Natasha Romanoff hated pierogies — but more than that, she hated lies.- It is a well-established maxim in comedy that some words are inherently funnier than others. There's a reason that the standard joke is "a _______ the size of a Buick" and not "the size of a Lincoln" or "the size of a Camaro": "Byoo-ick" is just funnier to say. (You can even break it down into its phonemes and note that it starts with a plosive B and ends with a K sound.) "Pierogies" is one of those funny words. It sounds funny, and the object it refers to is funny. "Lies"? Not funny. To say that Natasha hated lies, but more than that, hated pierogies, would be to create a serious atmosphere and then puncture it with a funny word — a standard formula for a joke. To say that she hated pierogies, but more than that, hated lies? Putting the lies at the end makes that a serious sentence. A serious sentence that for some reason has the word "pierogies" in it.
Why I hate these things: - Twilight by Stephanie Meyer - One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - Ulysses by James Joyce Two are loved. Two are reviled. Structures are similar. Setups are identical. I’d never given much thought to how I would die — though I’d had reason enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
Weeeell, yes and no. A lot of literary criticism is bogus and a lot comes down to personal taste, but I don't think we need to throw out the whole book on literary techniques. It might help to analyse these things in a little more detail. I wouldn't actually call that Twilight opener a bad sentence. You're right, it is very similar to the opening of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and I think they're both good. I've never read Twilight, but you have to hesitate before taking a swipe at something so popular. The plot or the characterisation or whatever may be nonsense, but clearly Meyer has to be doing something right, and from this example at least it looks like she can string a sentence together. In a similar vein no-one is going to call Harry Potter especially deep (and a lot of literary critics did thumb their noses at it), but Rowling knows how to tell a story. I'd contest the comparison of The Da Vinci Code and Ulysses, though. I've never read The Da Vinci Code and I hate Joyce, so I'm only going to talk about the sentences you've given as examples. You're right in that both quotes are attempting to accomplish the same thing, but I think I can make a fair case for why that Joyce quote is better than the Brown quote. The Brown quote is demonstrably bad writing — "Renowned curator Jacques Saunière" is extremely clumsy exposition. The whole sentence is a bit of an info-dump that doesn't give us much to engage with on a personal level — it's just a catalogue of job titles and locations. On the other hand the Joyce quote is much more personal. It describes Mulligan as if we're seeing him ourselves. We know what he looks like, we know where he's standing, and because we know what he's carrying we also know what he was doing when he was interrupted. It's subtler, it's better constructed, and it's more engaging because it is more relatable on a personal level.
No, I'm perfectly happy throwing out the whole book on literary techniques. It all goes back to Bulwer-Lytton: Sure - that ain't great. But it's evocative. And it's 160 years old. And, you know, fuck off to everyone: "Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police..." That ain't bad. Compare to James Fucking Fenimore Cooper: But Cooper is shoved down the throats of high school students everywhere while Bulwer-Lytton gets the shit kicked out of him by smarmy, know-it-all English majors every goddamn year. For the record: The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold The arch-enchanters wand! — itself is nothing! — But taking sorcery from the master-hand To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword — States can be saved without it! - Edward Bulwer-Lytton You might not call the Twilight opener a bad sentence, but the number of people hating on Twilight outnumbers the number of people living in the Western hemisphere. Do they hate on Marquez? No, they hate on you for not having read Marquez. Likewise, it is the most common thing in the world to hate the fuck out of Da Vinci Code without having read the Da Vinci Code. And that's the fundamental shape of these "contests" - "write something that you'd make fun of other people for reading." And they all have unsold novels, and they all have a bookshelf full of shit "you haven't heard of" (even when you have) and they're all very, very proud that they have a very good degree from a very good school that doesn't provide them a very good living. No, seriously. Fuck this shit. It's the attitude that makes "literature" "anything you wouldn't read for fun."It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary way.
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
I've never read any of the Twighlight books but if they're as good as A Hundred Years of Solitude, sign me up. It's not the first sentence that matters so much as it is the next few thousand that follow.
I don't need to read the Da Vinci code to hate the Da Vinci code, I just need a summary and some knowledge of cryptography. Or even just to know what semiotics is. I get that this is a conversation about style, but more of the hate I see for the Da Vinci Code is over not having done his homework.
That's not a defense of Dan Brown, it just means he has poor taste in kooks. There is crazy awesome and there is crazy boring, and even Garth Ennis couldn't make the grail stuff fun when he used it in Preacher. Now, give me novel about Dion Fortune, Ian Flemming and Aleister Crowley summoning King Arthur on the white cliffs of Dover to stop Operation Sea Lion and I'll forgive all sorts of awkward prose.
How 'bout a book about the founder of JPL using Crowleyan magick to summon a storm to destroy L. Ron Hubbard and his ex-girlfriend? Or a book about the guy who wrote James and the Giant Peach spying on the US for Britain and influencing the American war effort by flirting with Eleanor Roosevelt? Best I can do. They both happen to be true, so I doubt there's a decent work that puts them together, but you never know. I won't recommend Da Vinci Code to anyone. It's basically a Rocky & Bullwinkle novel. But as Rocky & Bullwinkle novels go, it has the most Jesus in it of any I know.
Haha, you don't hate the book on literary techniques, you hate the people quoting from it. I totally agree, I'd much rather read Bulwer-Lytton than Cooper and I have very little interest in what other people think I ABSOLUTELY MUST read. If you're surrounded by people bullshitting you about literature, then maybe you want to find more friends who aren't snobs.
Easily my favorite:It was a time of darkness in the land of Gath-ka’noug. But then, out of the darkness, there shone a brilliant light. And the name of that light was: Horick the Elf.
Tangentially, anyone who doesn't know who Adam Cadre is should really play through some of his interactive fiction. Along with people like Emily Short and Andrew Plotkin, he has had one of the biggest impacts on where the field is right now, and what people are trying to accomplish with modern IF. A good starting point would be Photopia, which is just a beautiful piece.