|
|
Post by rhaegyr on Feb 10, 2023 12:53:11 GMT
Twilight had it's moment, Molar, don't be sad. I remember some statistic about how a sizeable number - maybe even a majority! - of readers of YA fiction, are actually in their 30s or older. Which... like, I genuinely don't want to judge, but it feels like there's something off about that. Guilty as charged! I've read a lot of the all time classic 'adult' books - Don Quixote, Ulysses, Sound and the Fury, LOTR, Catch 22 (my favourite), Crime and Punishment, Death in Venice, Gravity's Rainbow, Gatsby etc. and have enjoyed them all to varying degrees. Often though I just want an easy read and I'll pick up Lord of the Flies or The Hobbit for the tenth time and blast through it. |
|
MolarAm🔵
Full Member
Bad at games
Posts: 6,858
Member is Online
|
Post by MolarAm🔵 on Feb 10, 2023 13:08:14 GMT
I remember some statistic about how a sizeable number - maybe even a majority! - of readers of YA fiction, are actually in their 30s or older. Which... like, I genuinely don't want to judge, but it feels like there's something off about that. Guilty as charged! I've read a lot of the all time classic 'adult' books - Don Quixote, Ulysses, Sound and the Fury, LOTR, Catch 22 (my favourite), Crime and Punishment, Death in Venice, Gravity's Rainbow, Gatsby etc. and have enjoyed them all to varying degrees. Often though I just want an easy read and I'll pick up Lord of the Flies or The Hobbit for the tenth time and blast through it. Hey, you do you! You're definitely getting variety there. And even if you didn't, that's perfectly fine too. Personally though, I only re-read stuff once it's been long enough that I've basically forgotten the plot. Or if I really like the prose, like in, say, Cormac McCarthy. I just like and gravitate towards new things (and reading new things is also part of my job, which helps) |
|
|
|
Post by britesparc on Feb 10, 2023 13:09:27 GMT
I just tend to think that good stories are good stories and I don't really care what age they're intended for. I mean, my favourite "things" of all time include Transformers, Star Wars, and the MCU, all of which are to a greater or lesser extent created for children.
I actually think there's huge skill and craftmanship involved in making a story with the heft and heart and nuance to genuinely appeal to adults, to have "adult" themes and resonances at its core, but at the same time make it palatable and appropriate for a child audience. Look at something like Inside Out, which absolutely works on two different levels.
|
|
|
|
Post by rhaegyr on Feb 10, 2023 13:10:48 GMT
Yeah, wish I read more new stuff instead of falling back on favourites (same goes for music, film and the like).
Currently reading The Secret History for the first time and absolutely loving it.
Now you've mentioned McCarthy though I feel like it's been a long time since I read The Road...
|
|
|
|
Post by Dougs on Feb 10, 2023 13:26:28 GMT
gibroon Yup, not read them myself, other than to my eldest in patches. Terrible writing and no new ideas in it at all.
|
|
|
|
Post by 😎 on Feb 10, 2023 14:03:26 GMT
The new Cormac McCarthy book(s) absolutely fucking suck if it helps.
