she (as if my heart had been a flower
whose bloom had wilted because the power
of a violent storm's enough to cower
even the strongest heart that stands alone)
appeared in brilliant colors to atone
for any darkness that my heart had known;
so, no, to save my soul i'd not deny
she is, for me, the rainbow and the sky.
~Mike Duron (composed Sunday, December 9th, 2001.)
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Elementary Comparative Novel-Structure Analysis
Just a few quick observations regarding the structures of six novels: Blowfly, by Patricia Cornwell (A Scarpetta Novel)[2003]; For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway [1940]; The Bourne Legacy, by Eric Van Lustbader [2004]; Hannibal, by Thomas Harris [2000]; Duma Key, by Stephen King [2008]; War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells [1898].
Questions to be asked regarding each book:
1. Is the book divided into parts?
2. If the book is divided into parts, are the parts named?
3. Is the book divided into chapters?
4. If the book is divided into chapters, are the chapters named?
5. If the book is divided into chapters, are the chapters subdivided?
6. If the chapters are subdivided, are the subdivisions named?
I'll enter notes on each book in order according to date, but I won't answer the questions in list form. Instead, I'll just type a simple paragraph describing the structure of the book.
1. War of the Worlds (1898)
H.G. Well's book is divided into two books and includes an epilogue but no prologue. Book 1 is composed of 17 chapters; book 2 is composed of 10 (including the epilogue, which is chapter 10). Chapter numbering resumes from one at the beginning of each book. The chapters in both books are named, and none of the chapters is subdivided into smaller sections.
2. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
Hemingway's book consists of 43 numbered but un-named chapters, with neither an epilogue nor a prologue present. The book is not divided into sections and none of the chapters are subdivided.
3. Hannibal (2000)
Thomas Harris' book is divided into six named sections. The sections are divided into un-named chapters but the chapter numbers continue through the various sections without resetting. The book contains a total of 103 chapters and none of the chapters is sub-divided. Finally, the book has no prologue or epilogue.
4. Blowfly (2003)
Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novel is structured in a manner identical to Hemingway's FWtBT. The book contains no prologue, no epilogue, and consists of a total of 124 numbered but un-named chapters.
5. The Bourne Legacy (2004)
Eric Van Lustbader's novel is divided into a total of four sections: "Prologue," "Part 1," "Part 2," and "Epilogue." The book contains 31 numbered but un-named chapters that run continuously from the beginning of "Part 1" to the end of "Part 2."
6. Duma Key (2008)
Stephen King's novel exhibits the most-complex structure of the all six books considered here. It contains neither a prologue nor an epilogue but is divided into 12 sections. Each section division consists of a section titled "How to Draw a Picture" and is numbered from I to XII. The book's total of 22 named chapters are interspersed between the "How to Draw a Picture" section dividers and are themselves subdivided into sections numbered with lower-case roman numerals but are not otherwise named.
Pros and Cons of Above Structures for Today's Readers
The first thing that comes to mind when comparing, say Duma Key to War of the Worlds is that Duma Key seems much more geared toward a person who is able to read sometimes for long periods of time and sometimes for short periods of time. The fact that its chapters are divided into sub-sections that provide convenient 'stopping points' for busy people who have to go to work, drive, tend to family business, etc. gives it appeal to such an audience.
Really, who has time to sit through a 900-page novel consisting of three 300-page chapters?
The structure of War of the Worlds actually seems to me more dictated by the content than any consideration of the prospective readership's time constraints. The 'stopping points' are placed in such a way that they seem to complement the telling of the story in a truer artistic sense.
Of course, it's a little past five in the morning and I've been up all night so I just might be reading too much into King's motivations regarding his novel structure and, if I am, I'm sorry. These are just my thoughts right now.
