Maureen’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2009)

Maureen’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

i really hope emonk argues with me! it's been too long!

bad writer/good writer does not equal genre writer/literary writer. full stop.

a list of novels published in 1897 on the wikipedia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category...

A
The Adventures of Mabel
An Antarctic Mystery
C
Captains Courageous
The Celebrity
D
Dracula
E
Equality (novel)
F
The Fruits of the Earth
G
The Gadfly
Gladys in Grammarland
I
Inferno (Strindberg)
The Invisible Man
L
Liza of Lambeth
N
The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
P
Pursuit of the House-Boat
R
Ramuntcho
S
The Spoils of Poynton
St. Ives (novel)
The Story of Ab
The Sundering Flood
T
To Venus in Five Seconds
Two Planets
W
The Water of the Wondrous Isles
The Well-Beloved
What Maisie Knew
Y
The Year 3,000


at a quick glance, for famous literary novelists, I see joseph conrad and henry james, and rudyard kipling. I would say both conrad and kipling are strong mythologists. then arguably the most famous books on the list number two, h.g. wells' the invisible man, and the most famous and most remembered of all these novels: Dracula. Dracula! And there it is all over again. Dracula is not a great novel and bram stoker was not a great writer but he spun out a resonant myth, an idea that is bigger than the writing, that compels a lot of people.

da vinci code: how is that not a great idea? a lot of people couldn't help staring at a book that said that jesus got down with mary magdalene and this is what happened. i wanted to write a book in a similar vein and was angry when it came out because he stole my idea. so people can't get over the idea because they never thought of it in advance of dan brown and want to know all about what happens next. what happens next is key because it goes back to the curiousity in the reader, and docx deciding what is best for other people, and saying it matters more than the best burger, which for some might be a tremendously big deal, the way that successful bad writing is annoying to him because he is a writer. i don't see how that has anything to do with what category we're slotting a book in today. the books i find most meaningful, most worthy of my attention are edifying to me. the stylists vary, as does the genius (i'm hanging on to my trixie beldens for dear life over here), but always seeking that imprinting voice of a novel that blooms within me, that is new but somehow familiar, and very right.

but novels imprint on us all according to our predilections, and compulsions. is there something in western? global? society that still loves the vampire? clearly. there are people out there who swoon for franzen to roth, for docx's range. some people are reading books because everyone else is, and want to tell you to read them. if somebody asked me to read fifty shades of grey, i'd tell them it's not my brand of erotica, by the way. :) a lot more people love bondage now. at least more than i previously thought. :) in general for recommendations, i am happy to hear them. but if they don't sound interesting, i will just go on and on about the rockford files, and how like greek tragedy some of the episodes are, and then that generally nips things in the bud. (oh no! cliche!) too bad for them about the rockford files though because it's fascinating really. :P

what were we talking about again?

oh, right. now i want to take keith back of the alley, for fisticuffs at dawn. except i can't really because i just said it's all about predilections and society. :)

bulwer-lytton sold tons of books in his day. everybody makes fun of him now. i didn't think the last days of pompeii was that bad.

i said (all this, i know!) all this, knowing full well how little i personally was rewarded by reading the stieg larsson books. the few kernels: i learned how incredulous i could be when reading a novel, and it confirmed my belief that the need to know what is going to happen in the book is the main hook in a lot of successful mainstream fiction. it surpasses everything, curiousity. and better served, if extended in a series of books. three, or seven, or five, series fiction is very popular -- i think it's been growing for the last twenty years. it's like watching tv or film in book form. and everything has a sequel.

and i can holler anathema all i like (and i do!) about books i don't like, but i can't say what's best for other people to read, especially if it is rocking their socks. screw that, docx dude. :)

hey kids: just to let anybody who doesn't already know that there's a kickstarter project to fund a short animated film based on "the duck", the story that he read on TAL.

