Garret’s Comments (group member since Jan 21, 2015)

Garret’s comments from the Return of the Rogue Readers group.

Quick thought: could the funeral POSSIBLY be the girl he speaks of a couple times giving him his first kiss?

To be quite honest, it has been years since seeing the movie and even longer than reading the novel. However, I did check out the reference because it seemed familiar, especially with Gaiman's comment about the Hempstocks always being there when he needs them in the afterword of The Ocean. I want to lean toward them not being in the movie adaptation, but I cannot 100% say for sure or not.

To Jordan:
The funeral bugged me to right from the beginning, just as the narrator was never named during the novel. It seemed to add the focus on the fantastic rather than the mundane, as if saying this fantasy was more real than the day-to-day events the narrator went through life experiencing. I think this ties into your enjoyment of the hunger birds saying destroying our existence was nothing more than the words spoken and held no further weight. They, along with the Hempstocks and any other magical creatures and elements alive in this universe, live in an existence far greater than the normal humans within that world and see, feel, taste, do everything with a greater sense of being than we do. I think the Hempstocks could agree with the hunger birds on some level, but also understood that no matter how existence is lived, life is still precious for what it is. I did wonder briefly if the funeral was for the narrator himself, but the fact that the Hempstocks tell him that he has been there and done this several times over the years and would return to do it again (as they discern whether or not Lettie's death into the Ocean - and possibly Lettie herself doing as much as the Ocean along with everything that purported to entail) made me think that it definitely was not. I think the point, as mentioned, is more to show how the fantastic was more real and of greater focus than the events humanity lives and dies through in not knowing the greater world around us. It was clearly important enough for the narrator to come to, but by comparison it matters little when placed side-by-side to short events when he was 7 years old.

To continue this debate, I can understand where you're coming from Tye and I think I could lend support if it weren't for the ending. Repressed childhood memories are a common phenomena but I believe the Hempstock's presence during and after events gives credence to the nature of fantasy. Take into consideration, too, that the Hempstock family has been included in other works by Gaiman (such as Stardust) where the fantasy cannot be contended or debated. The Hempstock women seemed way more real and I'm control than the narrator which, to me, could stand up for our own reality being the true fantasy.

Lettie truly moving to Australia... I think that would negate the whole of the fantasy. It's kind of like those films where the main antagonist wakes from the ordeals and it "was all just a dream." Being a natural dreamer and Romantic I believe Lettie did...disperse...into the Ocean of existence as seen by the narrator during his vision of sorts. Or..........maybe Australia is a magic kingdom full of mysteries and gnomes and 8ft tall leprechauns.

Also, to anyone who has read his book "Coraline" or anyone else: I noticed several similarities throughout even though this one an adult novel and Coraline was for children/YA. Coraline was great, and up there with Clive Barker's The Thief of Always for favorites among youth-centered books, but I actually like Coraline several levels more than this one. I thought it was decent and well-written, but I also felt that it was more novella than novel and would have fit Gaiman's above-average story collections better than a standalone "novel."

I think, speaking of the framing, it seems to tie the themes of the Ocean (as the fantasy entity - can you say Quiddity?) as the no end/no beginning of all existence together nicely. The funeral of whomever it was began our story with the "birth" of the narrator's largest childhood life event, with the "death" of Lettie and beginning of his adult forgetting (assumedly caused by the Hempstocks) ending the tale. Does it detract or set a pessimistic mood? No, I think it frames the tale in an unseen way until the end.

King....who still claims that the Dark Tower is yet an unfinished journey that may have more books. Just like Valve titles with a 3, and childhood memory that Michael Bay will not destroy, or sasquatches that don't throw their poo at unfinished products.

One day I'll read this novel. And on that day I'll have dementia and throw my own poo so won't remember sasquatch statements; on that day you will give me that novel so I can read it. Whatever I say about it, please post it here.

The best movie ever, man. If you haven't seem them you're $#%. I'm sorry, man, but it's true.
- Taaj (paraphrase)

In all seriousness, your comment makes a ton of sense when put into perspective. I actually think your point of humor being subjective hit the point on the head for me....subjectively.

Seriously, I have very little room to critique this novel without finishing, but at least I can pretend. :-)

I get you. Avatar I the best. I get you.

Though I didn't get very far, even the 29 pages I read I was actually agitated by the narrator's dialogue. I kept thinking that either the author was, or was writing the narrator as, an immature and inconsistent mess of a person. I rolled my eyes several times by his choice of words and phrases because they seemed so inappropriate and just plain silly and way too young for the character's position as a scientist (who also seemed to know his stuff to a very large and potent degree) and astronaut. I understand titles and positions do not have to reflect the rigid post in the scope of stereotypes, but I also felt he would have failed any testings to allow him to even board a ship. Taking it in light of being his sense of humor, I can let some leeway as well as the fact of his very serious and insane situation.

I think that's interesting on the points made, especially about Dune (which I will not go into detail about, either) and Imajica. I think a lot can be said about style with both formats. Recently having finished Pines, I found myself loving the story but having a difficulty with the actual writing style - having wanted to e-mail Blake Crouch and ask him if I could edit his already-published work. The comment about the narrators placing strain within the same vein makes sense, and it can detract from a wonderful work in just the same way, but can also - as you stated - enhance a perceived mediocre work. Interesting.

Though there is a reason I will not be reading The Martian for quite a while, I did briefly glance through the discussion and noticed the elements of the audio books that will not be the same for my own reading. Jordan had noted points in the book where the character(s) was(were) yelling, and how it detracted from the experience to a degree. I find this interesting for a couple reasons. One, as I will be physically reading each of these books, it is up to my own imagination and even my own mood/intrinsic attitude to create the levels of emotion during dialogue (be it external between characters or inner dialogue of thoughts and reflections). This is interesting to me because when reading, the author has little say as to how the reader will interpret those lines, but can only hope to convey the level of emotion through the context of each scenario and the character development done thus far in a story. Two, this made me ask the question of myself that I also present to you: how does a narrator in an audio book (or cast, as they sometimes will do) know which inflections or emotions to put forth in those circumstances? I'm sure there is direction given, but how much say does an author have with his/her own work when it is being translated to audio format? I would assume the author still maintains the rights to the work as a whole, unlike the distortion that occurs in many filmed adaptations. I'm assuming it depends on the author themselves and the level of involvement they want or are even allowed by the company publishing the audio format, but I have no idea for 100% accuracy. I have listened to very few audio books, personally: one was by Brian "Head" Welch, which was read by himself from his autobiography, so that essentially eliminates the questions of emotion in reading; the second was a novel read by Scott Brick ("It's Superman," by Tome De Haven), which was much better physically read than listened to because of Brick's lack of emotion throughout the entire novel. There were moments I was so confused by dialogue because many of his characters - male and female both - that sounded exactly the same even while he was attempting to show different voices.

To those who have listened to many audio books: can/do the narrators detract from a novel that was written well overall simply through such distractions in narration and dialogue? Are there instances that are the opposite of that, where you would have liked reading the book much less than the experience of listening (this would be aimed at content-specific and not the mood you were in or how busy you were with other life events)? Or, do you feel that they truly do equal out to about the same at the end of the story?

I can definitely start reading that one full on. I've been reading so many at once, but I'm about to start chapter 3 as my last sign-off, so I'm up for it if anyone else is.