Regarding the other books, I think it's pretty interesting that Blowfly and For Whom the Bell Tolls have exactly the same structure. This is quite a classic, though simple, way of telling a story and I don't fault either author one bit for using it. I personally prefer more sophistication -- such as with Nabokov's Lolita and Pale Fire -- but I enjoyed both novels pretty well anyway. I guess it's sort of like a classic meal; like spaghetti and meatballs rather than some new-fangled way of eating foie gras and black truffles.
Okay, enough of this for now. My eyse are dry and I'm kinda starting to doze here. Maybe I'll revisit this in the future.
Questions to be asked regarding each book:
1. Is the book divided into parts?
2. If the book is divided into parts, are the parts named?
3. Is the book divided into chapters?
4. If the book is divided into chapters, are the chapters named?
5. If the book is divided into chapters, are the chapters subdivided?
6. If the chapters are subdivided, are the subdivisions named?
I'll enter notes on each book in order according to date, but I won't answer the questions in list form. Instead, I'll just type a simple paragraph describing the structure of the book.
1. War of the Worlds (1898)
H.G. Well's book is divided into two books and includes an epilogue but no prologue. Book 1 is composed of 17 chapters; book 2 is composed of 10 (including the epilogue, which is chapter 10). Chapter numbering resumes from one at the beginning of each book. The chapters in both books are named, and none of the chapters is subdivided into smaller sections.
2. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
Hemingway's book consists of 43 numbered but un-named chapters, with neither an epilogue nor a prologue present. The book is not divided into sections and none of the chapters are subdivided.
3. Hannibal (2000)
Thomas Harris' book is divided into six named sections. The sections are divided into un-named chapters but the chapter numbers continue through the various sections without resetting. The book contains a total of 103 chapters and none of the chapters is sub-divided. Finally, the book has no prologue or epilogue.
4. Blowfly (2003)
Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novel is structured in a manner identical to Hemingway's FWtBT. The book contains no prologue, no epilogue, and consists of a total of 124 numbered but un-named chapters.
5. The Bourne Legacy (2004)
Eric Van Lustbader's novel is divided into a total of four sections: "Prologue," "Part 1," "Part 2," and "Epilogue." The book contains 31 numbered but un-named chapters that run continuously from the beginning of "Part 1" to the end of "Part 2."
6. Duma Key (2008)
Stephen King's novel exhibits the most-complex structure of the all six books considered here. It contains neither a prologue nor an epilogue but is divided into 12 sections. Each section division consists of a section titled "How to Draw a Picture" and is numbered from I to XII. The book's total of 22 named chapters are interspersed between the "How to Draw a Picture" section dividers and are themselves subdivided into sections numbered with lower-case roman numerals but are not otherwise named.
Pros and Cons of Above Structures for Today's Readers
The first thing that comes to mind when comparing, say Duma Key to War of the Worlds is that Duma Key seems much more geared toward a person who is able to read sometimes for long periods of time and sometimes for short periods of time. The fact that its chapters are divided into sub-sections that provide convenient 'stopping points' for busy people who have to go to work, drive, tend to family business, etc. gives it appeal to such an audience.
Really, who has time to sit through a 900-page novel consisting of three 300-page chapters?
The structure of War of the Worlds actually seems to me more dictated by the content than any consideration of the prospective readership's time constraints. The 'stopping points' are placed in such a way that they seem to complement the telling of the story in a truer artistic sense.
Of course, it's a little past five in the morning and I've been up all night so I just might be reading too much into King's motivations regarding his novel structure and, if I am, I'm sorry. These are just my thoughts right now.
Regarding the other books, I think it's pretty interesting that Blowfly and For Whom the Bell Tolls have exactly the same structure. This is quite a classic, though simple, way of telling a story and I don't fault either author one bit for using it. I personally prefer more sophistication -- such as with Nabokov's Lolita and Pale Fire -- but I enjoyed both novels pretty well anyway. I guess it's sort of like a classic meal; like spaghetti and meatballs rather than some new-fangled way of eating foie gras and black truffles.
Okay, enough of this for now. My eyse are dry and I'm kinda starting to doze here. Maybe I'll revisit this in the future.