|
|
askew
Full Member
Posts: 6,818
|
Post by askew on Feb 10, 2023 14:10:18 GMT
That's upsetting
|
|
|
|
Post by Vandelay on Feb 10, 2023 14:50:46 GMT
The thing that slightly annoys me, even though it probably shouldn't, is when I recommend things that are not Harry Potter (but similar) to adults who have read Harry Potter multiple times. And they seem open to it, but then just go back to Harry Potter. Yes yes, I know there is comfort and value in reading things over and over. But fucking hell, there's a whole world of great fantasy literature out there! THERE ARE OTHER THINGS I have read all the books but I have never felt the urge to re-read them. Although her world building is decent, some of her writing is just not very good and far too long to get to whatever point of the story she is getting at. Really struggled through some of them due to the boredom I was feeling. Yeah, I can't really argue with any of this. I think I've already said somewhere here that I actually only read them about 3 years ago (right before Rowling went full tilt into the madness) during a pretty tough time with family health. It was a perfect escape and they will always have some importance to me for that. The writing is often crappy to mediocre though. I would say it improves as it goes on, although also suffers the same fate much fantasy fiction does of too much bloat. I could read them again, as I wasn't bored by them (although, Harry's angsty "no one understands me" act gets tedious during the 5th/6th book), but can't imagine reading them dozens of times. Plenty of other things to be reading, particularly as I actually haven't read that much fantasy. Have recently been reading some Brandon Sanderson (read the Mistborn trilogy and the first book of Stormlight Archive) that I have been enjoying very much and have the last Dark Tower book ready to go which has been... quite a ride. |
|
geefe
Full Member
Short for Zangief
Posts: 8,323
|
Post by geefe on Feb 10, 2023 14:55:36 GMT
I am aware of this. I don't really like fantasy stuff but I liked Skyrim. Does this have mountains and quaint little towns where people tell me the same shit over and over?
|
|
Derblington
Junior Member
Did you know I have a girlfriend
Posts: 2,139
|
Post by Derblington on Feb 10, 2023 14:58:34 GMT
Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, Liveship Traders trilogy, and Tawny Man trilogy are my favourite fantasy books. They're all part of the same series so should be read in order.
She's since followed those up with four Rain Wild Chronicles novels and a final Fitz and the Fool trilogy, but I haven't got to these yet.
|
|
|
|
Post by 😎 on Feb 10, 2023 15:18:55 GMT
JKR is the anti-Stephen King. She came up with an elaborate well thought out storyline that has minor and major conclusions and spans multiple books and then tell it in a fairly boring perfunctory way. King can’t plot worth a damn but hot dang he’ll tell it to you well.
|
|
|
|
Post by drhickman1983 on Feb 10, 2023 15:20:39 GMT
So what you're saying is if we bred them their offspring would be a great writer with the best characteristics of both.
Or maybe we'd get one kid with the good traits and another with the worst.
|
|
|
|
Post by 😎 on Feb 10, 2023 15:21:45 GMT
She retracted all her praise of him and blocked him after he dared to say that trans women are women so I think the odds of them hooking up are slim.
|
|
|
|
Post by drhickman1983 on Feb 10, 2023 15:24:54 GMT
Dang it.
He really is the anti-JKR with those progressive views. I bet Rowling never hoovered up coke like King either (I know he's sober now, and well done for being so).
|
|
wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,673
|
Post by wunty on Feb 10, 2023 15:34:29 GMT
King can’t plot worth a damn but hot dang he’ll tell it to you well. This is very true. |
|
|
|
Post by rawshark on Feb 10, 2023 15:37:35 GMT
My main gripe with the series is that we are with Harry right up to the age of about 17 and yet we don’t get a single passage about him having a wank. By ignoring it JK erases his identity as a wanker.
Wizards wank and I want to know how.
|
|
wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,673
|
Post by wunty on Feb 10, 2023 15:46:26 GMT
Maybe there is paragraphs of him wanking but those particular pages were stuck together.
/meta
|
|
|
|
Post by Fake_Blood on Feb 10, 2023 15:50:21 GMT
So what you're saying is if we bred them their offspring would be a great writer with the best characteristics of both. Or maybe we'd get one kid with the good traits and another with the worst. Maybe it’s easier if JKR starts snorting mountains of cocaine. |
|
|
|
Post by starchildhypocrethes on Feb 10, 2023 15:52:09 GMT
The whole thing hit at an age where it just completely passed me by. However, even if I were inclined to read a kids book in my 40s, the whole “English public school kids but wizards” vibe is completely off-putting.
|
|
wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,673
|
Post by wunty on Feb 10, 2023 15:57:30 GMT
I just never understood what parent was happy to let their child go to a school with a higher mortality rate than most old people's homes.
|
|
robthehermit
Junior Member
Subjectively amusing
Posts: 2,465
|
Post by robthehermit on Feb 10, 2023 16:03:04 GMT
Interesting factoid what I learnt today: Harry doesn't cast any spells in the first film.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jambowayoh on Feb 10, 2023 16:05:54 GMT
Damn, that was too real.
