Author Topic: Pseudopod 98: Among the Moabites  (Read 15957 times)

Sgarre1

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Reply #25 on: July 15, 2010, 12:44:45 AM
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faddish "slow-boil"

Glad I was capable of introducing you to a term for a concept you dislike but you're using it wrong if you think it a fad.  Fans of M.R. James (1904),  Robert Aickman (1950) and Ramsey Campbell (1964) would have good giggle at that.  Most modern genre writers prefer the "start with a bang" style anyway (which I referred to as "pulpy" but, unlike you, not in a derogatory sense - it's a great way to tell a certain kind of story).  It's just another way of telling stories man - you don't have to like it or think it works, but really, "faddish"?  That's just too easy.  C'est la vie, indeed!

“The best thing to do is to loosen my grip on my pen and let it go wandering about until it finds an entrance.  There must be one – everything depends on the circumstances, a rule applicable as much to literary style as to life.  Each word tugs another one along, one idea another, and that is how books, governments and revolutions are made – some even say that is how Nature created her species.”
Machado de Assis, “Those Cousins From Sapucaia”



Millenium_King

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Reply #26 on: July 15, 2010, 03:24:29 AM
Ah, but I think you missed the message of the story. It's not that man is just an animal with a mask of civility. It's a story about how man equates strength with morality. Wilson gets to be god to the little thingies for no reason other than he's bigger. He is a benevolent god when they please him, and a vengeful one when they displease him - but their behavior does not change, only his own perception of it.

Great point.

What right does he have to judge them? Just that he's stronger than them.

I might say that "rights," like morality, stem from might as well.

I think I like this story all the more after considering that point.  It's the oldest (and truest) lesson after all.  Besides strength and might, what can you base morality on anyway?  Faith, perhaps?  Really makes you think.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2010, 03:26:20 AM by Millenium_King »

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Millenium_King

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Reply #27 on: July 15, 2010, 09:52:09 PM
Glad I was capable of introducing you to a term for a concept you dislike but you're using it wrong if you think it a fad.

FYI - I have been using the term "slow boil" before you "introduced" me to it here.  There might even be some older posts that I've made which reference the term.  I recall first hearing it with regards to the movie "The Village" back in 2004.

Fans of M.R. James (1904),  Robert Aickman (1950) and Ramsey Campbell (1964) would have good giggle at that.  Most modern genre writers prefer the "start with a bang" style anyway (which I referred to as "pulpy" but, unlike you, not in a derogatory sense - it's a great way to tell a certain kind of story).

Hmmmm.  You might want to be just a little less presumptuous.  You'd be surprised what my opinion of "pulp" is.

It's just another way of telling stories man - you don't have to like it or think it works, but really, "faddish"?  That's just too easy.  C'est la vie, indeed!

Beyond the fact that most lit classes these days encourage slow characterization rather than a "pedal to the metal" approach, I was specifically referring to the school of "all-about-me" critics, writers, directors, producers (and sometimes *shudder* writer-directors) etc. etc.  who promote this approach.  Formost amongst them is M. Night Shyamalan.  You might not find this trend a fad, but I think there is a case to be made.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2010, 09:53:59 PM by Millenium_King »

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Sgarre1

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Reply #28 on: July 16, 2010, 02:57:37 AM
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FYI - I have been using the term "slow boil" before you "introduced" me to it here.  There might even be some older posts that I've made which reference the term.  I recall first hearing it with regards to the movie "The Village" back in 2004.

Yup, you're right, my mistake - it seems to have cropped up a lot since I used it as a model distinction for "Eyes of the Crowd" (more on which below) but, mea culpa.

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Hmmmm.  You might want to be just a little less presumptuous.  You'd be surprised what my opinion of "pulp" is.

Well, this was just poor phrasing on my part.  Your assumption that my use of "pulpy" -  as a model distinction (for the "front-loading" you enjoy) in the "Eyes Of The Crowd" discussion - was meant by me as derogatory (from the comment in Pseudopod 173: Bophuthatswana "Some people call that "pulpy" but c'est la vie"), when I meant no such thing.  "Pulpy" is good, fun and the best way to tell some stories -"pulpy", just like "slow boil", is another flavor of genre approach, nothing more, nothing less.  As opposed to the derogatory modifier "faddish".

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Beyond the fact that most lit classes these days encourage slow characterization rather than a "pedal to the metal" approach, I was specifically referring to the school of "all-about-me" critics, writers, directors, producers (and sometimes *shudder* writer-directors) etc. etc.  who promote this approach.  Formost amongst them is M. Night Shyamalan.  You might not find this trend a fad, but I think there is a case to be made.

For the first part - although it's been at least 10/15 years since I checked, they'd already seemed to have made a distinction between lit classes and genre classes in most writing curriculum.  And even in those Lit classes, Raymond Carver is still taught as an exemplar of compression.  As to the second, I don't know what a discussion about approaches to writing short genre fiction has to do with modern critics, directors, producers and writer/directors of film.  So, I guess I still don't see the supposed faddishness.  Blackwood's "The Willows" (1907) starts with long, descriptive scene setting of The Rhine and character detail, many pages before anything of note happens, and it still works a treat (and we all know who's favorite story that was).  So, no, still don't see it as anything distinctly "new" (I mean, I get that you don't like it but nothing beyond that), sorry.