Monday, May 18, 2009
War of the Worlds
Just a few notes on this while I'm online because I just got done reading this novel by H.G. Wells (I picked it up as soon as I got done with Duma Key) and I have a few things on my mind I want to tap into the blog before I forget. **Spoiler Alert**
I have to say I really enjoyed the hell out of this little novel. Aside from being a person endowed with a formidable imagination, Wells is a solid writer. I'm a person who doesn't admire a writer by reputation or fame but by the nuts and bolts of his work. All the fame Wells has gotten over the years is well deserved in my opinion.
A few questions remain with me after having finished reading this novel this afternoon though. For instance:
1. How is it that the Martians were so advanced and yet they failed to take into account the existence and danger of microbes? This seems quite implausible and too convenient for the story's resolution -- a deus ex machina.
2. How was it possible for the narrator to be inside his home at the end and his wife to be outside and for somebody to tell her that nobody was inside? When did they check the home? Before he got there? They certainly couldn't have checked it while he was in the house. The would have seen him. If they checked the home before he got there, why did they go back to it and stand right below his window to declare that he must be "counted among the dead?"
3. Did Wells not consider such a thing as G-forces when he considered the fact the cylinders would have to be shot from a cannon on Mars with incredible stress on its fragile occupants as well as plowed into the ground on Earth with such force that such creatures as those described in the story would surely have been reduced to jelly stuck to the front interior surface of the cylinder?
4. Why was it that microbes did not exist on Mars? Did Wells assume complex forms evolved from complex forms without any existence of simpler forms -- ever? This just doesn't make sense.
5. Why did Wells ignore the fact the conquerers have historically decimated the populations of the conquered in the history of Earth with microbes they took to the conquered? Remember the smallpox-ridden blankets?
Even with these questions, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel and look forward to reading another of Wells' novels as soon as I'm done with what I'm reading now: Thoreau's 1862 essay, "Walking."
I have to say I really enjoyed the hell out of this little novel. Aside from being a person endowed with a formidable imagination, Wells is a solid writer. I'm a person who doesn't admire a writer by reputation or fame but by the nuts and bolts of his work. All the fame Wells has gotten over the years is well deserved in my opinion.
A few questions remain with me after having finished reading this novel this afternoon though. For instance:
1. How is it that the Martians were so advanced and yet they failed to take into account the existence and danger of microbes? This seems quite implausible and too convenient for the story's resolution -- a deus ex machina.
2. How was it possible for the narrator to be inside his home at the end and his wife to be outside and for somebody to tell her that nobody was inside? When did they check the home? Before he got there? They certainly couldn't have checked it while he was in the house. The would have seen him. If they checked the home before he got there, why did they go back to it and stand right below his window to declare that he must be "counted among the dead?"
3. Did Wells not consider such a thing as G-forces when he considered the fact the cylinders would have to be shot from a cannon on Mars with incredible stress on its fragile occupants as well as plowed into the ground on Earth with such force that such creatures as those described in the story would surely have been reduced to jelly stuck to the front interior surface of the cylinder?
4. Why was it that microbes did not exist on Mars? Did Wells assume complex forms evolved from complex forms without any existence of simpler forms -- ever? This just doesn't make sense.
5. Why did Wells ignore the fact the conquerers have historically decimated the populations of the conquered in the history of Earth with microbes they took to the conquered? Remember the smallpox-ridden blankets?
Even with these questions, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel and look forward to reading another of Wells' novels as soon as I'm done with what I'm reading now: Thoreau's 1862 essay, "Walking."
Duma Key
I recently read Stephen King's Duma Key. As with most things I post here, I'm posting mainly as a note to myself so if you haven't read the book consider this your **Spoiler Alert**.
The first thing I have to say about this book is that it read like a novel-length short story that should have been edited about ten to twenty more times, each revision removing more than the next. This would have been a great story at about the length of "1408." As it stands, the thing is a monstrosity composed of a few lush literary oases separated by several vast and inhospitable literary deserts.
