you know ping, I've never seen a thread go up and down in rating as yours (well the two futurist threads) have. it's like the frickin stock exchange man.

I for one, am glad to have you aboard, in spite /because of the johnny knoxville antics. It makes the board much more interesting than a love in/ wanking circle (charming image there wraith, no one comments please)

thought that needs to be said, don't let your mediated persona dictate all your posts though, eh?

nice to have you aboard too s hunt (for different reasons obviously, hope the head feels better)

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To cite one tiny instance: that was one of the most 'realistic' incidents in the book to me. How often has it happened in your life that someone you thought was going to be your lifechanging new girlfriend or your best friend ever just kinda ...didn't. And faded away without any closure? It's happened to me more than once.

Randomness and things not tying up neatly is a function of everyone having agendas of their own. Resolving every thread in a narrative unambiguously is only neccesary or praiseworthy in D+D and fairytales - and only some of them.

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- Sentinel400

Firstly, Art is not Life. It can only approximate life if desired by the author. Writing fiction necessitates an artificially small 'world' in which the characters play. I like fiction that is transparent where it is nearly impossible to tell whether the 'world' really is the Real world or not. I like other kinds of fiction writing also, but lets stick to the realalistic fiction as dictated by WGs latest novel. (Which is his first realistic novel and the reason for my first post, ie futurist hack)

While I agree that life and novels can have very abrupt unexplained non-closures(randomness). I would point to the fact that the first half of PR was full of closure. It is a very tight first half, every 'coincidence' has a meaning. From Cayce talking to herself on the street and getting a look from the asain guy (whose name aludes me - PR is under a stack and I am lazy) to the very odd scene with the curtas and Voltek on the street as well. Therefore, if the first half of the novel is our guide then I would have to assume that any random lack of closure in the second half of the novel is just sloppy writing(unless the pre/post WTC theory is considered).

So, like I keep saying, inconsistency is a sign of bad writing. I get the impression that WG ran out of steam and just didn't finish the novel. The second half is a draft.

I guess the 'more' I want is the rest of the novel. I demand that WG rewrite PR focusing on the last half!

hmmm

quote:

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Originally posted by Ping:
Firstly, Art is not Life.

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Nail, head, on, hit! Artists aren't there to give you what you think you want, but to make you think about why you might want it. I appreciate that you are able to interrogate your desires perfectly well enough to know that - but if you want to keep jerking those chains, just keep making it entertaining and we'll keep reminding you, deal? ...


and S hunt, splendid writing. Great to have you here.

[This message was edited by Sentinel400 on August 10, 2003 at 12:43 PM.]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ping:

I guess the 'more' I want is the rest of the novel. I demand that WG rewrite PR focusing on the last half!

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I knew, I knew this was a Vroomfondel/Majikthise syndrome. Funny I didn;t place it earlier

/\/\ike

Ping, you say the whole tanked for you when it was "revealed" that Dorotea was behind all the attcks, etc, on Cayce. Please tell me you were not surprised. There was at best confirmation, not revelation. Mama Anarchia was a bit of a surprise, but not much.

And as to the first half being full of closure--not quite sure how to interpret that. But that's never stopped me before. You say that all the coincidences turn out to be real, or not coincidences. I think that's what you said. I might could take notes. That everything is neatly wrapped up. But I think the whole book can be read as an experiment with coincidence. Coincidence happens in real life all the time. "Reality" could be understood as a series of coincidences, really. A closer look reveals how superficial these coincidences are, but not many people take that closer look. Which is why I keep havinf to delete those FW: FW: This Is A True Story!!! messages off my enail.

What troubles you about PR fascinates me. When I try and write "realsim," the more sure I become that "realism" is not that useful a term. And perhaps doesn't really exist. Not in any global way, at least, and it is certainly not universal. (Except for death. But seeing as how death is most likely the end of our personal realism, let's not go there just now.) What is common sense or experience for you does not or may not be common to the rest of us. Externals and internals. Duh. Go read Katherine Belsey so I don't have to think so hard. I know she over-generalizes but she's handy in a fight. Don't make me start spouting Welsh.

