*inarticulate snarl of fury*

[neadods]

I've been reading over lunch. And now I really want to hunt this author down. Y'see, I've reached the point where the female character referred to in my previous post is finally seen by a neutral third party, a woman who has no baggage and no preconceptions about her. And how does this character look through fresh eyes?

"A heavyset woman..."
"The big woman turned..."
"...her pudgy hands out..."

By my count, this powerful, influential character (she leads the Club with an iron fist, constantly wins prizes, and is married to a younger, more handsome atavar of Alan Greenspan) has been called regal thrice, elaborately/expensively coiffed twice, pretty once, and fat 11 times.

I officially have a problem with this. This is the only character whose weight has been mentioned, and who, we know from the back cover, will be the murder victim. What did the author's notes say, "butcher the cow"?

And the pisser is, it's otherwise fairly decent. The setting is dead accurate and the bones of the plot - it's shaping up to be a political thriller disguised as a cozy - are connecting to a decent skeleton. I could have glossed over the gratuitous details like lip gloss color. But this goes well beyond my distaste for excess adjectives and into hot button territory.

Comments

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

Right there with you. *scowl*

Makes you wonder just what the author's issues are -- which of course isn't exactly conducive to staying engaged in the story, either.

Papa Hemingway knew it all

[banazir.livejournal.com]

Yep. Adjectives are sometimes best used sparingly if at all.

The only alledgedly "purple" author I can tolerate lately is Julian May. (I don't share this view, but I've read a few reviews calling her this.) Anne Rice really does get purple, at least metaphorically.

If you want to go there, though, Neal Stephenson probably bears the brunt of judgement as well. In Cryptonomicon he actually has Randy Waterhouse, one of the main protagonists, assign Tolkien identities to unnamed or obliquely referenced characters: "Kivistik was obviously a hobbit; he loved to give after-dinner speeches". "three dwarves bearing heavy electronic devices came out of the safe house", etc.

At any rate: people fixate on attributes that are foremost in their minds, for better or worse. It becomes the primary referent, sometimes. Is the third party the narrator? (i.e., is the woman's name unknown?) I'm guessing the author doesn't go for nicknames or cutesy allusive taxonomizations as above?

--
Banazir

Re: Papa Hemingway knew it all

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Anne Rice really does get purple, at least metaphorically.

Oooo, don't start me on Anne Rice - she's a whole 'nother banquet of wrong, in my eyes. Although that whole Amazon.com thing she got involved in recently gave me hours of fun and entertainment.

As for adjectives - Ray Bradbury writes almost exclusively in them, but he manages to create a lyrical dream world. This works fine with me; there's no sense of having the action interrupted when it's all delivered as an appeal to the senses over the mind. Adjectives as narrative are find with me. Adjectives interrupting the narrative are moderately annoying - see the post that kicked off all this - but I was willing to concede that I just wasn't approaching in the proper frame of mind.

But this is just so... so grade school! You could rewrite the original passage as "The fat woman carefully put makeup on her fat face, her fat hips drooping over the edges of the chair. She used to be hot before she got fat, and now that she was, he was more interested in skinny chicks." It says the exact same thing - with 2 less insults along the way, and sounds just like a grade schooler explaining why her former best friend is now persona non grata.

The name of the character is known - I'm holding back many of the identifying details because I'm technically not supposed to be airing opinions before the reviews are written - but the chunks quoted are all lifted directly from the text. And I've gone back to count, to be sure that I'm not so sensitive to the one issue that it only seems unbalanced. It really is twisted that way, with her weight being mentioned more than twice as often as any other attribute.

Something else I'm going to bring up in my review is that this character is being dehumanized well before the murder. Usually when a character has "corpse-to-be" stamped on their forehead, it's because the reader has seen them jerking other characters around, being high-maintenance and demanding, and demonstrating cruelty. In this case, she has done nothing. Literally. We readers have not seen through her eyes, have not even seen her in action; we've only seen her through the eyes of other characters who find her unattractive or in their way, or both.

And yet, while she has done nothing to deserve the murder coming, readers cannot sympathize with her either, because we know her only in the context of those who view her with disgust or curiosity.

Hmmm... I have to work on that argument. I think you know what I'm trying to say, though? When she dies, there will be no sense of relief (as she doesn't "deserve it") nor pity (because the author shows her no pity).

(Y'know, this book gets rave reviews on Amazon. Maybe something in me *is* broken. But my perceptions are valid, and I'm going to air 'em!)

