Posts by Paul Litterick
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Give me Stan Lee over Ian Fucking McEwan, I guess, is my point. I don't care if one wrote for children, one for adults. The inescapable fact of the matter is that one is interesting, the other one just isn't.
That is not a fact; it is an opinion, and you know it.
And who said it was anything about making the peasants work? I really don't see how these classics of genre fiction are reading for pleasure. It all seems like work to me. You read one; it is long, long, long. The plot is complex. You finish that and there is another in the series, then another, then another. It is all easy money for the publishers, of course. The reader is trapped in a cycle of production, one blasted sequel after another.
How about reading something short, that stands on its own; something written by someone from a different place and time. How about Calvino? Italian chap, wrote short stories.
How about reading poetry? Larkin is a good read. How about essays?
I would rather read something that can be picked up second hand or found on Internet than be part of some publishing empire's machine.
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E M Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, responded to the claim that a novel was a good story with "oh dear." By which he meant that a novel should be so much more than its story, which he regarded as something of an unfortunate necessity.
Besides, those of us who read English public school novels (a distinct genre, with boys' and girls' sub-categories) as children recognised the Harry Potter stories as entirely derivative.
I find it slightly disconcerting that adults now read stories written for children, while adult fiction is largely unread.
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You are right, of course, Peter. I suspect that what will be canonical languishes, at present, in the "none of the above" category. As long as it is not Harry fooking Potter, I shall be content.
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This will not end...
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Mine was made without reference to yours, and was based on an original idea by T S Eliot. I had to look yours up on Internet.
You will not provoke me with your claims of topicality.
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The difference now is really the airtime and the affirmation these people are getting.
Fox broke through the boundary of constraint which the older channels had maintained. It makes no pretence of neutrality or balance; it is partisan television. It will take any opinion on the right and run with it. Talk radio is the same. Internet is open season, every day.
Right wing opinions are ideal for modern media. They are simple, aggressive and emotive. They fit nicely into little packets of prejudice which can be digested in seconds. The rolling news narrative of Fox and friends is that of a conspiracy of smart liberal people above and a seething criminal underclass below. In between is Fox man, blue collar and blue state, who is as mad as hell and is not going to take it any more.
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We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellarShape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion; -
BTW, a meme is born. I foresee the phrase "normal people don't do that kind of crap and so don't know of the other meanings" having a bright future on this System.
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Get a big enough set of people following any political cause and yes there will be some whackjobs.
Normal people don't do that kind of crap and so don't know of the other meanings.
By which I mean that extremist political opinions like Beck's encourage extremists. Someone who conjures stories of conspiracies is bound to provoke some people to take violent action against the supposed conspirators.