iceinyourmusic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iceinyourmusic) wrote2005-02-22 01:46 pm
iceinyourmusic) wrote2005-02-22 01:46 pm
the news today oh boy
Young President Bush is visiting the old world and our President will have the chance to talk to him for a minute! One whole minute! That'll show him! It would also be funny to say something about how a minute every four years or so is all that is needed to keep the diplomatic relations right, but that would mean ignoring the fact that we'd rather have a domestic snafu about our relationship with America over an actual relationship with America any day.
Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" is, as I tried to say the other night, relentless object porn, and to some extent stylistic porn, in such a way that by the 2nd reading it was impossible for me to see any cigar, candle, or thrusting piston for a cigar, or a candle, or a thrusting piston. But it's also a wonderfully dark, sick read in other ways, so you should check it out. (And tell me whether the mistake about the order of the previous wives is something the editor missed or meaningful or a sign of my going crazy.)
The trouble with Atwood, on the other hand, is that she writes in this seemingly very transparent manner, but when you really get down to it, everything turns slippery and impossible to pin down. Exhibit A: "Bluebeard's Egg" and Lady Oracle. I don't understand what they're really about. Exhibit B: This is what I love about Alias Grace. Exhibit C: I still feel that this is what The Blind Assassin tries for but lets the reader down on.
The thing about The Blind Assassin, as far as I can see, is that as soon as you get the Twist, which you do and, I think, are supposed to get pretty early on in the novel, the whole structure lives and dies with Iris, and I find Iris neither particularly sympathetic nor actually interesting. And when all the other characters become, likewise, mere extensions and/or reflections of Iris' sweet, sweet ego, it does explain and excuse (necessitate, even) their one-dimensionality, but it still doesn't make them very good. Good lord, that romantic rebel guy (Alex, was he?) - the way he's portrayed, I couldn't stop for a moment hoping that he would just be hit on the head with a heavy object already, just like I couldn't stop hoping, against all odds and then some, that there would be something, something there to rescue the poor vapid ghost of Laura, give her some little bit of that voice she's, in a way, robbed of during the progression of the novel. (The other thing is that I don't buy The Blind Assassin the novel within the novel as such an astonishing ground-breaking piece of art as one should, perhaps. There's a bit of irony there, but, I think, not enough.)
And it is a very very skillfully constructed piece of writing, but I can't really like it. Except to whatever extent is necessary in order for me to be able to spend lots of time thinking about it.
Stereotyping countries out of the newsfeed, chapter Sweden: Sometimes they have black-outs. Sometimes people escape from prison. Sometimes both.
Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" is, as I tried to say the other night, relentless object porn, and to some extent stylistic porn, in such a way that by the 2nd reading it was impossible for me to see any cigar, candle, or thrusting piston for a cigar, or a candle, or a thrusting piston. But it's also a wonderfully dark, sick read in other ways, so you should check it out. (And tell me whether the mistake about the order of the previous wives is something the editor missed or meaningful or a sign of my going crazy.)
The trouble with Atwood, on the other hand, is that she writes in this seemingly very transparent manner, but when you really get down to it, everything turns slippery and impossible to pin down. Exhibit A: "Bluebeard's Egg" and Lady Oracle. I don't understand what they're really about. Exhibit B: This is what I love about Alias Grace. Exhibit C: I still feel that this is what The Blind Assassin tries for but lets the reader down on.
The thing about The Blind Assassin, as far as I can see, is that as soon as you get the Twist, which you do and, I think, are supposed to get pretty early on in the novel, the whole structure lives and dies with Iris, and I find Iris neither particularly sympathetic nor actually interesting. And when all the other characters become, likewise, mere extensions and/or reflections of Iris' sweet, sweet ego, it does explain and excuse (necessitate, even) their one-dimensionality, but it still doesn't make them very good. Good lord, that romantic rebel guy (Alex, was he?) - the way he's portrayed, I couldn't stop for a moment hoping that he would just be hit on the head with a heavy object already, just like I couldn't stop hoping, against all odds and then some, that there would be something, something there to rescue the poor vapid ghost of Laura, give her some little bit of that voice she's, in a way, robbed of during the progression of the novel. (The other thing is that I don't buy The Blind Assassin the novel within the novel as such an astonishing ground-breaking piece of art as one should, perhaps. There's a bit of irony there, but, I think, not enough.)
And it is a very very skillfully constructed piece of writing, but I can't really like it. Except to whatever extent is necessary in order for me to be able to spend lots of time thinking about it.
Stereotyping countries out of the newsfeed, chapter Sweden: Sometimes they have black-outs. Sometimes people escape from prison. Sometimes both.