Progressive, yes?

[peppermintyrose]

I dropped in today on a movie review on the latest Harry Potter - which was released today around the world. Before I was obsessed about SVM, I used to be obsessed about HP. Unfortunately, contrary to JKR's assertions that you could figure out the ending from the books that preceded it, I did not consider she would introduce a whole new mythology

Comments

[anonymous]

Ha! This sounds like the complaints my mother always has about borrowing books off me. Trouble was that everything I was reading was post-colonial literature (everyone is oppressed by the lingering traces of Imperialism), or, say, Australian and NZ Women's fiction (everyone is oppressed by the patriarchy). There wasn't a lot of happiness going around in those books.

So, um, yeah. Never occurred to me that people might complain about the SVM books getting too depressing. Granted things like having your main character tortured isn't a lot of fun for the reader (but, hey, maybe I was stoopid to read that while in the early stages of labour), but as you say, it's part of the bigger picture, and of the progression of the character. Sookie's probably the only character I've ever followed through 11 books, I never managed to finish Harry Potter and have given up on my husband's other suggestions like Game of Thrones. The closest I would have come would be Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy, set during WW1 and pretty bloody brutal at times, but amazing all the same. I really loved those books.

So maybe I'm just jaded or hard to shock, or maybe it is, as you say, that these books actually manage to produce something intensely satisfying for the reader by virtue of the fact that we get to see the characters through such a large chunk of their history. I'm pretty sure that if CH was still churning up repeats of DUD 11 books in, everyone would be complaining about that too, and wondering why Sookie hasn't learned not to poke her nose into other people's deaths.
Ooshka

[peppermintyrose]

I tend to read things that don't have a lot of happiness in them either - I love splatter horror which is often one long trainwreck of badness.

A few people have said it - why can't things go back to how they were. As if the torturings and killings didn't happen. I've read a few series now, and I have Game of Thrones cued up to go. The series comes to cable this Sunday, so I'll be watching it.

Oh, it would be terrible if she did that. Sookie meeting and dating a new vampire or were or whatever. It'd be like reading the Hardy Boys, but with a girl who dates weirdos.

[anonymous]

Yeah, I'm not so good with splatter horror. At least not on film. And I always prefer fiction to non-fiction so I know it's all pretend and it doesn't keep me awake at night.

I enjoyed Game of Thrones, even without having read the books. And there was so much happiness last night as hubby's Kindle version of the new book was available so he's given up sleeping for the next little while.

I had a fondness for Trixie Belden mysteries when I was very young. Sookie could have been the new Trixie. But I wonder how many murders Bon Temps could take before the population thinned too dramatically?
Ooshka

[peppermintyrose]

I work with the real stuff - so I'm not bothered by the fake stuff. It rarely looks as real as the real stuff. :D

I don't have time to read them right now, so I'll be waiting to do that - and watching the series first.

At least enough for 12 books. :D

[elbly]

It rarely looks as real as the real stuff.

I'm guessing the blood splatter is just a little too perfect and the fear from the victims is never quite frightened enough?

[peppermintyrose]

No, it misses the horrifying element. You just can't see inside bodies - which is kinda horrifying. And the colours are wrong - oxidised blood is less red and more brown. All of the splatter horror vics look like they have anaemia because their blood is so red. Plus, sleeping people or even people lying still do not look like dead people.

The injuries are largely unbelievable as well. One movie - "Hostel" had one of the girls with her eyeball hanging on her cheek due to a blow torch. Well, that's not possible - he'd have burned a hole into her brain and through her eye which is largely water. She'd be in shock too - and wouldn't be going anywhere.

[finiteanarchy]

Like Ooshka, Sookie is the only character I've followed through with 11 books. I find her progression so intensely interesting. I couldn't stand if she was the same character at the series end. It wouldn't make sense at all.

I absolutely love this one line from Boardwalk Empire that the character Jimmy Darmody says. "I am what time and circumstance have made me."

And really, aren't we all? Certainly, Sookie is.

I have a huge lot of Anne Rice books - it's probably 15 or so books, that I got on ebay as a lot for $5. It was good buy even though I've only read about 5 of the books. I get zero change from her vampires. And I notice a pattern of repetition in the dialogue. Boring. Everyone likes Lestat because he's the only one who has any type of fun in the series. All the other vampires are so drab. Lestat is like the little trouble maker.

