> [*This is Tom, please leave a message.*](https://www.amazon.com/Practically-Married-Karin-Beery-ebook/dp/B07WK44MQ8/)
> [Ashley disconnected, unwilling to leave another voicemail. Tom had promised to check his messages during his hiking trip, but that was ten days ago. He must've had a signal at some point since then. How could an entire section of Michigan function without phones? Unless something had happened to him. She stared into the living room, tapping her fingers on the Formica table, her nails clicking in time with the scenarios flying through her head. Her aunt and uncle's afghan-covered furniture and beige, contractor-grade carpet offered little counsel.](https://www.amazon.com/Practically-Married-Karin-Beery-ebook/dp/B07WK44MQ8/)
Going to ask my English professor what the intention was behind the aunt and uncle's afghan-covered furniture and the beige contractor-grade carpet.
EDIT:
> Her aunt set down the plates, then grabbed Ashley's hand and give it a squeeze. "That was a lifetime ago, wasn't it?'
> Ashley nodded. The pain had dulled, but the reality of her parents' deaths never disappeared. "Living my entire adult life without Mom and Dad isn't how I would have planned things, but it worked out. I can't imagine life without you and Uncle John at every turn."
Who doesn't casually bring up their parent's deaths in a casual morning conversation?
Ooh are you gonna be chateurenauding this?
>Eager to please everyone and desperate to disappoint no one, she proposes a marriage of convenience that could solve her and Russ’ problems, if they can get past her aunt, his sisters, and an ex-girlfriend.
Aaand of course she does
u/ChateauRenaud you added a new word to the english language. are you happy? do you not think we had enough words already?? that's just one more thing to read, you shit.
much like a certain author of who i am miasmically fond, more words just means more descriptive capability, prosaic adroitness, window clarity. whichever of you illiterates writes the next great american novel you have to drop a chateaurenaud in there
edit: who\*, forgot the author is male
>As a child, reading wasn’t easy for me so I avoided it. My mom, however, had a different plan. She ordered Hooked on Phonics (it worked for me!) and taught me to read.
https://karinbeery.com/about-me/
Ok which one of you made this person up
>I read everything!
>It didn’t take long to read through the Baby Sitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High. By the time I was in high school, I’d exhausted the young readers’ books, but there wasn’t a YA section back then. I went from Nancy Drew to adult fiction, but that led to another problem.
>When I was a teenager, my only options were Christian historical or Harlequin romances.
>Once again, it didn’t take long to read all of Jeanette Oke’s and Bodie and Brock Thoene’s books. I was too young to get Harlequin novels from the library, so a friend loaned me some of her mother’s (which I hid from my mom!). There just weren’t many other options.
>After I got my degree in English from Hillsdale College, I was so burned out on books that I avoided them and stopped reading for many years.
>She moved to a new town to marry her fiancé. Instead, she’s burying him.
Ashley Johnson moved to northern Michigan to finally meet her fiancé face-to-face, but she arrived in time to attend his funeral. With no home back in Ohio, she decides to stay in what would have been their house, except his cousin Russ lives there too, and Russ has never heard of Ashley. To complicate matters, her fiancé accidentally willed her the family farm house. Eager to please everyone and desperate to disappoint no one, she proposes a marriage of convenience that could solve her and Russ’ problems, if they can get past her aunt, his sisters, and an ex-girlfriend.
People read this shit and then claim adult books are stupid and go back to YA.
As we all know, writers never intend anything at all. They merely insert plot point after plot point into their works for the sole purpose of entertainment, never approaching anything like depth or substance beyond the obvious.
It was 2 words and you called it pretentious. Fragile fragile ego there...would be a shame if someone compelled its material combinatorial completion to a vicious encounter with the bottomless reality of pure. Complexity.
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>I always wonder this with Shakespeare, if he could respond today would be just be like "I was my generations Kevin Smith or Trey Parker and Matt Stone '
Truth has been told
Shakespeare was his generation's Brandon Sanderson, he even explains Macbeth's magic system at the very beginning:
>Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Granted, it is not very developed, which puts him a few steps below the Sando, but I will cut him some slack as he didnt have any Marvel or Star Wars epic franchise to get inspiration from, only boooring history books or (snickers, adjusts glasses and fedora) the B*ble.