I have wanted to write a novel about coincidence for 15 years. WG beat me to it, and that's cool. In my attempts I found out that when you drop cincidence into a novel, it becomes plot. And then it has to be explained. Tied up into a nice package. Easily toted about. And that dog won't hunt.

PR is not about plot. I think that's why you don't like the second half. Because it sure as hell sets itself up as plot-driven. But plot can be mapped out, patterned, and that's another way of saying predictable. More of the same. I've been reading PR again, and as I suspected, I'm seeing things I didn't see the first time. All those coincidences, her father's disappearance, the guy on the bike, her rescuers finding her in the nick of time, I'm forgetting many, I know--all this is pure fiction playing with the real, coincidence. The first half travels much as any mystery, because coincidence cannot (apparently) exist in fiction. Death, but no body. The footage, the desire to find the creator, hints of violence (the guys in Tokyo), the way she gets away, having previously taken self defence, and a type of self defence that enables her to fight off 2 attackers. (Plot device!) Pretty impressive, especially when you (me) are also female, have had those same classes, and are yelling at her to stomp. And run. My self defense teacher always ended a move with "and run like hell." Because so many of us die without reacting, or even trying to get away. All this feels both real and too real.

So if a writer takes on coimcidence, then the writer has to accept that the reader will want these things to mean something. So the writer abliges. For a bit. Looks up "meaning" in the dictionary, ends up back at plot. I find it interesting that people who resist meaning in the larger sense of the word (God's plan for your life!--sorry, am recovering fundalmentalist) still want meaning, the big wrap-up, in books, movies, whatever. Not too much, just a tad. Chaos theory sort of meaning. But something.

I wondered why everyone (in the book) wanted to find the creator, explain the footage, figure out what it means. What, if that is possible, is left? Nothing. And that's why I think the beginning of the book sets us up for a nice solid but cool mystery, and then, pardon the quote, things fall apart. Pattern changes lead to confusion, and even anger that we are not getting what we expected. Finding the creator brings no closure, just more questions, a greater longing. Those eyes and hands working inspite of the brain--this needs protection, not explanation. So maybe we need mystery? We need to keep looking. I think that above all else, I fear that someone may someday find a true G.U.T. And then what?

Someone wrote they wanted to know more, who was Nora, what did it really all mean, but those questions, and the answers, if they exist, are the product, the end result of PR, not a lack in the text. The T, we say, that T, it must mean something. That it is the remains of a weapon, now we could talk about that for quite a while. What happens when you have a T in your head? Like me, the recovering fundamentalist? We could have much fun with that. But it would be just that--fun--and not a true insight into the nature of the beast.

If I had to boil it down to one sentence, I might say something like "Even if you find the creator and solve the externals of this mystery, you will not have a clue about the internals, if the pattern will continue, or if that pattern is anything other than what it is; and if you're smart, you'll figure that out and find a nice warm bed with a nice warm body in it, and take comfort there, because no one can answer these questions, they are not meant to be answered." Sounds a tad Zen-Baptist, leaning towards Zen. That's what I'm getting right now. Could change tomorrow. Brain being all Whack! the return, of. Pain's better, no more oxycodone.

Boy I need a personal proof-reader. Sorry about the "enail." And everything else. Misspellings, I mean. So far I'm still floating about feeling good about there being no answer. Even without the oxy.

quote:

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Originally posted by s hunt:
Boy I need a personal proof-reader. Sorry about the "enail." And everything else. Misspellings, I mean.

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You can edit your posts for one hour after you make them, if you're still logged in. Click on that "Pencil and Notepad" icon you'll see on the top line of your post and it will open in an editable window like the one you compose in.

And without wanting to come off as a thread fascist again, if you're going to discuss plot points you should really be in the "WITH SPOILERS" sub-board.

RobW,
There's been much discussion on this thread about what happens here and there, and I thought I had stayed within the lines, but I see (now) where I went a bit too far. I'm sorry. I was careful not to spell anything out, but one sentence in particular was too specific, and I'm sorry. I'll be much more careful in the future, and will delete this post just in case. assuming I can figure out how.

Also, thanks for the editing tip--I've been trying to figure out how to edit, and have tried the notebook and pencil icon, Sentinel, but maybe I did it wrong. Will keep trying.

