Simon R. Green rant, part 2 - subtext

[sillyliddy]

I was just brushing my teeth (with my new toothbrush, it was amazing) and was reminded of subtext (don't bother, either you know why or you don't). And then I thought of how I usually read books. It's like the words are the interface for the story. The user interface. The more I thought of it, the more I liked the analogy. And I'm not even in HCI. The words are completely essential if you want to understand the story. Remarkable craftsmanship can go into them, and they completely shape your experience. But in the end, they are only what is used to convey the message. It's the substance behind the interface that really matters. And it's the ability of the interface to give you access to that substance that makes it worthwhile. The best interface in the world still needs something behind it. And a wonderful story can be ruined by poor telling. I generally mostly ignore the words, unless something catches my fancy or disturbs my sense of rightness. But with Drinking Midnight Wine I couldn't do that, because there was hardly anything beyond the words. It might have been a decent story, but you don't know from the book.

I don't think I do this just with books, though. I think it's with just about everything. I try to see behind it, to what it's really trying to say. This also may be how my friends can read my mind. I tend to have a poor verbal expression of my thoughts, but they can usually get to the substance.