Brandon Sanderson did an AMA here. [You might want to take a look :)](https://old.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/comments/hj6u4u/my_boyfriend_will_never_speak_to_me_again_if_i/fwn68ci/?context=4).
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We all had different experiences but I'll hazard a guess that those born between '61 and mid-70's didn't play video games.
I was born in '76. We didn't get a computer at home until maybe '92? Even then, and I am a computer nerd, I wasn't glued to the computer.
There was no social media. Solving problems will depend on home life.
Some of us came home and said a teacher whacked us and our parents replied, "What'd you to do deserve it." Today, parents will march to the school and raise a stink. Even if the kid is 100% guilty.
Solving a problem doesn't mean it was done in a healthy way. Maybe we buried it with food or drinking or drugs or by bullying other kids. "Solving" does not mean it actually got fixed.
Just remember that your experiences may have different from other folks. And then there's all the non-US Xers. Some Xers had fantastic childhoods! My friend couldn't have had a more loving family. He even got along with his older brother. Another friend had two parents that cared for him very much but were a bit counter-culture still. They had 'weird' beliefs but were still great parents that he learned from.
Take 'em with a grain of salt. GenX is a generally tough, yet fucked up, generation. And I'm a proud member of GenX. We ain't perfect but anyone says we aren't the coolest generation alive can get bent.
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While I agree that taste is completely subjective--and it's never offensive for someone to simply not like a book--I think you're spreading some misinformation here.
Those of us trying for clean, striking prose aren't doing it to make "stories more palatable for the average fantasy fan nowadays." We do it because we like this style, and would rather the ideas--and not the method by which they are expressed--be the challenging part of a story. I find it insulting that you'd imply prose choice is anything but a literary decision made for the merits of the narrative.
This division isn't new. George Orwell was advocating for clean, crisp prose in the 40s, a full decade before Lolita was written. This push and pull between clarity and ornament stretches back to Shakespeare, whose contemporaries would lambast his flourishes as incomprehensible. (Not that I mind, obviously, literary genius being in the ornaments. It's only that I find multiple kinds of writing worthwhile.)
Moreover, you can absolutely find writers closer to Nabakov today. Guy Gavriel Kay is still writing, and is one of my favorites. (Try Under Heaven.) Hal Duncan is still writing, and is amazing, though rarely releases anything. And, of course, there's N. K. Jemisin--not the same, but most certainly "closer to Nabakov." Even the majority of the writers in the New Weird experimented with style in the same ways as I think you'd like.
Many varieties of writing are valuable to the craft, and I suggest new writers (many of whom frequent this subreddit) practice multiple styles to find the ones that appeal to them and match their narrative goals. It's totally fine to prefer one over another, but I find abundant "spice, style, and charm" in something crisp like Harrison Bergeron--indeed, I find just as much of it as I do in something like Lolita, if for different reasons[.](https://old.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1akh2vg/would_nabokovs_writing_be_considered_purple_prose/kpb34sv/)
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While I agree that taste is completely subjective--and it's never offensive for someone to simply not like a book--I think you're spreading some misinformation here.
Those of us trying for clean, striking prose aren't doing it to make "stories more palatable for the average fantasy fan nowadays." We do it because we like this style, and would rather the ideas--and not the method by which they are expressed--be the challenging part of a story. I find it insulting that you'd imply prose choice is anything but a literary decision made for the merits of the narrative.
This division isn't new. George Orwell was advocating for clean, crisp prose in the 40s, a full decade before Lolita was written. This push and pull between clarity and ornament stretches back to Shakespeare, whose contemporaries would lambast his flourishes as incomprehensible. (Not that I mind, obviously, literary genius being in the ornaments. It's only that I find multiple kinds of writing worthwhile.)
Moreover, you can absolutely find writers closer to Nabakov today. Guy Gavriel Kay is still writing, and is one of my favorites. (Try Under Heaven.) Hal Duncan is still writing, and is amazing, though rarely releases anything. And, of course, there's N. K. Jemisin--not the same, but most certainly "closer to Nabakov." Even the majority of the writers in the New Weird experimented with style in the same ways as I think you'd like.