How about giving this stupid fucking topic a rest?

Won't happen if you post on it to bring the topic back to the top of the board. ho ho.

Ping: what specific ideas has WG "botched"? I take no position as to the correctness/incorrectness of your thesis, I'm just curious about what you're referring to.

Personally I look at WG's Sprawl Trilogy concept of cyberspace as a passable extrapolation of what the internet *might* have been. To me, it's no fault of his that the net doesn't seem to be turning out the way he visualized it in those novels.

www.questionablecontent.net

www.jephco.com

Shameless self-promotion, I know.

I'll regret asking this but I'm also interested to know which authors the wayward duck does regard as passing the futurist hack test.

made by Sony for the PS2 dating sims The Megatokyo online manga

s hunt - its not the coincidence that i mind, its the inconsistency. i could even except that if i were to view the book as a pre/post WTC novel, ie that the structure and predictability gave way to chaos and loose ends. and im not so sure that wg didnt intend this. but without that premise, the book falls apart. coincidences that are coincidences are fine, but its like a movie when they zoom in on an object or dwell on a statement telling the audience to pay attention this is an important part. maybe ive seen to many art movies. i just like subtleties. in a way that second half is more my kind of novel with no nice wrap ups or closure. its more the juxtaposition against hte first half that throws of the novel. also it is true that it is obvious that dorotea was the prime suspect behind cayce's terrorism, but until the blue ant office scene when cayce wants to scream, it is suspenceful. after that it is not. again, maybe a connection to the wtc and the revelation that it was terrorism and who was behind it. the more i think about whether wg would have worked this concept into the book, the more i think he did.


robw - probably nobody. im a critic by nature. you wouldnt want to live with me. nothing is ever good enough. ideal childhood interrupted by reality. alas. classic utopia/dystopia break. very hard to recover. tends toward high autistic.

thanks for the ping links

You can't keep me out!

critics never build anything of consequence. Heh.

ping, no offence, but all your posts bring me back to something that Gibson wrote in his short story 'The Winters Market'
'"You know what your trouble is?" he says when
we're under the bridge, headed up to Fourth. "You're the kind who always reads the handbook. Anything people build, any kind of technology, it's going to have some specific purpose. It's for doing something that somebody already understands. But if it's new technology, it'll open areas nobody's ever thought of before. You read the manual, man, and you won't play around with it, not the same way. And you get all funny
when somebody else uses it to do something you never thought of.

they have the internet on computers now?

I never read the manual. I'm a tech. I whole-heartedly believe in winging it and allowing the natural evolution to find the natural outcome. However, if there is a strong pattern leaning in a certain direction thoughtout much of a novel and then that pattern is ignored for the remainder of the novel. Than this is not evolution finding use for the new pattern, or discovering a hertofor undiscovered application for new ideas, this is sloppy writing without a goal(think future) or purpose(think hack). If WG wants dada technology and dada writing then so be it, random can be fun. But it is not realistic or evolutionary, nor revolutionary. WG tends toward creating a physical scenery and then throwing a few characters into the mix. He just does not pay attention to the natural evolution that would have been necessary for that scene or characters to have come about. Case in point, the whole bridge thing is perpostrerous, as I've said before, no one would ever live on the San Fran bridge. It gets amazingly cold at night and sleeping near or above water is even colder. Evolution is not random, evolution is the path left in the wake of a random singularity. I would say that WGs writing is in the wake and is part of the natural evolution of our culture. Whether his writing is or will be considered a significant node within the evolution is another thing. I would say that I am argueing that it is/will not be as significant as most others on this board may suggest. Not that it is totally insignificant as some seem to be fixed upon.

Dada technology - thats a good idea I tell you what

You're a tech, really? Not an artist? Not a writer? That's something I never would have hit on, with your posts and all. Fair enough, count me among the surprised.

The forces that create the bridge are sociological and political. There are numerous examples of interstital communities springing up in places most people wouldn't voluntarily live. Hell, people live in the desert. You ever been to the desert? Unpleasant. And yet they live there! WHY! Oh, the madness.

How can you even be a Tech if you don't read the manuals????