Orlion Blight

Never take advice from strangers on the internet.

Contracts are not necessarily binding, just saying!

It's a good portion of it

Pickle Riiiiiiick!

Pffft, that doesn't seem very controversial at all!

Since you asked, I will clarify: 1) When talking about what makes for good writing, there is a tendency to emphasize one aspect over other equally important aspects. It's like saying strong bones are the central characteristic of good health! 2) It often masks mediocre plotting and/ or writing. The easiest example of this are the Harry Potter books. A lot is forgiven because people like the idea of escaping to a world where wizarding boarding schools exist. Another is the movie Avatar. The story is incredibly mediocre, the characterizations bare bone. But people loved to immerse themselves in the world itself. 3) It's kinda used often as an excuse for lazy writing. What I mean by this is that the unfolding and building up of the world becomes the plot. 4) I'm beginning to suspect it serves things outside of the work like fanfiction, roleplaying, games, etc. And does little for the actual work itself.

Funny thing: while my father was ranting about stuff and saying how it did not conform to "facts", I wanted to say, "You don't know what facts are, do you?" Mind-blowing thing: in some philosophical frameworks, facts do not have a truth value (or, facts are neither true or false).

I'm feeling controversial today, so I will say "world building."

Here's how I'm going to do it: 1) Read his other prose work in order: Dubliners, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man & Ulysses. 2) Read a biography sometime before, during or after. 3) Go with the flow. Like you mentioned, there is a dream like (and disorienting) quality to Finnegan's Wake which is part of the experience. Joyce uses language and culture from all over the place to accomplish this. As a result, particularly on a first reading, analyzing it should be kept to a minimum until you have an idea of the whole. For example, you pointed out that the book begins mid sentence. That's because it's a continuation of the final sentence in novel. It is one big literary loop, and as such, I think you could start anywhere and not have it impact the novel.

Not yet, the stars have not been quite right yet for that one. What I have read, I have enjoyed, though!

@Ammanas Can you really say you have read Finnegan's Wake if you only made it 5 pages in?

Miniature games are too expensive for me and do not appeal to me as a result. Tabletop gaming, on the other hand, I love. Though I don't get to do as much as I would like. Currently, I mostly play Arkham Horror LCG, Elder Sign, Galaxy Trucker and Mansions of Madness. I will give Legend of the Five Rings LCG a try once it comes out this year.

@Extesian How's the Gordon Ramsey book?

All aboard the Choo-choo shoe!

We trusted you, @Kaymyth! And you betrayed that trust!

@Ammanas Flowery and obscure is a near perfect way to describe the writing style. I also love such writing, so that is one reason for our different reactions. As far as connecting with any of the characters... That really does not begin until Kellhus returns to the plot... about 300-350 pages in. Until then, most of the character development is focused on Achamian. Cnaiür is a neat if really savage character, but his development starts around where Kellhus returns to the plot. Believe it or not, Esmenet and Serwë are also good characters, but you have not met Serwë yet and the main event for Esmenet in this book is her interaction with the Synthese (that's the weird bird with bald human head which I'm fairly certain you have met).

Huh. I know sometimes I need to be in the right frame of mind to read certain books, but not becoming invested in a series after 200 pages seems to imply that it simply is not for you. Any specific difficulties you have with the book, plot or style?

I would suggest Elantris first. It's most likely to be the one to disappoint you the most, so get it out of the way! There's also a cool reveal related to it in Way of Kings, so to experience that properly read it first! After that, the first Mistborn trilogy contains essential information about the Cosmere. Then Stormlight Archive. From there, well, depends!

@Ammanas I actually wonder if that passage is somewhat autobiographical. Tolstoy was quite the rabble rouser in his younger days, and though I don't remember the age, around 31 seems to be when he turned his life around. @Elenion Crime and Punishment was one of the books I read in a college Russian literature course. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's apparently his most tightly written work. I'm trying to remember whether or not he liked Charles Dickens... particularly the Pickwick Papers.

@Left Placing Faust Part 2 at such a low level as Paradise Lost proves you are too young to read it There's an edition of Faust Part 2 that cuts out all the wonderfully esoteric whimsy (so Act 2, 3 and parts of 1). That would be good for your "gain by attempting" and you would gain quite a bit! What you would not gain is a disdain for a piece of high art consequent to not being ready. THAT is key. You do not simply try running a marathon on a whim without training because there are "gains to attempting". Scaling heights without sufficient preparation leads to a bad time. Same with reading certain works. Or, approach with caution!

I do want to read that! The Peaver/Volokhonsky translation of Anna Karenina was great, I also enjoyed various Dostoevsky translations they have done. Part of my enjoyment, though, could be in due part because I studied Russian in college a little bit, and they definitely try to preserve as much Russisnness as possible! That can be a little much, though, so I could see an alternative translation being useful.

In my excitement in remembering how much I enjoyed it, I forgot a very important side note. Faust Part 2 should not be read while you are young. So even though I can not praise it enough, @Left, I'm not sure you are ready for it. The level needed to enjoy it is pretty high, though not prohibitively so if you pick the right moment. You do not want to conflate "not being ready" with "this is bad. " something youth are very much likely to commit. It's why youth hate required school reading a lot. The books are usually not bad, but the students are not ready for them. How do you know if you are ready? It's hard to say. But you have to be somewhat competent in research. You will be looking things up. You will need to decide what not to look up because researching this can bog you down something fierce. If you only read best-selling stuff, you are not ready. If you only or mostly read Sanderson esque stuff and think "world-building" is a very important component to prose, you are not ready. If you get too analytical when you read and find it hard to just go with the flow, you are not ready. If you are not willing to pay for a good, recent translation, you are not ready. If you have no concept of asceticism in prose (i.e. you care mostly for "plot" and "character development") you are not ready. If you think Harry Potter is a pinnacle or close to a pinnacle of good and subtle writing, you are definitely not ready. Sorry to be pedantic about it, but sometimes we are not ready for a book, and that is fine. One may never be ready, and that's fine, too! What you want to avoid is not enjoying a book simply because it's reading level is way beyond Joycean levels and smugly declare it "no good" and present it as evidence of your high culture. To be sure, @Ammanas did no such thing and has gained a reading level where he knows that a young reader is not a particularly good reader of high literature. And for that, I salute him! I can also provide a little bit of commentary of how to read Faust Part 2, but only if I deem you worthy I am still a pedantic fellow, after all!

Gasp! Faust Part 2 is one of the best pieces of world literature out there! And, with easy access to the internet, it's more accessible nowadays then it ever has been! I do suggest the Martin Greenberg translations for both parts. It's a much more accessible translation than whatever old "let's force this into a Victorian poetic scheme" translation is in the public domain.

Weeellll, I haven't read White Luck Warrior or The Great Ordeal (though I own both) but that was a conscious choice to wait until The Unholy Consult was almost released. Looks like I have my reading list decided for the next few weeks!