Let me clarify before I go on: this is my second time actually making an attempt to read this book. The first time I tried to read it, I put it down at around page 100 and didn't go back to it for about a year.
It didn't get much better the second time around.
So what have I learned from the experience? Many things, but mainly I learned that it's easy -- even for the acknowledged 'master' of a genre -- to fail to revise with a brutal honesty. I don't know if King just lacked the desire to do what needed to be done (as Mark Twain said -- first underline all the parts you like best ... then delete them) or if he actually thought every single paragraph in the work actually had to be there (it didn't).
Having read this book made me not want to read another Stephen King book again in my life, though I probably will. At any rate, here are some questions I'm left with regarding the story itself:
1. If Edgar Freemantle is so rich, why the hell doesn't he have a cell phone?
2. What's up with the housekeeper that King seems to totally forget about throughout most of the book? The one he only mentions when it's convenient -- about two or three times in the entire book?
3. If the evil monster had the capacity to kill people with heart attacks, etc., all the way across the country, why the hell did it need to send an over-the-hill, boozed-up art critic to kill Freemantle's daughter? And why the hell couldn't the young, healthy, athletic daughter take the old crow when the latter attacked the former in her apartment?
4. What the hell was up with all the physicality between the father and daughter? That seemed somewhat over the line at times, like when Freemantle is describing her breasts and that whole scene in the pool ... and that kiss on the lips. I mean ... wtf?
Bottom line:
Note to self: When writing a novel, make sure it's a novel and not just a fat short story composed of 85% character development -- of One character.
Oh yeah, and just one more thing: Dr. Xander, the big dude who got Freemantle started on his way? Yep, that's your King requisite Magical Negro.
The first thing I have to say about this book is that it read like a novel-length short story that should have been edited about ten to twenty more times, each revision removing more than the next. This would have been a great story at about the length of "1408." As it stands, the thing is a monstrosity composed of a few lush literary oases separated by several vast and inhospitable literary deserts.
Let me clarify before I go on: this is my second time actually making an attempt to read this book. The first time I tried to read it, I put it down at around page 100 and didn't go back to it for about a year.
It didn't get much better the second time around.
So what have I learned from the experience? Many things, but mainly I learned that it's easy -- even for the acknowledged 'master' of a genre -- to fail to revise with a brutal honesty. I don't know if King just lacked the desire to do what needed to be done (as Mark Twain said -- first underline all the parts you like best ... then delete them) or if he actually thought every single paragraph in the work actually had to be there (it didn't).
Having read this book made me not want to read another Stephen King book again in my life, though I probably will. At any rate, here are some questions I'm left with regarding the story itself:
1. If Edgar Freemantle is so rich, why the hell doesn't he have a cell phone?
2. What's up with the housekeeper that King seems to totally forget about throughout most of the book? The one he only mentions when it's convenient -- about two or three times in the entire book?
3. If the evil monster had the capacity to kill people with heart attacks, etc., all the way across the country, why the hell did it need to send an over-the-hill, boozed-up art critic to kill Freemantle's daughter? And why the hell couldn't the young, healthy, athletic daughter take the old crow when the latter attacked the former in her apartment?
4. What the hell was up with all the physicality between the father and daughter? That seemed somewhat over the line at times, like when Freemantle is describing her breasts and that whole scene in the pool ... and that kiss on the lips. I mean ... wtf?
Bottom line:
Note to self: When writing a novel, make sure it's a novel and not just a fat short story composed of 85% character development -- of One character.
Oh yeah, and just one more thing: Dr. Xander, the big dude who got Freemantle started on his way? Yep, that's your King requisite Magical Negro.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
A Few Thoughts...
I've been up all night working.
Working is reading (right now, mainly Duma Key). Working is cruising the web, many times looking hard into the ugliness in the world -- an act that can be quite exhausting on its own for a person who is any sort of artist at all. Working is writing.