A link to it here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/s...

i have already shown my support, and there are lots of cool premiums that can be yours if you donate!!!

mo
xo

p.s. little known fact: ben showed me the final list of stories for this collection when he'd settled it with Penguin, and i noticed the duck had dropped off the list. i nearly had a heart attack, but guess what? IT HAD JUST BEEN A MISTAKE. :) still, i'm glad i caught it. :)

!!! i'm just leaving work, but i just added hemingway's suitcase to the to-read list... i love your note about it, and hemingway seems to be having this odd resurgence -- it can't be more than a month or two ago that i remarked that he seemed to be getting short shrift lately, but all of a sudden everybody seems to be talking about him again. anyway, i really just want to know if harris brings up the evian bottle. :P

p.s. i'll be back with more... trying to escape the office of nightmares... but yes, cornell woolrich! did you know i love him too? and darling shirley. :)

p.p.s. did they ever do zap comix featuring hamlet? i just got some mini-comics at TCAF i can send you. i think the art is great but the text needs a little something. like spell check. :P

so rod introduced me to this book, and i've been reading it for a month! i just posted a review of it but would really like to talk more about it, and what it tried to do. so i thought i'd cross-pollinate from my review and leave this thread here so that if anybody should read the book and want to talk about it with me, there'd be a forum all ready!!

my favourite is that jimmy teased us with this game and then tried to pass the reins on and nobody took him up on it.... if i can find some time, i'll try to think of a few. :)

Evan wrote: "What the heck was the name of that romance novel that became the running joke of the old files. Ahh the good old days. Goodreads still doesn't tell me on Facebook when somebody has replied to a t..."

evan! you can get notifications to your email. check your settings on individual threads (look below this box we type in) and check your goodreads settings to make sure you haven't blocked them. i made a subfolder in my gmail for it so my inbox didn't get cluttered. :) that way, if somebody comments on a thread you've posted in, you'll know. i know that's not the same as before, but i think it just seemed like less work to check the group on myspace. good times, though. :)

i liked adam ross a lot as a writer as a person before, but now that i know about the odyssey thing, i like him even better. i wonder what his favourite translation is?

how did i miss the sex game? it seems like it should be a man, so i'm going to guess woman. also. it is tickling my brain so i think i might've read this already somewhere...? good trick, name-hiding!

(though i'm not sure i should be posting on this thread... i was already getting in trouble on somebody's review this week when it was clear what was wanted was admitting sexism against women writers...

karen's review of a book called instant love has sparked some interesting discussion about this topic. you can find it here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

there's another article that we haven't referenced that was posted by ceridwen that also goes back to the original topic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/boo...

(thought i'd cross-pollinate, and take it back to the original topic. :)

Jimmy wrote: "HAHAHA yeah, Gatsby is definitely not to my taste. I don't think it's awful, but it hardly made an impression on me. Plus, the whole plot revolves around a chance-encounter (the whole car thing tow..."

you did talk me out of it though sometimes i am still tempted to try anyway. i saw one of his in the strand last year, with a friend who shall remain nameless.. i picked it up and showed him. he'd read it, of course, and he quickly shook his head, which meant, "no. it's not for you." and since he's usually spot-on with what i like i sheepishly put it down again. :)

and yeah, i won't get into the gatsby talk here but i will say banville's quote speaks to the emotional resonance of the story for me. i love jay gatz's list. i'm never going to get over the list. :)

Jimmy wrote: "I've read the Great Gatsby twice, and wasn't impressed either time. The reason I re-read it (with many years in between) was because I needed to know if I was missing something. I don't think I am...."

oh jimmy. you are always provocative. i love gatsby without reserve, but again, really shouldn't devote too much time right now to why... but perhaps i don't need to since i like what banville said in the article you posted:

"Fitzgerald was forever the inspired amateur, and Gatsby has all the tremulousness and delicacy of a masterpiece made against the odds. He managed it once and never again – but what an achievement it is, a kind of miracle, ever fresh, ever new, no matter how many times one ventures back into its sad, soiled and enchanted world."

i don't know that that's you missing something so much as maybe it's just not to your taste. lord knows when you were talking about thomas bernhard you talked me in and rather quickly out of thomas bernhard.

i'm trying to remember if there's a thread specific to gatsby anywhere around here. it's really a shame we couldn't bring our whole back list of postings from myspace when we moved...

Jimmy wrote: "An interesting article on re-reading...