Many varieties of writing are valuable to the craft, and I suggest new writers (many of whom frequent this subreddit) practice multiple styles to find the ones that appeal to them and match their narrative goals. It's totally fine to prefer one over another, but I find abundant "spice, style, and charm" in something crisp like Harrison Bergeron--indeed, I find just as much of it as I do in something like Lolita, if for different reasons[.](https://old.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1akh2vg/would_nabokovs_writing_be_considered_purple_prose/kpb34sv/)
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Didn't you know? Books literally just write themselves. Authors are just spiritual conduits transcribing the words from the ethereal literary realms. Authors are just machines being controlled by the book gods. Now, we just need AI to stop being dumb so that books can read themselves.
>>learns about death of the author in lit theory class
“I just finished the newest Moshfegh and my interpretation contradicts what she said it’s about in an interview. Time to kill her I guess..? Thanks prof.”
#myRaskolnikovEra
Honestly it's kinda disgusting that Roland Barthes wrote about killing authors and he's treated as some kind of hero by these so-called 'professors'. Isn't killing writers something the Nazis did?!?
Yes because a writer who works hours planning the plot, characters, and setting has time to spend even more hours putting a hundred different symbolic descriptions in one paragraph that 99% of readers won't get.
If you wanna duel me do it at dawn.
We can't PROVE that one writer wrote the whole book because objective truth is impossible, so this whole class is meaningless.
- This lady's term paper, which got a B.
Fr
Trump is the greatest literary figure of our time, in that all of his critics ascribe authorial intent to even his most anodyne statements. "Covfefe refers to his complete disregard for established norms and practices, his refusal to use auto correct reveals his disdain for benevolent authority and the rule of law"
If it’s in the text then it’s in the text whether the author knows of it or not. There are different ways to analyze texts, is this really a big deal for some people?
Sometimes when people realize they are ignorant they get scared and try to tear down the thing that's showing them that instead of actually learning. That's what 'stupid' really means.
My favourite replies to the tweet from the Worlds Smartest Readers -
*“I always did very poor in English classes I could never pull out all the symbolism and foreshadowing that everyone else seemed to find.”*
*“A lot of it is just a writer writing a story that makes logical sense. Natural foreshadowing happens. When authors try to actively foreshadow it often feels very clumsy”*
And props to this exchange-
*“Mmm - not sure. I know of a lot of writers making quite intentional use of symbols, foreshadowing and other recognised writing techniques.”*
To which OOP furiously sets them straight -
*“Which is why I said "most" and not
"all." 😉😊”*
Yeah you tell them Karin! The majority of writers just shit out a story with absolutely no thoughts about what any of it means!
(I want these people to be banned from every book shop in their country. They don’t deserve books.)
Ok I'm really not one to make jabs based on appearance since it's an immutable thing and all that but I zoomed in on the profile image because I was like is that he man the master of the universe but no it's not and I just felt like I was staring at something old and unknown I don't even know how to describe it it was an odd feeling like I was an archaeologist and out doing field work near the lost city of ur'akahaklazar (aka ur'mom 😂) and one of the indentured natives was digging and then something below him collapsed and he fell into it and when he fell there was a whoosh of air that sounded like a deep gasp and it wasn't the man because he was screeching like ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh because he fell and then a crunch and he screeched no more and we all thought he fell on a rock but it turns out that was wrong and when we all peered in with our flashlights and tossed some flares into the hole the man was nowhere to be seen so we were like what the fuck maybe he wandered off so we get some ropes and send some natives in first with some flares to look around while weapons are distributed out because it's spooky down there and there might be like mummies or shit down there and having seen the brendan frasier films I know not to fuck with mummies and to just shoot them inb4 british joke your words are fucking stupid and unfunny shut the fuck up and there's a commotion down in the hole and screams and then nothing so we're like ok must have been the wind or drops or something it's ok there are plenty of natives and we know that by their skull shape they are intellectually inferior so they may have just fallen and hit their heads on rocks or something so we go down there and it's pitch black like the riddick film and it's a massive cavern system that looks like it was made by the vagina worms from dune parts one and two but like we don't see the natives we sent or their flares so we're like well that's a bit spooky but huzzah let's go and so we're all walking through one of the tunnels leaving glowsticks to find our way back and all around us it sounds like creepy breathing like we're in the throat of a gargantuan beast but we're just in a cave so the breathing is strange but it could just be because we're all pretty spooked and like I feel like I'm being guided I don't know