I was all set on following the Dexter series. His inner monologue is just so funny, in it's very twisted kind of way. Then on the third book it just got all shot to shit when the writer decided to make his inner dark passenger a primordial "It" that broke away from a larger dark entity and hops from person to person, enjoying the corruption. That just killed it, and I haven't had the desire to read the new ones.

Then you have these other mystery writers who bring in the same character over and over like James Patterson brings in Alex Cross. They're all so stand alone and they never seem to show progression of the character. It becomes a formula instead. And then a yawn fest for me.

I am interested in reading Game of Thrones but I might hold off till the series ends. I thoroughly enjoyed the surprises that came at the end of the season. Reading it (and I heard the season closely followed the book) would have taken that away.

If Sookie had stayed the same we'd still be looking at someone who was naive - who was so lonely she'd clean out Arlene's trailer if Arlene did her a favor even though Arlene owes Sookie favors nine ways to sunday. It's the same Sookie that was willing to forgive Alcide all of his transgressions - and there be many. Nothing made me happier than her calling him out on his pack needing a shaman.

[finiteanarchy]

As for the end of Harry Potter...light and fluffy didn't come to my mind.

Not at the death of Fred. Really? They she had to cut off George's ear and kill Fred? She couldn't have just done away with Percy?

[peppermintyrose]

Percy wouldn't have impacted the rest of them. I didn't mind the deaths and all that - to be expected - it was the new wand stuff she introduced, and the fact that the last book had Neville going on, while we got to hear about the boring trips of Harry around the countryside. My HP loving son didn't even finish the last book due to boredom.

[finiteanarchy]

Oh, I know. Percy's death would have still impacted the Weasley family though, being their son, but yeah, it wouldn't have had the same impact.

Now that I think about it would have more interesting if she went and made Percy go from being annoying and later despicable for turning on his family to redeemed and helpful like Eucetes (Eustace? Ustus?) from the Narnia books. He was an irritating little twerp who got saw the error of his ways and got turned into a dragon for bit. That taught him a lesson.

-Then kill him. High impact. Fred's death almost felt like something she decided to do after the fact. Like she went through it and thought, "I need to add something extra, something that will just have my readers going WTF? They need some reminding this book isn't Harry Potter and the Deathly Camping Trip."

[peppermintyrose]

I think it's the reader who wouldn't care. Not much loss there. Just like if she'd chosen to kill Charlie.

I don't know if it would have worked otherwise - I gave up theorising because she screwed me in the arse with her new mythology.

[peppermintyrose]

I love that line - and it was true. Jimmy is a darker character because of his experiences. If that's disappointing then they need to contextualise his experience and take it into account. Boardwalk Empire is way better than Seasons 2 and 3 of True Blood.

When Lestat finally did start to progress, it was along the lines of his Christian beliefs - which were incredibly heavy - as if the writing wasn't already overdone. Anne Rice could have done with an editor who cut and slashed at the text.

I agree - and Alcide wouldn't have changed into such a perfectly hateable man. :D

[peppermintyrose]

Oh, it's way better than the females we see modelled in True Blood - which is a crying shame that this is pre-Women's Liberation. Of course, the difference is that the writers probably like women for Boardwalk Empire, rather than trying to attract female viewers with male nudity. There's so much good to love about that show.

[finiteanarchy]

I don't know if I read up to that point. Getting through "Queen of the Damned" was a little struggle - particularly reading the monologues from some of the ancient vampires. I distinctly remember reading something Margaret -Maharet(?) said and then on the next page said again...and again. And I was thinking...where the hell is Rice's editor? "The Body Thief" was better and I think I read "Memnoch The Devil" though I might not have finished it.

I feel like she writes something in 200 words which could be cut down to 50. I like CH because she can cut it down to 50 and still keep all that good stuff in.

[peppermintyrose]

Unfortunately, she was struggling with alcoholism during some of her writing. "The Witching Hour" is huge, and is the driest piece of writing because of that. She's got some good ideas, but the process of getting to them is painful and torturous.

Definitely - she needed someone to edit the hell out of what she wrote. For example, I do not need that much information on what Spanish moss looks like. Give me CH brevity - it's better crafted too, because even a scene where you're washing vampire feet can give you information if you think about it. The economy of word is a real triumph for CH, because even though she keeps it small, I still haven't vaguely run out of things and bits to talk and write about.