(This was in response to Drhickman's deleted post)
|
|
|
|
Post by 😎 on Feb 10, 2023 16:08:53 GMT
He accidentally casts whatever it is that makes the zoo glass disappear and practices Wingardium Leviosa.
I don’t like that I know that.
|
|
|
|
Post by drhickman1983 on Feb 10, 2023 16:10:33 GMT
Damn, that was too real. (This was in response to Drhickman's deleted post) Yeah it felt a bit tonally off, if not inaccurate. |
|
|
|
Post by henroben on Feb 10, 2023 16:19:07 GMT
Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, Liveship Traders trilogy, and Tawny Man trilogy are my favourite fantasy books. They're all part of the same series so should be read in order. She's since followed those up with four Rain Wild Chronicles novels and a final Fitz and the Fool trilogy, but I haven't got to these yet. I found the Rain Wild Chronicles a bit of a slog, they're ok, but not her best in my view. Then again I found the Rain Wild sections somewhat tedious in the Liveship trilogy, so maybe it's just me. The final Fitz & the Fool trilogy is excellent though, and a fitting end to the whole thing! |
|
robthehermit
Junior Member
Subjectively amusing
Posts: 2,465
|
Post by robthehermit on Feb 10, 2023 16:22:51 GMT
He accidentally casts whatever it is that makes the zoo glass disappear and practices Wingardium Leviosa. I don’t like that I know that. Making the glass disappear wasn't him casting a spell, as he had no clue what was going on, and although he flicks the wand and says the words, he never actually casts the spell. |
|
|
|
Post by britesparc on Feb 10, 2023 16:38:50 GMT
As I listen to the books again, a funny thing hit me that I never really considered before: she's totally uninterested in how wild magic is. Basically, once Harry is off to Hogwarts, it could essentially be on another planet. They talk about hiding from Muggles but there's no real discussion about what a Muggle/Wizard interaction could turn out like, no Doctor Strange-style inversion of the real, no sense of magic bleeding into the everyday. It could almost be set in the fourteenth century, or in Rivendell or something. The juxtaposition of this totally bonkers magical world, with its own rules and cultures and just general wackiness, and the straightlaced "real" world doesn't seem to interest her beyond the Dursleys not liking magic.
This isn't really a criticism, as such, I just find it interesting.
|
|
|
|
Post by barchetta on Feb 10, 2023 17:06:11 GMT
Went round to a mate's on Wednesday and he put this on for 20mins. That was enough for me.
Looked very average to my jaded eyes.
Granted, I'm not the target audience but it just looked flat and lifeless.
|
|
|
|
Post by LegendaryApe on Feb 10, 2023 17:43:00 GMT
Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, Liveship Traders trilogy, and Tawny Man trilogy are my favourite fantasy books. They're all part of the same series so should be read in order. She's since followed those up with four Rain Wild Chronicles novels and a final Fitz and the Fool trilogy, but I haven't got to these yet. I like Brandon Sanderson but my favourite has to be David Gemmell. Love those books so much |
|
|
|
Post by deekyfun on Feb 10, 2023 18:13:34 GMT
Never let the number representing your age define you, I say. That's why today I'm sitting in a softplay ball-pool reading a series of Enid Blyton books I brought with me in a granny trolley, in-between spoonfuls of seven-seas orange flavoured cod-liver oil and Tangfastics. Also, I'm wearing both Huggies pull-ups and adult nappies, just to be on the safe side.
And no, I don't have anything meaningful to add to the conversation...
|
|