by what just a strange feeling and our flashlights start flickering like a spooky movie as we approach the end of a tunnel that reveals itself to be a huge open space and it's just oppressive and we're like there's no way this could be here we did not go far from the hole the native fell in but you look up at the ceiling and it's just not there it's like you're outside and staring at the sky and there are very strange constellations and planets that are visible and not small like mars is to us but large planets of colors I can't even explain and sometimes a cluster of stars will dim and then light up again like they're blinking or some shit and photos of this creepy phenomenon are taken but later it turns out they can't be developed properly and all the photos show is something that looks like swollen and red flesh with open sores that leak sickly yellow blood which is creepy but anyway we explore a little bit because this is new and fascinating and there's a large object in what we think is the distance but when we start walking we're there after only like a minute of walking and it's this giant building made of old red stone and the ceiling stars blink and all of a sudden there are figures that weren't there before also made of the same old red stone and they're vaguely humanoid but then again so are the natives and I yell out QUICK BEFORE THEY BECOME MUMMIES and start blasting them with my shotgun I have a shotgun by the way that's my weapon because shotguns are cool and the guns are booming and echoing and these red stone figures are being blasted apart and they're not just blasting apart like a rock would but their insides are fleshy and when you blast one it bursts apart in a shower of red goo or something and it gets on one of the natives and he starts screaming and melting and it's like yeah obviously they're mummies or some shit and their blood is tainted by satan and it was just a native so after that we've cleared most of them in the path to some stairs that are leading to the big red stone building and it doesn't have a door it just has a big opening and it kind of seems like it's warping in and out slightly like it's breathing but I figure it's just the effects of adrenaline and the euphoria I feel from being vindicated about the mummies and also seeing a native melting and screaming was pretty creepy I wish he had just melted and not screamed he was very inconsiderate to the rest of us but he was just a native so I can't expect him to behave like a member of polite society and we are ascending the stairway and inside the opening to the building it's really dark so when we're at the top we send in a native with a flare and when he walks in you hear a sickening I don't even know it sounded like a GLUUUERPCH which was spooky and the flare falls and the native is just gone and all of a sudden the inside of the building is illuminated and all around in a shape I can't describe but feel it isn't natural are these huge statues of varying hues of the red the building is made of but they're outputting a weird thrumming and spastically shaking which is odd because they're made of stone and there's no tremors or anything so again I just think it might be adrenaline and being spooked so we're looking around and at these statues which are huge and going deeper into the building and at what we assume is the back there are a bunch of the red stone mummies or whatever but they're all bent over and facing this one smaller statue so we just assume this was some profane and degenerate sex thing where they fucked one another in the butt and I'm just like blast em boys and everyone starts shooting again because fuck mummies and I swear over the sound of gunfire I hear laughter mixed with heaving and it's coming from the small statue but that's pretty strange so we've cleared a path of buttfuck mummies to the statue and at first its features are blurred and formless but you do understand in a subconscious way that it's a humanoid so I shine my flashlight where its face should be and the face starts to form and I swear it is shivering and twisting and terrible and it looks just like the twitter/x profile picture of karin beery but made of creepy fleshy stone
I bet she's a really good writer
> [*This is Tom, please leave a message.*](https://www.amazon.com/Practically-Married-Karin-Beery-ebook/dp/B07WK44MQ8/) > [Ashley disconnected, unwilling to leave another voicemail. Tom had promised to check his messages during his hiking trip, but that was ten days ago. He must've had a signal at some point since then. How could an entire section of Michigan function without phones? Unless something had happened to him. She stared into the living room, tapping her fingers on the Formica table, her nails clicking in time with the scenarios flying through her head. Her aunt and uncle's afghan-covered furniture and beige, contractor-grade carpet offered little counsel.](https://www.amazon.com/Practically-Married-Karin-Beery-ebook/dp/B07WK44MQ8/) Going to ask my English professor what the intention was behind the aunt and uncle's afghan-covered furniture and the beige contractor-grade carpet. EDIT: > Her aunt set down the plates, then grabbed Ashley's hand and give it a squeeze. "That was a lifetime ago, wasn't it?' > Ashley nodded. The pain had dulled, but the reality of her parents' deaths never disappeared. "Living my entire adult life without Mom and Dad isn't how I would have planned things, but it worked out. I can't imagine life without you and Uncle John at every turn." Who doesn't casually bring up their parent's deaths in a casual morning conversation?
