I'm a bit more than halfway through Lolita, and am beginning to feel disturbed and disgusted. A slow, sickening feeling has been building for a while, and finally made me realize that Humbert is not a pathetic loser, but a cold predator. He is telling his story with the object of gaining sympathy. To do this …
write six billion stories
If you were an immortal, how many stories could you write before you got bored of the whole idea of stories? I can't imagine ever getting tired of making stuff up... but I suppose there must be a limit. Every thing that has ever happened, never happened, can't happen, or must happen--all are stories. How, with …
The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber
What can I say about this book? It was a journey, an adventure, an endeavor. I loved every page of it and was left aching, (I swear I felt a physical ache) for more at the end. Every time I read one of Faber's novels, I say his characters are what make it. And this is …
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Reading vs performing
Jeremy Irons' reading of Lolita is really good. I wish more audiobooks would have actors as the narrator, because he is doing way more than just reading the text. It's a performance. Tone is so important, timing, enunciation--all these things can change the meaning of something so drastically. Â I would be very picky about how …
Don’t tell me what I already know
There are two ways to reveal a surprise or secret you've been hinting at in a story. Well, I'm sure there's more than two but let's be black and white for a minute. There's a good way, and a bad way. There's a way that makes your reader smile and say 'ah, yes I suspected that' …
Jonas David 