Instant Rice for the Grade School Soul

[banazir.livejournal.com]

As for adjectives - Ray Bradbury writes almost exclusively in them, but he manages to create a lyrical dream world.
Oh, yes, that's true - I had forgotten.
In Fahrenheit 451 there's a rather deliberate dystopian bleakness about it, so it's harder to credit. I do remember the lyricism in Something Wicked This Way Comes and especially The Martian Chronicles, which I read around the same time. Aldous Huxley does a similar thing with certain visual metaphors that sometimes take a few scannings to pick up, or at least they did when I read Brave New World a year later.

This works fine with me; there's no sense of having the action interrupted when it's all delivered as an appeal to the senses over the mind. Adjectives as narrative are [fine] with me.
This is true. I'm curious: what do you think of McCaffrey's scene descriptions, or May's, if you've read them?

Adjectives interrupting the narrative are moderately annoying - see the post that kicked off all this - but I was willing to concede that I just wasn't approaching in the proper frame of mind.
Well, it's definitely more jarring for me when the author is bent on hammering me over the head with a distinguishing feature: "Did I mention that Armand had curly auburn hair that casecaded past his shoulders? I don't think you appreciate just how curly and how auburn this hair is; let me describe it for you for a few more paragraphs."

Something else I'm going to bring up in my review is that this character is being dehumanized well before the murder.
[...]
And yet, while she has done nothing to deserve the murder coming, readers cannot sympathize with her either, because we know her only in the context of those who view her with disgust or curiosity.
I see what you mean about the "presumed provocation" in murder detective novels and other mystery stories. It's definitely a short cut of the intellectually lazy variety to use that kind of ostracism or exclusion to destroy the victim.

In most murder mysteries I've read and liked, the victim's character is fleshed out even when he is introduced as a corpse. Christie's Ten Little Indians and Sayers' Murder Must Advertise come to mind. I've read a few where the fleshing-out didn't happen and not only did the story turn into a chestnut (e.g., Sayers' Whose Body?), but it was one that I couldn't wait to finish and put away.

Sometimes there's just no substitute for doing your homework.

As for stereotyping - in SF, there are so many slot-filler stereotypes that it isn't even funny. Even the work of Terry Brooks, which I like (except for the unrealistic conversational dialogue I rant about at every opportunity), suffers from this. David Eddings cranks out so many glaring stereotypes that he should copy-write for [your presidential candidate of choice here]: nearly all I remember about the penultimate battle of The Belgariad is that the Good Mongol Khan killed the Annoyingly Dehumanized Tyrant-General (or is that Annoyingly Humanized Orc Lord?) in single combat. Most irritating.

Let's hear it for homework, and three-dimensional characters!

--
Banazir

Re: Instant Rice for the Grade School Soul

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I do remember the lyricism in Something Wicked This Way Comes and especially The Martian Chronicles, which I read around the same time.

Dandelion Wine (a favorite) is another example; From the Dust Returned is even moreso. (As he gets older, he's sliding into incomprehensibility - Let's Kill Constance was starting to be muddled.) I'll confess that the only McCaffreys I've read are the dragon books, which I enjoyed, but compared to Bradbury the prose is pretty straightforward.

Well, it's definitely more jarring for me when the author is bent on hammering me over the head with a distinguishing feature:

Which is my problem right now. I've become so oversensitized to the fat-bashing of Catherine that it's very hard to look at the rest of the book objectively. Unfortunately, that's my job. Fortunately, I'm allowed to say *exactly* what I think of a book!

In most murder mysteries I've read and liked, the victim's character is fleshed out even when he is introduced as a corpse.

Exactly - there was a reason the victim died, they have to be part of the plot. Alas, that too has been fumbled here. All the characters are running around assuming that the husband was the target and her death was accidental... but the readers have already slogged through 9 chapters of characters thinking how much better life would be if she wasn't in their way.

Maybe I'm jaundiced - this job has me reading a lot more crap than I'd give time to if I was reading purely for pleasure - but the bar seems to be set low for a lot of cozies, as though a gimmick and a love interest were really more important than a well-constructed, logical puzzle.

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

Uh, what is the name of this tome?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Officially, I'm not supposed to be talking about it (that's why I've f-locked this discussion) until the review hits Reviewing the Evidence. Don't worry... it'll be VERY clear which one it is when the review hits!

[chickwriter.livejournal.com]

oh, dear freakin' almighty ARRGH

Words fail me.