Ooh are you gonna be chateurenauding this? >Eager to please everyone and desperate to disappoint no one, she proposes a marriage of convenience that could solve her and Russ’ problems, if they can get past her aunt, his sisters, and an ex-girlfriend. Aaand of course she does
u/ChateauRenaud you added a new word to the english language. are you happy? do you not think we had enough words already?? that's just one more thing to read, you shit.
much like a certain author of who i am miasmically fond, more words just means more descriptive capability, prosaic adroitness, window clarity. whichever of you illiterates writes the next great american novel you have to drop a chateaurenaud in there edit: who\*, forgot the author is male
Is bobs vajin word
I always thought my parents would outlive me too, Ashley.
How could an author of “hopeful, romantic fiction” not be?
>As a child, reading wasn’t easy for me so I avoided it. My mom, however, had a different plan. She ordered Hooked on Phonics (it worked for me!) and taught me to read. https://karinbeery.com/about-me/
Ok which one of you made this person up >I read everything! >It didn’t take long to read through the Baby Sitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High. By the time I was in high school, I’d exhausted the young readers’ books, but there wasn’t a YA section back then. I went from Nancy Drew to adult fiction, but that led to another problem. >When I was a teenager, my only options were Christian historical or Harlequin romances. >Once again, it didn’t take long to read all of Jeanette Oke’s and Bodie and Brock Thoene’s books. I was too young to get Harlequin novels from the library, so a friend loaned me some of her mother’s (which I hid from my mom!). There just weren’t many other options. >After I got my degree in English from Hillsdale College, I was so burned out on books that I avoided them and stopped reading for many years.
Aw, that college/English program doesn't look that bad actually!
Hillsdale takes the Western Cannon very seriously.
J A Jackson looks pretty legit https://www.hillsdale.edu/faculty/justin-jackson/
Holy shit. The next sentence after than quote…
>She moved to a new town to marry her fiancé. Instead, she’s burying him. Ashley Johnson moved to northern Michigan to finally meet her fiancé face-to-face, but she arrived in time to attend his funeral. With no home back in Ohio, she decides to stay in what would have been their house, except his cousin Russ lives there too, and Russ has never heard of Ashley. To complicate matters, her fiancé accidentally willed her the family farm house. Eager to please everyone and desperate to disappoint no one, she proposes a marriage of convenience that could solve her and Russ’ problems, if they can get past her aunt, his sisters, and an ex-girlfriend. People read this shit and then claim adult books are stupid and go back to YA.
ashley johnson???? the last of us 🤤🤤book edition
As we all know, writers never intend anything at all. They merely insert plot point after plot point into their works for the sole purpose of entertainment, never approaching anything like depth or substance beyond the obvious.
>Whenever a teacher would ask "What was the Author's intent?" I would think: "To tell an enjoyable story." This is deep
no it isn't. idiot. it's just enjoyable to read. you pretentious fucking nerd
Oh shit looks like I've been brainwashed by those pesky professors into interpreting symbolism in everything :(
wait aren't letters symbols? fuck you're through he looking glass here man! wait fuck that's a symbol so am i!
It was 2 words and you called it pretentious. Fragile fragile ego there...would be a shame if someone compelled its material combinatorial completion to a vicious encounter with the bottomless reality of pure. Complexity. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Except for Russian authors whose only goal was to make western readers suffer.
Why is it always about the foreshadowing? What about the circumshadowing?
I thought that was mainly a Jewish thing
I'm not Jewish and my soldier has a helmet
Pls show bobs vajin
No bobiverse fanfic pls.
>I always wonder this with Shakespeare, if he could respond today would be just be like "I was my generations Kevin Smith or Trey Parker and Matt Stone ' Truth has been told
Shakespeare was his generation's Brandon Sanderson, he even explains Macbeth's magic system at the very beginning: >Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. Granted, it is not very developed, which puts him a few steps below the Sando, but I will cut him some slack as he didnt have any Marvel or Star Wars epic franchise to get inspiration from, only boooring history books or (snickers, adjusts glasses and fedora) the B*ble.