Working is imagining, daydreaming (in my case, mostly at night).
So now the time is approaching for me to go to bed.
I take with me all the ghosts of the world. I take the memories of mangled and dying people. I take the memories of funny animals. I take the memories of scenes from a novel -- Duma Key. I take the memories of my interactions with people on the web.
I climb into bed, in a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt, and continue to read from a book until my eyelids grow heavy and my eyes begin to dry out. While most other people in this part of the world are interacting in offices, on the streets, over the phone, on the internet, I slip into the world of dreams.
The Freudian Dreamworks creak into motion and everything I've seen is mixed into a sort of reality/fictive lasagna.
"I have to get going on this novel," I think, as I fall asleep. "I'm 41 years old, living with uncontrolled diabetes, high cholesterol, and I'm more sedentary than a sea slug. I don't have much time before my body gives in and I go to sleep for good. I've got to finish this thing and move on to the next one."
All the while the world goes on about its business.
People are born, as I sleep. People die.
And, in a while, their ghosts wander through my dreamworks ... as even more people work in jobs they hate, jobs they love, as they hide themselves away during lunch and make love, as mother's give birth, as sons die in wars and children die in crimes all over the world.
I sleep ... perchance ... to-- Oh, what the hell. Are you still reading this?
I'm off to bed -- with the lights on, thank you very much.
Working is reading (right now, mainly Duma Key). Working is cruising the web, many times looking hard into the ugliness in the world -- an act that can be quite exhausting on its own for a person who is any sort of artist at all. Working is writing.
Working is imagining, daydreaming (in my case, mostly at night).
So now the time is approaching for me to go to bed.
I take with me all the ghosts of the world. I take the memories of mangled and dying people. I take the memories of funny animals. I take the memories of scenes from a novel -- Duma Key. I take the memories of my interactions with people on the web.
I climb into bed, in a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt, and continue to read from a book until my eyelids grow heavy and my eyes begin to dry out. While most other people in this part of the world are interacting in offices, on the streets, over the phone, on the internet, I slip into the world of dreams.
The Freudian Dreamworks creak into motion and everything I've seen is mixed into a sort of reality/fictive lasagna.
"I have to get going on this novel," I think, as I fall asleep. "I'm 41 years old, living with uncontrolled diabetes, high cholesterol, and I'm more sedentary than a sea slug. I don't have much time before my body gives in and I go to sleep for good. I've got to finish this thing and move on to the next one."
All the while the world goes on about its business.
People are born, as I sleep. People die.
And, in a while, their ghosts wander through my dreamworks ... as even more people work in jobs they hate, jobs they love, as they hide themselves away during lunch and make love, as mother's give birth, as sons die in wars and children die in crimes all over the world.
I sleep ... perchance ... to-- Oh, what the hell. Are you still reading this?
I'm off to bed -- with the lights on, thank you very much.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Lunch at the Gotham Cafe
I just finished reading "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" by Stephen King. I read it because I'm currently reading Duma Key and it's fluctuating between chore and pleasure like an old-fashioned dipping bird fluctuates between up and down. (I'll save the problems I'm having with DK for another post though.)
I'm really astonished at just how sophomoric this story reads! I'm here to tell you it sounds like something I might have written in freshman comp in 1987, if not high school. The whole fight sequence in the restaurant was not only ridiculous but outright implausible at times.
For instance, if people saw a guy with a knife attacking a person (or even a group of people) in a crowded restaurant, a short visit to almost any gore site on the web these days will reveal that while bystanders will likely back off at first and start capturing the event on their cell phones, many of them will actually rush the guy and get him onto the ground before he's able to do much damage.
A nutjob with a gun is another story, but a guy with a knife? In an NYC restaurant? Forget about it. The guy would be lucky to get out of the place alive.
Implausibilities abound. What about the waiter who -- after everyone's been screaming in the dining room and one guy's even been murdered -- is still on his way out from the kitchen with a tray of food!? What? Was that guy deaf or something?
