(no subject)
Reading Banville is like sipping a favorite milkshake. Devour it too quickly, and you lose all sense of plot and the thing's importance -- and not to mention, later on, a stomacheache. Drinking in the words slowly, however, begets much more appreciation and satisfaction.
I still don't really understand why I call Banville something close to my favorite author, when I've only ever completed one book by him -- and it was a required reading for class. Maybe it was because I'd been reading fanfic and/or trashy/popular beach reads for so long? I've checked out a couple of his other works, but I always seem to be fiddling somewhere in the pages of the beginning. Banville tends to ramble, and I'm usually impatient for fiction (books that I choose for myself, I mean) that ramble. So lately I've just decided to slow down -- and take his prose one word at a time.
It'll probably be worth it. He introduces a couple of obscure words from time to time, but more importantly I enjoy the great, unimaginable attention to detail. Banville has a great ear. He pays much attention to rhythm, which might actually be part of the reason I feel like he always rambles too much. (You need to insert those extra words to get just the right beat.)
But to take that lyrical prose and turn it -- evolve it -- into a compelling story, with compelling characters and a compelling (exciting, surprising, innovative?) plot is something more. That's kind of what I'd like my own writing to be like, some day.
I still don't really understand why I call Banville something close to my favorite author, when I've only ever completed one book by him -- and it was a required reading for class. Maybe it was because I'd been reading fanfic and/or trashy/popular beach reads for so long? I've checked out a couple of his other works, but I always seem to be fiddling somewhere in the pages of the beginning. Banville tends to ramble, and I'm usually impatient for fiction (books that I choose for myself, I mean) that ramble. So lately I've just decided to slow down -- and take his prose one word at a time.
It'll probably be worth it. He introduces a couple of obscure words from time to time, but more importantly I enjoy the great, unimaginable attention to detail. Banville has a great ear. He pays much attention to rhythm, which might actually be part of the reason I feel like he always rambles too much. (You need to insert those extra words to get just the right beat.)
But to take that lyrical prose and turn it -- evolve it -- into a compelling story, with compelling characters and a compelling (exciting, surprising, innovative?) plot is something more. That's kind of what I'd like my own writing to be like, some day.