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10-09-2018, 04:26 PM | #136 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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10-09-2018, 08:18 PM | #137 |
cacoethes scribendi
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There was no denial of fact (sterile clones is a red herring - the book never defines cloning and sterility as cause and effect). You are looking for explanations and the author offers none. It was quite deliberate, not lazy. That you didn't like it is quite understandable, but that doesn't mean that the author was showing disdain for his readers as it is evident that the approach worked for a significant number of readers.
Normally I'd be right there with you in thinking the book a waste of effort. I normally prefer a more conventional plot, and more clearly explained reasons for peculiarities in the setting. Fiction is generally a comforting entertainment because it offers the explanations and closure that real life fails to provide, and I have enough unexplained things in my life without looking for more. So I find it hard to define exactly why Never Let Me Go worked for me, but it did. |
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10-09-2018, 09:20 PM | #138 | ||
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An author needs to know every detail about the world he creates, whether the specifics end up on the page or not--when he doesn't, it shows. This author doesn't seem to have any idea of how his fictional world actually functions. |
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10-09-2018, 09:48 PM | #139 | ||
cacoethes scribendi
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All I was trying to say is that some books work for some readers and some don't. This didn't for you, fine, but your insistence that the author doesn't know what he is doing implicitly denigrates the reaction of those that did enjoy the book - and I object to that (since I happen to be one of them). |
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10-10-2018, 06:49 AM | #140 |
Professor of Law
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I still can't get past the niggling feeling that this has something to do with the way World War II (or at least the Nazi experimentation) resorted itself in his alternate history. Is this a world where the Holocaust was not made known, and therefore more palatable to the people of England that there be little farms for organ donors?
I am not looking for an answer, but I am pleased that the book made me consider the question of what leads a society to the acceptance of this situation. |
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10-10-2018, 07:30 AM | #141 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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10-10-2018, 07:36 AM | #142 |
Wizard
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The sketchiness of the background is deliberate, but not to make a point. The author had a story he wanted to tell and he told that and little else. If I recall correctly the author states he carried the characters around in his head for 20 years and decided on cloning only because he listened or watched a program on it. The background was not at all important to the author, and it shows. To me it didn't work. I am pleased for those for whom it did work. Each to their own.
@Catlady. Whilst I think the author did little or no research on cloning I don't think this was due to laziness. I think self-indulgent is likely closer to the mark. He wrote the story he wanted to write with I suspect little consideration of readers. Sort of take it or leave it. @astrangerhere. I really don't think the author considered how such a world might have developed, leaving us to fill it in for ourselves. All we are told is that harvesting these clones provides cures for virtually all diseases. If this were in fact true it is very easy to imagine that the Nazi's would have pioneered the field, given their access to a large group of human beings who they had no compunction in using for experiments. |
10-10-2018, 08:12 AM | #143 | ||
cacoethes scribendi
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Disclaimer: I suspect we all sometimes express a criticism as fault when we are meaning only that it wasn't to our taste, and sometimes authors really do screw up, or just aren't that good, but sometimes the expressions of fault are so explicit but seemingly out of place as to beg for correction ... or so it seems to me. |
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10-10-2018, 10:41 AM | #144 | ||
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Self-indulgent is a good description, but it could be argued that self-indulgence and laziness go hand in hand. Quote:
And I don't care if every critic in the world disagrees with me. |
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10-10-2018, 11:54 AM | #145 |
cacoethes scribendi
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10-11-2018, 01:44 AM | #146 | |
Wizard
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@Catlady. Yes. Self-indulgence can amount to laziness, and it certainly could in this case. Personally I don't think it has. In earlier posts I think I put the word "story" in inverted commas. It is not uncommon in literary fiction, particularly in more pretentious literary fiction, for there to be so little plot that the word "story" is strained if not broken all together. As I understand it the author had characters in mind, and wanted to write a story about people facing their own mortality. The setting was simply used to create a background to examine this. He created a group of people with a compressed lifespan and wrote about their characters and interactions, which is all I think he wanted to do. There are any number of settings which he could have used to achieve this. But he created this particular world which to me cried out for explanation and development. He chose not to give any. To me, he failed with this book. Last edited by darryl; 10-11-2018 at 01:50 AM. |
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10-11-2018, 03:16 AM | #147 | ||
cacoethes scribendi
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I'm not suggesting that you express it as your own fault either. Incompatibility is one of those "--it happens" things. Fault need not come into it. I brought up a phrase earlier that I suspect may have been misinterpreted: "receptive frame of mind". This wasn't intended as derogatory to those that did not enjoy the book; when I'm really not enjoying something I am far from receptive of a book's good points. I can give you chapter and verse of on what I thought was wrong A Game of Thrones. But do I think GRRM did it wrong? What hubris if I did! Quote:
Yes, it is apparent from the text that the background is not what he wanted to explore in detail, but "didn't care"? The only evidence you have for this is that he did not satisfy your need for background explanation. For other readers there was an abundance of background implied, and implied was enough for some but not others. We don't actually know how much of the background the author had realised in his mind - together we have explored many of the possible explanations, so we know they exist - we only know that the background is not where he was trying to concentrate the reader. Yes, the fact that some readers are searching for background despite what he wanted can be seen as a failure, but as an author I'd be absolutely ecstatic about that level of failure! One of the downsides to book club arrangements, like the one here, is that we may end up feeling pressured to read a book we would not otherwise have tried, or to finish a book we may otherwise have discarded early, and perhaps this leaves us feeling a bit put upon when the book does not work. But is this the author's fault? I am not saying that authors never get it wrong, but sometimes a bit of context can lend some realism to our appraisals. Last edited by gmw; 10-11-2018 at 03:20 AM. |
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10-11-2018, 04:18 AM | #148 |
Wizard
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@gmw. It seems we are going to have to agree to disagree on this. We certainly seem to have very different perspectives. Which is a very good thing. It is always good to hear other's points of view to test our own, even in circumstances like this where there is no definite answer. I enjoy your posts, even when we disagree, at least so far. i'm almost curious enough to try one of your books!
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10-11-2018, 10:46 AM | #149 | |
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When an author chooses something so out-there and so morally questionable as clones created specifically as a donor class, how can a reader not be primed to want details and explanations, even brief ones? A more mundane backdrop would not have been such a distraction. And if there's going to be a lengthy and annoying information dump, it ought to provide more substance and answer more questions. |
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10-11-2018, 12:19 PM | #150 |
Almost legible
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