2008-03-29 11:23![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldisciplineYes, I'm at work. Yes, it's Saturday morning.
Yes. Yesterday was the epic suck at the office I'd had every expectation of it being (7.5 hrs, no lunch, and I'd taken the number of calls between 0730 and 1300 that used to be a full week's traffic a couple years ago).
Now, for a complete change of pace, I will talk about shit that has nothing to do with my day job. Or politics.
I will allow you a few moments to compose yourselves.
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Okay, get off the fucking floor already.
I finally finished reading Vellum, by Hal Duncan, which came highly recommended by folks who ought to know, like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaylake. It is both brilliant and frustrating, in the manner of many virtuoso accomplishments. It never does what you'd expect, and often goes in directions that are simultaneously obvious, necessary, and completely bizarre. It's not the sort of book you'll ever see clucked over on Oprah, but would certainly be wielded by taut, cappucino-infused types at one-thirty in the morning.
It's a dissection of types, of tropes, of the world and its creation. Characters bob and weave through the narrative in peculiar threads (not all of which I personally found sensible or satisfying, to be sure, but my days of fierce literary pretention are past), taking on a constellation of similar roles, but evolving by fits and spurts with each incarnation (or not, in some cases).
Some parts, especially in the first two thirds, are of such surpassing genius that it felt like reading what Bach's mind might be capable of as he composed his fugues; the counterpoint to that, the various unsatisfying disappearances of narrative or thematic threads, left me baffled.
Vellum is one of those things that ought to be called a Great Book, and I definitely recommend it. But, like doing anything difficult, it's not without its challenges for the reader.
For you fitness freaks in the audience, I've been poring over the screeds by the fellows at Gym Jones, whom you may have heard of as the guys who whipped the actors & stunt people into shape for 300.ikilled007, in particular, I think you'll find yourself nodding along with what these guys have to say.
I'm not up to their standards by a long shot. Recognizing this is, hopefully, another step on the path towards where I'm trying to be.
Yes. Yesterday was the epic suck at the office I'd had every expectation of it being (7.5 hrs, no lunch, and I'd taken the number of calls between 0730 and 1300 that used to be a full week's traffic a couple years ago).
Now, for a complete change of pace, I will talk about shit that has nothing to do with my day job. Or politics.
I will allow you a few moments to compose yourselves.
=
=
=
Okay, get off the fucking floor already.
I finally finished reading Vellum, by Hal Duncan, which came highly recommended by folks who ought to know, like
jaylake. It is both brilliant and frustrating, in the manner of many virtuoso accomplishments. It never does what you'd expect, and often goes in directions that are simultaneously obvious, necessary, and completely bizarre. It's not the sort of book you'll ever see clucked over on Oprah, but would certainly be wielded by taut, cappucino-infused types at one-thirty in the morning.It's a dissection of types, of tropes, of the world and its creation. Characters bob and weave through the narrative in peculiar threads (not all of which I personally found sensible or satisfying, to be sure, but my days of fierce literary pretention are past), taking on a constellation of similar roles, but evolving by fits and spurts with each incarnation (or not, in some cases).
Some parts, especially in the first two thirds, are of such surpassing genius that it felt like reading what Bach's mind might be capable of as he composed his fugues; the counterpoint to that, the various unsatisfying disappearances of narrative or thematic threads, left me baffled.
Vellum is one of those things that ought to be called a Great Book, and I definitely recommend it. But, like doing anything difficult, it's not without its challenges for the reader.
For you fitness freaks in the audience, I've been poring over the screeds by the fellows at Gym Jones, whom you may have heard of as the guys who whipped the actors & stunt people into shape for 300.
ikilled007, in particular, I think you'll find yourself nodding along with what these guys have to say.I'm not up to their standards by a long shot. Recognizing this is, hopefully, another step on the path towards where I'm trying to be.
