Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "chirp"
Everyone's Talking About Her
Over at Book View Cafe recently Jo Walton wrote a thoughtful, charming article on the Suck Fairy. (Also referenced here.) You know: the rot that can get into books you once read as a kid that makes 'em suck when you read them again as an adult.
I've had that experience. But also have had the experience of re-reading books that the Suck Fairy entirely missed. For me, some of those spring to mind.
The whole Astrid Lindgren "Pippi Longstocking" series is cool. No matter how many times I re-read Pippi Longstocking, she's still the Greatest Girl on Earth. (Like, if I was going to write a fanfic Lesbian romance, it would be a whole lotta Pippi Longstocking crushing on Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and maybe a nail-biting love triangle with Pollyanna.)
And Moomins. (Tove Jansson) Yeah, Moomins don't suck no matter how many times you read the books. Even if LOTR might be heavier going the 200th time you read it, in part because you already know the plot and you named your kids Aragorn and Galadriel; Moomins are kind of unsuckable.
And still, much of the Hugh Lofting "Dr Dolittle series" stands up to being read a dozen times or so. (Yeah, OK, some of the Dr Dolittle books have some questionable racist stuff in them that wouldn't pass muster by today's standards, but Bumpo was still a bright kid who ended up at Oxford.)
And The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton. I read that when it was nearly new, never forgot it, and it was still shiny-bright when I read it again, 25+ years later.
So I kind of wonder what makes these books unpalatable to the Suck Fairy? Oh, perhaps it's partly because the writing is decent, and they're not trying to shovel in too much of an ideological message...?
In reviewing Walton's article, Sherwood gives us this gem, that I've discovered, and probably almost every other writer has also discovered: Most writers began lives as eager readers, but in the process of learning to shape their own prose to do what they want it to, they turn an increasingly critical eye on the prose of their fellow writers.
That's hard to turn off, but I've also recently started just turning it to advantage. If a book isn't doing it for me, I give up. But. If (a) the book is really enjoyable, but (b) I can't turn off my inner proofreader to ignore the nits, then I just turn the old goat loose in the pasture and mark-up the hell out of it. It takes longer to finish a book if you're yellow-lining something on every page or two, but at the end of the day, I kind of like having a pile of notes I can hand back to the author when I say "aw, man I loved your book, here are 200 editorial notes." Does that make me an evil reader? ;-)
I've had that experience. But also have had the experience of re-reading books that the Suck Fairy entirely missed. For me, some of those spring to mind.
The whole Astrid Lindgren "Pippi Longstocking" series is cool. No matter how many times I re-read Pippi Longstocking, she's still the Greatest Girl on Earth. (Like, if I was going to write a fanfic Lesbian romance, it would be a whole lotta Pippi Longstocking crushing on Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and maybe a nail-biting love triangle with Pollyanna.)
And Moomins. (Tove Jansson) Yeah, Moomins don't suck no matter how many times you read the books. Even if LOTR might be heavier going the 200th time you read it, in part because you already know the plot and you named your kids Aragorn and Galadriel; Moomins are kind of unsuckable.
And still, much of the Hugh Lofting "Dr Dolittle series" stands up to being read a dozen times or so. (Yeah, OK, some of the Dr Dolittle books have some questionable racist stuff in them that wouldn't pass muster by today's standards, but Bumpo was still a bright kid who ended up at Oxford.)
And The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton. I read that when it was nearly new, never forgot it, and it was still shiny-bright when I read it again, 25+ years later.
So I kind of wonder what makes these books unpalatable to the Suck Fairy? Oh, perhaps it's partly because the writing is decent, and they're not trying to shovel in too much of an ideological message...?
In reviewing Walton's article, Sherwood gives us this gem, that I've discovered, and probably almost every other writer has also discovered: Most writers began lives as eager readers, but in the process of learning to shape their own prose to do what they want it to, they turn an increasingly critical eye on the prose of their fellow writers.
That's hard to turn off, but I've also recently started just turning it to advantage. If a book isn't doing it for me, I give up. But. If (a) the book is really enjoyable, but (b) I can't turn off my inner proofreader to ignore the nits, then I just turn the old goat loose in the pasture and mark-up the hell out of it. It takes longer to finish a book if you're yellow-lining something on every page or two, but at the end of the day, I kind of like having a pile of notes I can hand back to the author when I say "aw, man I loved your book, here are 200 editorial notes." Does that make me an evil reader? ;-)
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