Annals of lame

[danceswithwords]

Thank you all for the birthday wishes, and thanks to kernezelda and simplystars for the virtual gifts! I had a good birthday this year, and in the spirit of continuing to find a better work/life balance by not losing unused vacation time, I even took Monday off. The weather was beautiful, and I loafed around the city and marveled, as always, at how many people in

Comments

[molly_may]

I'm skipping all Sarah Connor discussion because I'm still two episodes behind, but I like it! Yay for asskicking women.

I kind of loved Anansi Boys, not for any reason other than just because it made me happy. There's a good review of it here that captures a lot of the reasons it worked so well for me.

I enjoyed Farthing as well, and did think about it in relation to the Roth book and how Walton's book is relegated to the sci-fi ghetto while Roth's enjoys all the literary plaudits and mainstream success. In (mild) defense of the romance genre though, I must say that Memoirs of a Geisha was pretty lame no matter how you classify it.

[danceswithwords]

I remember you mentioning, after I read American Gods, that Anansi Boys was much tighter storytelling, and that really struck me. It snaps; it's lean; there's not a bit of waste, and it maintains a terrific momentum.

In (mild) defense of the romance genre though, I must say that Memoirs of a Geisha was pretty lame no matter how you classify it.

I would not argue with that. It also struck me as extremely formulaic, though, which fits the article's narrow definition of genre. I'm sure you can point to novels shelved in the romance section that offer more surprises and confound more expectations than it did. A lot of the "literary sensations of the year" tend to be pretty formulaic, I think, and just better written than the average [insert genre here] book. See also Cold Mountain. And Never Let Me Go is arguably science fiction, or at least speculative fiction. Perhaps you can tell that this is a huge pet peeve of mine? Heh.

[molly_may]

It's a pet peeve of mine as well. Atwood drives me crazy with her insistence that The Handmaid's Tale isn't science fiction because SF is just spaceships and robots. It's such a narrow, snobby definition. By the way, the combination of NLMG and Neil Gaiman reminded me of Time interview with Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman in which Joss calls Never Let Me Go "Remains of the Clones". Heh.

[danceswithwords]

Thanks for that link; that was an interesting interview, especially the points they made about bleeding boundaries.

[toysdream]

Catchup happy birthday wishes! Glad you had a nice day off, with decent weather for a change.

[danceswithwords]

Thanks! And isn't it a treat to not be rained on for a change?

[anoel]

Happy Belated Birthday!

[danceswithwords]

Thank you!