one for me.

The story is about a middle aged man who, after attending a funeral, goes back to his childhood home to walk around and remember stuff. The rest of the book is him remembering some crazy things that happened when he was 7.

This post contains spoilers.

My first problem was with the writing. Reviewers consistently call this beautifully written, but I found the prose somewhat annoying. The author stubbornly refuses to use contractions, and insists on using the characters full names (Letty Hempstock did this, Letty Hempstock said that) every time they are mentioned. This may be in an effort to give the prose a childlike, fairytale feel, or maybe it’s just to inflate the word count of this already very short book.

Another problem was with the way the story is framed. When you start with an older man remembering his past, the story can’t be held up by tense action, since we know the character is remembering all this from far in the future, so everything is obviously going to be okay. I assumed the viewpoint would be going back and forth between memory and present day, and that the character’s recollection of the strange things that happened to him as a child would affect his present life and help him get over the death, or help him decide some hard choice. But the book was all just one big memory, with a little bit of an epilogue to make it not a completely pointless story.

And the story did seem to be pointless. The character (an obvious self insert) did not change or learn anything, in fact after the story is over he immediately forgot everything again (and since the story is told in first person this is a bit of fourth wall breaking confusion). There is no arc, the character doesn’t make any sacrifices or change himself or learn anything about himself in any way.

The best part of the story was when the character (who is never named, and though this is done better than most books, it is still annoying) is trying to escape his new nanny/babysitter, Ursula Monkton (never Ursula, never Miss Monkton, always Ursula Monkton) who is terrible and also a manifestation of some kind of demon or otherworldly creature. It is exciting and intense, despite us knowing that since this is a memory, everything obviously turns out okay.

But even that escape was not done by the character. He gets in a bind and is saved by the neighbor girl Letty, who just happens to be some kind of diety(?)

Maybe it’s just me, but most of these fantastical stories, I just have a real hard time caring. When anything can happen at any moment, it’s hard for any of it to have any weight or meaning. I would probably have enjoyed this story a lot more if it had been told from Letty’s point of view, since she was the one who took action and made a sacrifice and changed.

To sum up this novel, its about a guy who had some weird dreams when he was seven, remembered them for a minute when he was older, then forgot them again.