Rereading: authors reveal their literary addictions"

i've missed you jimmy! what an assortment of authorial opinions! i took a quick glance over the article because i've got limited time on this lunch hour, but it makes me smile that people seem either to be in the "not enough time to re-read" camp or really believe in their ability to gain more from novles on the re-read as suggested by the spack article. i suspect never the twain shall meet.

i do like the fact that of the re-readers, several have attempted to understand what makes the great gatsby so great, but cannot quite fathom it...

good work on keeping the game alive, lovely lady. i have a theory as to what that might be but i don't actually recognize the cover... maybe somebody else will, though...

brock's answers (both) are great. :P

Rod wrote: "Whose Names Are Unknown: A Novel Just saw this came up on a friends to-read list, an unpublished obscurity from the 1930s."

was that me? if not me, i'm glad two people put that on their lists this week. such an sadly ironic title...

i just read about the book in the courses of my researches on obscure books that never really became well known. for those of you who didn't click on the link to the book, it seems that this book was put aside when the grapes of wrath took the US by storm. the sad part, for me, was that steinbeck had actually borrowed the notes that the author, sanora babb, had compiled from her own youth, and used in the writing of her book which due to his success, did not see the light of day until 2004. what a horrible pill to swallow. i felt like i owed it to her to read her book after all that. i only stumbled upon it because i was reading up on william saroyan and found out he had been in love with her via his wikipedia page...

Richard wrote: "It's not the cover I'm familiar with but the canoe trip suggests it's Deliverance.

On Pinterest, I am slowly posting images from my favorite mass market covers: http://pinterest.com/misconstrue/ma..."

ach! that is the answer Richard! And the link you posted is really cool!

But... do you have a new partial image to post? The game needs you to post a partial image of a cover for it to continue (please see post 1 of the thread if you need further detail. :)

Since you are great at finding cool covers, I'm hoping it won't be much trouble for you. It would be appreciated if the cover would be recognizable in some way -- all along the thread we've debated what makes a recognizable i.e. "guessable" cover for the game. For example, since I'm in Canada, I tend to recognize UK covers more often than US ones...

anyway, thanks for the link and joining the game. looking forward to seeing what cover you post! :)

gah. i know it!! but i don't have a cover? anybody else want to post one? otherwise, waiting will be involved. :)

i just found out something exciting! remember (or not) when i found that anthology, the book of fantasy, edited by borges and bioy casares and ocampo, i was convinced that all the stories i liked best were selected by borges. and today when i was again looking up obscure books by may sinclair (whose story "where their fire is not quenched" i posted about here on the ff when i first read it because it knocked me on my ass) and this turned up:

Cuentos Memorables Segun Jorge Luis Borges
by Jorge Luis Borges

In a 1935 magazine article, celebrated author Jorge Luis Borges explained why he chose Mary Sinclair's short story "Donde su fuego nunca se apaga" as the most memorable story hed ever read, while he mentioned 11 other of his personal favorites. Inspired by Borges statements in the article, this anthology gathers an array of magnificent short stories by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, and O. Henry, among others.

!!!!!!!!!

and it's in spanish!!!!!!!!!!

i guess i'm just going to have get serious about spanish now. i've only been dabbling up til now.

i wish adrian was around. i've been thinking about him all day...

claudia! it looked vaguely familiar to me but i couldn't place it at all. but a lot of the people who were playing also seemed to have gotten busy, so i'm not sure how many people were actually guessing either. i don't have another image on hand. guess we'll wait to see if somebody shows up with one. :)

I don't know if anybody saw this today but it cracked me up with its (sort of misleading) headline: "Toni Morrison cancels memoir contract due to 'not interesting' life". The article seems to indicate she actually meant she just finds writing fiction more interesting, and offered up this advice (which also cracked me up):

"People say to write about what you know," she told students in Oberlin. "I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever."

I think it's good advice. :)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/...

Moira wrote: "Kerry wrote: "Moira, are you able to answer Claudia's post?"

'People try to guess the cover, the person who gets it right, posts the next picture. '

Duh, sorry, I missed that. Never mind!"

we would've managed moira! i'm sorry you deleted yours not least because now i'm never going to know the name of that book!!! :)