Saturday, May 23, 2009

[fiction] why some of it works and the rest falls flat


It would be mighty nice if my own amateur literary efforts were not included in this analysis as they might not survive the fierce spotlight of scrutiny. This is intended merely as a spotlight on professional fiction.

Each to his or her own but much of Hardy falls flat for me, the bulk of the modern authors do too and I’d like to know why. Once we’ve eliminated the factors of it not being a genre we enjoy, not liking the author him/herself and representing a point of view we don’t subscribe to, then what makes a good piece of writing?

What makes it satisfy us, in other words?

There are two Holmes stories I like to quote to students. One is generally regarded as being a superior work and the other falls flat.

The Bruce-Partington Plans

At last, shortly after nine o'clock, there arrived a messenger with a note: Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jimmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H.

It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the dim, fog-draped streets. I stowed them all discreetly away in my overcoat and drove straight to the address given. There sat my friend at a little round table near the door of the garish Italian restaurant.

"Have you had something to eat? Then join me in a coffee and curação. Try one of the proprietor's cigars. They are less poisonous than one would expect. Have you the tools?"


"They are here, in my overcoat."


"Excellent. Let me give you a short sketch of what I have done, with some indication of what we are about to do."

The Mazarin Stone

"And Mr. Holmes knows it?"

"Mr. Holmes always knows whatever there is to know."


"Well, we'll hope he won't fail and that Lord Cantlemere will be confounded. But I say, Billy, what is that curtain for across the window?"


"Mr. Holmes had it put up there three days ago. We've got something funny behind it."


Billy advanced and drew away the drapery which screened the alcove of the bow window.
Dr. Watson could not restrain a cry of amazement.

What allows the former excerpt to live and the latter to seem forced and wooden?

Well, the choice of vocab for a start, attempting characters the author had little experience of, the calibre of the plot and perhaps the overuse of adjectives in annoying ways – these might be some factors.

For me though, the one overriding factor is the author’s engagement with the subject matter, for if he can’t be clattering over those cold cobblestones himself, how can he expect us to?

Which is possibly why SF and humour are so difficult to bring off satisfactorily. How does Douglas Adams, for example, get away with it?

Plenty of people did not care for him much, but then there is a huge difference between disliking somebody -- maybe even disliking them a lot -- and actually shooting them, strangling them, dragging them through the fields and setting their house on fire. It was a difference which kept the vast majority of the population alive from day to day.
Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man had split before. Thus was the Empire forged.

Why do people who attempt to emulate Adams or set up Marvin the Paranoid Android fan fiction not actually succeed?

These are some of the questions puzzling mankind this day.

4 comments:

  1. Perhaps one of the things about this is being the first who comes up with an idea- Adams is so amusing in part because he is so surprising whereas everyone after him seems like amateurs.

    I agree there is a verve to the best writing- in a sense Doyle loses that in the Mazarin Stone- I'm not sure it is precisely related to enthusiasm (afterall Doyle hated writing about Holmes during the period he wrote most of his best stuff and many fan fic writers love writing about what they write about).

    Talent is such a nebulous concept and ultimately I suspect that the real truth is that some people can write like Doyle or like Adams and some can't.

    On Hardy, don't you find his descriptions of 'Wessex' very beautiful- I love the bit at the beggining of the Woodlanders when he describes, almost like a camera, the move of his narrative in on Marty's cottage.

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  2. Interesting thoughts. Why, for instance, is Jane Austen so successful when all the plots arre nearly the same? - Style, understated humour and LIKING her characters, I think.

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  3. Is the second one a genuine Conan Doyle? It does sound dreadful.

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