06-21-2020, 12:45 AM | #31 |
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06-21-2020, 09:47 AM | #32 | |
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But what did they add to the story? They were one more tangent. In a short work, every word and scene should be focused to serve the story being told. This novella should either have been stripped down to a short story about the romantic painting and the revenge on an art dealer, or expanded into a larger book that could explore the various characters' lives and backstories, and the San Francisco setting, to a greater degree. As it is, the book is some kind of hybrid that doesn't work. |
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06-21-2020, 10:50 AM | #33 |
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The problem, as with so much writing advice, is that it's a matter of opinion as to whether any word or scene serves the story. Even identifying what the story is, may be a matter of opinion*. Part of the writer's art (with some help from a good editor) is in their choice of what matters to the story they are telling**.
* Some years ago I saw an ultra-short animation clip on YouTube that cut Lord of the Rings down to essentials: the hobbits hitch a ride with some eagles and drop the ring into Mount Doom - the end. And why not? If you view this as an adventure about destroying a ring then cutting out everything that doesn't directly serve that end leaves you with something like that clip. It's like saying every such tale is a variation of the Hero's journey. It might be vaguely true but it's not all that helpful. No one wants to read tales couched in such terms, we want the excess words and scenes. ** As opposed to the story you might rather be reading |
06-21-2020, 11:11 AM | #34 |
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Thank you, gmw. Could a different writer have made this story longer or shorter. Probably, but then it would have been a different story. Certainly, Ms. Klages is unlikely to have written it longer -- she seems to tend towards shorter works over longer ones. But irregardless, this is the writer's choice, not the reader's.
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06-21-2020, 11:19 AM | #35 | |
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06-21-2020, 11:21 AM | #36 | |
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06-21-2020, 11:44 AM | #37 | |
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06-22-2020, 12:19 AM | #38 |
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It is, after all, titled "Passing Strange".
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06-23-2020, 12:10 PM | #39 |
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Agreed. Well, not much has changed lol; each book seems to provoke some of us and bring enjoyment to others. I didn’t mind that it touched lightly on several genres; leaving things unexplained added to the ephemeral quality. It’s a short, light read, and I had a sense the author was deliberately flitting from one genre to another and having fun with that. I took the deus ex machina ending as tongue in cheek humour. That said, I can see how it fits the critiques too.
Last edited by Victoria; 06-23-2020 at 02:36 PM. |
06-23-2020, 04:24 PM | #40 |
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There isn't a single book that everyone will like.
Overall, I liked Passing Strange. Though I would have liked more about the magic. |
06-23-2020, 04:36 PM | #41 |
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And for me, the magic was totally peripheral. It was the love story that was the central theme for me, and the interesting part was primarily the historical context. I loved reading about a city I know moderately well, but only in the modern context. Interesting to see how very far it had to come from to reach it's modern context as a mecca for the LGBTQ community.
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06-23-2020, 04:47 PM | #42 | |
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06-23-2020, 04:58 PM | #43 | |
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ETA: Tales of the City originated as serialized stories starting in 1974, in the Pacific Sun and then the San Francisco Chronicle. It wasn't pulled into a book until 1978. (And is the first of nine books from Maupin's columns. For more, I suggest this article in The Guardian. ) Last edited by CRussel; 06-23-2020 at 05:09 PM. |
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