Yet that terror was not fright, but a tremulous delight.

[callherblondie]

As a reader, I'm as guilty as the next person of sometimes not being able to fully articulate what I love to read, this is especially true in the case of fanfic because I hardly ever read it. However, a common complaint I've seen over the several fandoms I've been in is that a story reads like the writer wrote it with a thesaurus in his or her lap. That it's too purple-prosed. But I think this neglects the other side of the coin (and I'm not going to even get into a discussion how a lot of these critiques are just thinly veiled reactionary catcalls fueled by anti-intellectualism and populism): that some people truly do have a prodigious vocabulary amassed from years of reading voraciously, that some people are on a constant search to find the most incisive word to perfectly capture the very essence, all the facets and dimensions, of exactly what they wish to convey -- to dig out through the magma that brilliant, sharp diamond of a word that reflects and flashes from each angle every aspect of what needs to be said. The simplest word is not always the most appropriate. The most common word is not always the one that does the most justice to the thought, the idea. When used with assurance and an intimate knowledge gained through reading, reading, and more reading, maximalist writing can have as much power, as much of a punch to the cerebral cortex, as writing stripped bare. When in the right hands and still exercised with knowledge and subtlety, dense, complex writing with vocabulary that pushes the boundaries of everyday usage can exert a result more minimalist and undisguised with greater clarity and emotional resonance than some minimalist piece.

I think this story is a purely distilled example of what I'm talking about, what I love to read. No fluff, no insincere emotions, no hint of self-aware preciousness, written in cut-glass challenging prose with a tone like a fever dream but with the sum still so raw, so true, so cruel and bittersweet. This is the kind of fic I love to read because it's not a fucking fic-puppy with big sad angsty eyes or a fluffy cute grin, it's a wolf with slavering teeth and it clamps down on your mind, shakes you out of your senses and right back into them, and leaves you with punctures so that you'll remember the story after you read it. It's also Naruto fic -- a show I don't watch, that I barely have any knowledge of, but it doesn't really matter because that's how incredible it is. I read it ages ago after having randomly stumbled across it, I don't even remember how (probably from a random rec), and I've been trying to formulate a proper bit of feedback that does justice and honors the story itself...but I can't. So I'm just going to encourage others to read it and leave the author some well-deserved feedback. I mean, I just cannot resist a story with lines like this:

He can dismantle the mechanics of his desires, let them run like water, and rebuild them again in the blink of an eye, but that doesn't make him any less prey to them.

Okay, now I feel better about being too dumb to leave the writer feedback because I have to think that reccing is better than nothing. :/

Speaking of reading, I started rereading Paradise Lost again tonight (after I finished watching the Final Four championship game, wow, what a game it was). As always when I read it, I'm taken aback by how feverish, yet compelling it is. I was disappointed to discover that the versions of Claire de Duras's novels Edouard and Ourika on Project Gutenberg are in their original French and even more disappointed that my grasp of French is beyond basic and I'm totally unable to read them without translation. And thus, the search will continue for translated versions of these online.*sigh*

I'm especially desperate to read Ourika because of the line "Ourika has been placed into Society without its consent; Society will avenge this indiscretion" because as I was working on the SHINee Regency fic, I randomly thought of this line from an excerpt of the novel that I had once read somewhere and just had to look up again, for it's a line that neatly and perfectly sums up Key's situation in the fic (replace 'Ourika' with 'Ormonde' and it would still be incredibly apt): how, because he is half-French in the story and also a peer of the realm due to patrilineality, and therefore, foisted on English high society -- on the ton -- without its consent, the ton is champing at the bit to bear witness (and effect, if they are able to) his downfall since they perceive that he has no respect for their social sovereignty...hm, how very similar to netizens they are, lol. And to further relate my reading to kpop, since everything can be related to kpop it seems haha, I was thinking of rereading John Fowles's stuff as my next reading project and then I randomly thought of the character of Jojo in The Magus and wondered if SHINee's song JoJo bore any correlation? Since Jonghyun, being the lit nerd he supposedly is with his mentions of Camus and Kafka, may have perhaps read a translation of The Magus too? But then I remembered that was a rather fanciful and improbable thought since he didn't write JoJo. Still...it gave me a chuckle to contemplate for a moment. XD

In other news, L.A. and Anaheim shows for Wonder Girls/2PM/2AM? I am so there! West Coast/California people on my friends list, are you going? Hope to see you all! :D