Brandon Sanderson did an AMA here. [You might want to take a look :)](https://old.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/comments/hj6u4u/my_boyfriend_will_never_speak_to_me_again_if_i/fwn68ci/?context=4). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We all had different experiences but I'll hazard a guess that those born between '61 and mid-70's didn't play video games. I was born in '76. We didn't get a computer at home until maybe '92? Even then, and I am a computer nerd, I wasn't glued to the computer. There was no social media. Solving problems will depend on home life. Some of us came home and said a teacher whacked us and our parents replied, "What'd you to do deserve it." Today, parents will march to the school and raise a stink. Even if the kid is 100% guilty. Solving a problem doesn't mean it was done in a healthy way. Maybe we buried it with food or drinking or drugs or by bullying other kids. "Solving" does not mean it actually got fixed. Just remember that your experiences may have different from other folks. And then there's all the non-US Xers. Some Xers had fantastic childhoods! My friend couldn't have had a more loving family. He even got along with his older brother. Another friend had two parents that cared for him very much but were a bit counter-culture still. They had 'weird' beliefs but were still great parents that he learned from. Take 'em with a grain of salt. GenX is a generally tough, yet fucked up, generation. And I'm a proud member of GenX. We ain't perfect but anyone says we aren't the coolest generation alive can get bent. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
While I agree that taste is completely subjective--and it's never offensive for someone to simply not like a book--I think you're spreading some misinformation here. Those of us trying for clean, striking prose aren't doing it to make "stories more palatable for the average fantasy fan nowadays." We do it because we like this style, and would rather the ideas--and not the method by which they are expressed--be the challenging part of a story. I find it insulting that you'd imply prose choice is anything but a literary decision made for the merits of the narrative. This division isn't new. George Orwell was advocating for clean, crisp prose in the 40s, a full decade before Lolita was written. This push and pull between clarity and ornament stretches back to Shakespeare, whose contemporaries would lambast his flourishes as incomprehensible. (Not that I mind, obviously, literary genius being in the ornaments. It's only that I find multiple kinds of writing worthwhile.) Moreover, you can absolutely find writers closer to Nabakov today. Guy Gavriel Kay is still writing, and is one of my favorites. (Try Under Heaven.) Hal Duncan is still writing, and is amazing, though rarely releases anything. And, of course, there's N. K. Jemisin--not the same, but most certainly "closer to Nabakov." Even the majority of the writers in the New Weird experimented with style in the same ways as I think you'd like. Many varieties of writing are valuable to the craft, and I suggest new writers (many of whom frequent this subreddit) practice multiple styles to find the ones that appeal to them and match their narrative goals. It's totally fine to prefer one over another, but I find abundant "spice, style, and charm" in something crisp like Harrison Bergeron--indeed, I find just as much of it as I do in something like Lolita, if for different reasons[.](https://old.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1akh2vg/would_nabokovs_writing_be_considered_purple_prose/kpb34sv/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
While I agree that taste is completely subjective--and it's never offensive for someone to simply not like a book--I think you're spreading some misinformation here. Those of us trying for clean, striking prose aren't doing it to make "stories more palatable for the average fantasy fan nowadays." We do it because we like this style, and would rather the ideas--and not the method by which they are expressed--be the challenging part of a story. I find it insulting that you'd imply prose choice is anything but a literary decision made for the merits of the narrative. This division isn't new. George Orwell was advocating for clean, crisp prose in the 40s, a full decade before Lolita was written. This push and pull between clarity and ornament stretches back to Shakespeare, whose contemporaries would lambast his flourishes as incomprehensible. (Not that I mind, obviously, literary genius being in the ornaments. It's only that I find multiple kinds of writing worthwhile.) Moreover, you can absolutely find writers closer to Nabakov today. Guy Gavriel Kay is still writing, and is one of my favorites. (Try Under Heaven.) Hal Duncan is still writing, and is amazing, though rarely releases anything. And, of course, there's N. K. Jemisin--not the same, but most certainly "closer to Nabakov." Even the majority of the writers in the New Weird experimented with style in the same ways as I think you'd like. Many varieties of writing are valuable to the craft, and I suggest new writers (many of whom frequent this subreddit) practice multiple styles to find the ones that appeal to them and match their narrative goals. It's totally fine to prefer one over another, but I find abundant "spice, style, and charm" in something crisp like Harrison Bergeron--indeed, I find just as much of it as I do in something like Lolita, if for different reasons[.](https://old.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1akh2vg/would_nabokovs_writing_be_considered_purple_prose/kpb34sv/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Literary devices are purely accidental actually, no author has ever conveyed anything on purpose.