The whole thing seemed like it was written by a teen-aged kid more than a master of horror.
Unless I'm missing something and the whole thing was an inside joke -- a tongue in cheek slip of the pen -- I have to say this is one of the worst ever things I've read by King.
(I read "1408" earlier today as well and while that story was better than this one by far, it had it's own silly aspects that I might blog about later in another entry.)
I'm really astonished at just how sophomoric this story reads! I'm here to tell you it sounds like something I might have written in freshman comp in 1987, if not high school. The whole fight sequence in the restaurant was not only ridiculous but outright implausible at times.
For instance, if people saw a guy with a knife attacking a person (or even a group of people) in a crowded restaurant, a short visit to almost any gore site on the web these days will reveal that while bystanders will likely back off at first and start capturing the event on their cell phones, many of them will actually rush the guy and get him onto the ground before he's able to do much damage.
A nutjob with a gun is another story, but a guy with a knife? In an NYC restaurant? Forget about it. The guy would be lucky to get out of the place alive.
Implausibilities abound. What about the waiter who -- after everyone's been screaming in the dining room and one guy's even been murdered -- is still on his way out from the kitchen with a tray of food!? What? Was that guy deaf or something?
The whole thing seemed like it was written by a teen-aged kid more than a master of horror.
Unless I'm missing something and the whole thing was an inside joke -- a tongue in cheek slip of the pen -- I have to say this is one of the worst ever things I've read by King.
(I read "1408" earlier today as well and while that story was better than this one by far, it had it's own silly aspects that I might blog about later in another entry.)
Back Home
Coming back to this blog is, dare I write it?: Like coming home.
I've been off on various adventures since I last posted. I've met a lot of people -- and let them all drift back into that nothingness from which they emerged. A few I've tried to contact again, but not many. They don't belong to my world of writing. They belong to that other world. The outer world where people don't live inside their head. (Yes, that's a joke. It's okay to laugh.)
So I never did finish that novel I was working on before life interrupted me with its rude surprises.
I don't know if I'll go back to it. The subject is still relevant, but will people want to read it?
Who knows?
I guess I can finish it for the practice. I mean, I could write short stories to get back into shape, but who buys short stories anymore besides 17 and Atlantic Monthly? And how many subs do they get every day? About a thousand each?
That's a hell of a slush pile.
Where's Judson Jerome when you need the guy? (Miss you much, pal.)
So, here I am. I guess I'll put my nose to the old grindstone and get to that 100k word count and just get this one behind me so I can start the next one.
It's good to be back. Like a good little hobbit, I hope there are no adventures or surprises in store for me for the next couple of years.
All I want to do is stay inside this comfortable little hobbit hole -- and write, read, revise, write....
[By the way, I just opened a twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/mike_duron ]
I've been off on various adventures since I last posted. I've met a lot of people -- and let them all drift back into that nothingness from which they emerged. A few I've tried to contact again, but not many. They don't belong to my world of writing. They belong to that other world. The outer world where people don't live inside their head. (Yes, that's a joke. It's okay to laugh.)
So I never did finish that novel I was working on before life interrupted me with its rude surprises.
I don't know if I'll go back to it. The subject is still relevant, but will people want to read it?
Who knows?
I guess I can finish it for the practice. I mean, I could write short stories to get back into shape, but who buys short stories anymore besides 17 and Atlantic Monthly? And how many subs do they get every day? About a thousand each?
That's a hell of a slush pile.
Where's Judson Jerome when you need the guy? (Miss you much, pal.)
So, here I am. I guess I'll put my nose to the old grindstone and get to that 100k word count and just get this one behind me so I can start the next one.
It's good to be back. Like a good little hobbit, I hope there are no adventures or surprises in store for me for the next couple of years.
All I want to do is stay inside this comfortable little hobbit hole -- and write, read, revise, write....
[By the way, I just opened a twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/mike_duron ]
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