Weekly Entertainment

[new_to_liirness]

Since everyone THREADED LIKE MADMEN yesterday, I'm gonna make this simple.

Book recs: things you've read lately, old favorites, things you can't believe aren't represented in the game, whatever you'd like. Tell me what to reeeeeead.

Comments

[new_to_liirness]

I've always wondered if it was social or personal pressure that caused apologies in things. Whether, really, is it just society or is it the same kind of unspoken of fear that makes us say "I'll walk around, not under, the ladder; no really, it's just safer, right? And you shouldn't open an umbrella inside anyway, it's silly."

And as I've never done that much religious schooling (other than going to a Lutheran high school), I always saw it (the ending) as kind of a metaphor. All the fun and awesome and interesting and personality gets squished, painfully, into doctrine, flattened between the pages of history into something bloodless. You had this Character and now he's just Jesus. And that change over is so painful to read, I have to think that maybe it was part of the book itself. It was meant to hurt, to make a point, considering what the rest of the book is and represents. I kind of saw it as him asking the world at large, "why this sudden switch from being hip and groovy to... this?"

...but I see books very oddly. It's one of the reasons I 1. like Son of a Witch and 2. defend it to the death despite lots of obvious problems.

[unddann]

That's an interesting perspective, and one I hadn't thought of. I think it would work better for me if it weren't quite so abrupt? If we saw more of the duty of being the Christ dragging down Joshua's vibrant personality.

Of course, I also think that he could have been true to the synoptic Gospels without losing the energy of the character. People think that because we have the Gospels, the story is completely told and there's nothing that could be added, but if you ever actually read the things? They're drier than hell. The story is there, but it's so sunk within the two thousand year old language and lofty parables that it's practically obliterated. The Gospels are about the message of Jesus, primarily, and about other people's reactions to Jesus. There is very little about the man, himself.

Even without losing the focus on the message and the reactions, you can still retell the gospels (or at least one at a time) without lobotomizing your main character. Just look at Godspell. I'd point to JCS, but, well. Pilate and Judas totally make it through that one way better than JC does. ;D

[new_to_liirness]

I blame the Innocet muse up there, but I always tend to look at a book as an experience, which sounds so lame but it's true. I mean, I pull back from, like, the House of Leaves level of craziness (...and there is nothing on this earth that will make me make that first word blue, NOTHING) but I like when the whole book kind of functions to tell the story, not just what happens but in a larger context. The phrasing, the wording, the tone, even how the book functions. I saw the abruptness in there as being used to make it hurt, really let you see the difference. A gradual pull down has more drama, but an abrupt cut has more oomph. I guess I see it as just having to be intentional just because the extremity of the change; we know he can write this character and we know he feels comfortable messing around with the ideas and preconceptions of Christianity, so why would he start NOW? kind of question.

I can't speak for the synoptic Gospels as I haven't read them. ^_^

[unddann]

Honestly, when reading, I'm often much more focused on character and how that tells the story. I think that -- and mind you, I haven't reread the book since shortly after it was published -- the abruptness seemed to be too much of an out of character move, in Lamb. Part of it may be that it's Biff's perception of everything, and lord knows that sometimes friends that you know well can seem to change at the drop of a hat and for not much of a reason, but there didn't seem to be a reason for the change in Joshua other than "this is how it goes in the gospels", which is a large part of why I dislike it.

[new_to_liirness]

Oh, I didn't like it and I agree it was too hamhandedly done, but I could see what he might have been going for.

When I write, I tend to be very character-based. When I read, well, it depends on what they're doing. I can't say I like one thing or another, but I will say that I will read a bad book for a good character, but I will not read a good book if I can't stand the character, so I guess there's that.