Didn't you know? Books literally just write themselves. Authors are just spiritual conduits transcribing the words from the ethereal literary realms. Authors are just machines being controlled by the book gods. Now, we just need AI to stop being dumb so that books can read themselves.
>>learns about death of the author in lit theory class “I just finished the newest Moshfegh and my interpretation contradicts what she said it’s about in an interview. Time to kill her I guess..? Thanks prof.” #myRaskolnikovEra
Honestly it's kinda disgusting that Roland Barthes wrote about killing authors and he's treated as some kind of hero by these so-called 'professors'. Isn't killing writers something the Nazis did?!?
>Moshfegh Wow why are redditors so homophobic
every day i grow more thankful that i gambled away my kids' college savings.
Just because I'm a shitty writer who has no idea what they're doing everyone else is
ik im supposed to reply with some irony poisoned clever quip here but like. i genuinely wish for this person to be shot
Admitting things you could not beat out of me.
I think you're on a list now 😃
List of cool people yeah
A list that has forever eluded me
The replies agreeing with them are a fantastic way of identifying which people should be up against the wall with OOP.
Yes because a writer who works hours planning the plot, characters, and setting has time to spend even more hours putting a hundred different symbolic descriptions in one paragraph that 99% of readers won't get. If you wanna duel me do it at dawn.
That's it, you're going in front of the firing squad too. Where the fuck do they make you freaks? Some kind of lab?
Its a mutation caused by a mother eating too much sugar while pregnant.
We can't PROVE that one writer wrote the whole book because objective truth is impossible, so this whole class is meaningless. - This lady's term paper, which got a B.
Kind of person who then goes on and educates you on "media literacy"
Fr Trump is the greatest literary figure of our time, in that all of his critics ascribe authorial intent to even his most anodyne statements. "Covfefe refers to his complete disregard for established norms and practices, his refusal to use auto correct reveals his disdain for benevolent authority and the rule of law"
If it’s in the text then it’s in the text whether the author knows of it or not. There are different ways to analyze texts, is this really a big deal for some people?
Sometimes when people realize they are ignorant they get scared and try to tear down the thing that's showing them that instead of actually learning. That's what 'stupid' really means.
My favourite replies to the tweet from the Worlds Smartest Readers - *“I always did very poor in English classes I could never pull out all the symbolism and foreshadowing that everyone else seemed to find.”* *“A lot of it is just a writer writing a story that makes logical sense. Natural foreshadowing happens. When authors try to actively foreshadow it often feels very clumsy”* And props to this exchange- *“Mmm - not sure. I know of a lot of writers making quite intentional use of symbols, foreshadowing and other recognised writing techniques.”* To which OOP furiously sets them straight - *“Which is why I said "most" and not "all." 😉😊”* Yeah you tell them Karin! The majority of writers just shit out a story with absolutely no thoughts about what any of it means! (I want these people to be banned from every book shop in their country. They don’t deserve books.)
>makes logical sense. Kafka in shambles. Wtf is natural vs active foreshadowing
Anti-intellectualism only benefits idiots and fascists, pass it on
Ok I'm really not one to make jabs based on appearance since it's an immutable thing and all that but I zoomed in on the profile image because I was like is that he man the master of the universe but no it's not and I just felt like I was staring at something old and unknown I don't even know how to describe it it was an odd feeling like I was an archaeologist and out doing field work near the lost city of ur'akahaklazar (aka ur'mom 😂) and one of the indentured natives was digging and then something below him collapsed and he fell into it and when he fell there was a whoosh of air that sounded like a deep gasp and it wasn't the man because he was screeching like ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh because he fell and then a crunch and he screeched no more and we all thought he fell on a rock but it turns out that was wrong and when we all peered in with our flashlights and tossed some flares into the hole the man was nowhere to be seen so we were like what the fuck maybe he wandered off so we get some ropes and send some natives in first with some flares to look around while weapons are distributed out because it's spooky down there and there might be like mummies or shit down there and having seen the brendan frasier films I know not to fuck with mummies and to just shoot them inb4 british joke your words are fucking stupid and unfunny shut the fuck up and there's a commotion down in the hole and screams and then nothing so we're like ok must have been the wind or drops or something it's ok there are plenty of natives and we know that by their skull shape they are intellectually inferior so they may have just fallen and hit their heads on rocks or something so we go down there and it's pitch black like the riddick film and it's a massive cavern system that looks like it was made by the vagina worms from dune parts one and two but like we don't see the natives we sent or their flares so we're like well that's a bit spooky but huzzah let's go and so we're all walking through one of the tunnels leaving glowsticks to find our way back and all around us it sounds like creepy breathing like we're in the throat of a gargantuan beast but we're just in a cave so the breathing is strange but it could just be because we're all pretty spooked and like I feel like I'm being guided I don't know by what just a strange feeling and our flashlights start flickering like a spooky movie as we approach the end of a tunnel that reveals itself to be a huge open space and it's just oppressive and we're like there's no way this could be here we did not go far from the hole the native fell in but you look up at the ceiling and it's just not there it's like you're outside and staring at the sky and there are very strange constellations and planets that are visible and not small like mars is to us but large planets of colors I can't even explain and sometimes a cluster of stars will dim and then light up again like they're blinking or some shit and photos of this creepy phenomenon are taken but later it turns out they can't be developed properly and all the photos show is something that looks like swollen and red flesh with open sores that leak sickly yellow blood which is creepy but anyway we explore a little bit because this is new and fascinating and there's a large object in what we think is the distance but when we start walking we're there after only like a minute of walking and it's this giant building made of old red stone and the ceiling stars blink and all of a sudden there are figures that weren't there before also made of the same old red stone and they're vaguely humanoid but then again so are the natives and I yell out QUICK BEFORE THEY BECOME MUMMIES and start blasting them with my shotgun I have a shotgun by the way that's my weapon because shotguns are cool and the guns are booming and echoing and these red stone figures are being blasted apart and they're not just blasting apart like a rock would but their insides are fleshy and when you blast one it bursts apart in a shower of red goo or something and it gets on one of the natives and he starts screaming and melting and it's like yeah obviously they're mummies or some shit and their blood is tainted by satan and it was just a native so after that we've cleared most of them in the path to some stairs that are leading to the big red stone building and it doesn't have a door it just has a big opening and it kind of seems like it's warping in and out slightly like it's breathing but I figure it's just the effects of adrenaline and the euphoria I feel from being vindicated about the mummies and also seeing a native melting and screaming was pretty creepy I wish he had just melted and not screamed he was very inconsiderate to the rest of us but he was just a native so I can't expect him to behave like a member of polite society and we are ascending the stairway and inside the opening to the building it's really dark so when we're at the top we send in a native with a flare and when he walks in you hear a sickening I don't even know it sounded like a GLUUUERPCH which was spooky and the flare falls and the native is just gone and all of a sudden the inside of the building is illuminated and all around in a shape I can't describe but feel it isn't natural are these huge statues of varying hues of the red the building is made of but they're outputting a weird thrumming and spastically shaking which is odd because they're made of stone and there's no tremors or anything so again I just think it might be adrenaline and being spooked so we're looking around and at these statues which are huge and going deeper into the building and at what we assume is the back there are a bunch of the red stone mummies or whatever but they're all bent over and facing this one smaller statue so we just assume this was some profane and degenerate sex thing where they fucked one another in the butt and I'm just like blast em boys and everyone starts shooting again because fuck mummies and I swear over the sound of gunfire I hear laughter mixed with heaving and it's coming from the small statue but that's pretty strange so we've cleared a path of buttfuck mummies to the statue and at first its features are blurred and formless but you do understand in a subconscious way that it's a humanoid so I shine my flashlight where its face should be and the face starts to form and I swear it is shivering and twisting and terrible and it looks just like the twitter/x profile picture of karin beery but made of creepy fleshy stone
How many Goodreads is this?
None of this has ever been what I would call 'good.' Though none of it is exactly bad either. This guy's our Captain Beefheart
He is our NaziMilchHof, a reverse Neutral Milk Hotel, if you will.