God, do you want to re-write the whole book like that? That sounds wonderful. And coherent. I feel like I would have enjoyed it much better.
Yes he should have done that. OR BRING IN A MOTHERFUCKING TRANSLATOR AND PLAYED IT THAT WAY.
I don’t think authors should be excused from coherency in the interests of accuracy, quite honestly.
Yeah, I don’t know what she was trying for, dropping the e from the. I just listened to a 30-minute interview with Ms. Arnow. I paid particular attention to the way she said “the”. Sometimes she ran it into the next word, but that’s it. So I’m baffled.
Good interview though. She was asked questions about some of her characters, and she talked about them like they had minds of their own, and she didn’t always know why they did what they did.
Joyce Carol Oates wrote an essay on Arnow for the NY Review of Books, and in her opinion, The Dollmaker is up there with The Grapes of Wrath for unpretentious American social history and commentary.
Apologies for the hijack, but I just adore this writer – even more after watching and listening to her speak. 
The Clan Of The Cave Bear.
“The idea that intercourse had anything to do with causing pregnancy was inconceivable”. :smack:
If the book had been written tongue-in-cheek, that line could have been funny. As it was, it was just jarring.
Then again, I thought the whole book was junk so perhaps it doesn’t belong in this thread (though enough people read it that the author perpetrated two sequels).
Never trust a Wookie, man.
One that always bugs me is what I call “Niffleheim Syndrome,” in honor of H. Beam Piper and his “Little Fuzzy” series. It’s when an author falls in love with an unusual word and uses it so many times that it starts to get irritating.
In the “Fuzzy” series, it was (obviously) “Niffleheim”. That was the name of one of the planets in story, and it was used in expressions like “from here to Niffleheim,” or “That stinks to Niffleheim!” “That would stink on Niffleheim!” It really got old after awhile.
Another example of Niffleheim Syndrome is Stephen King (who I do think is a good author, though I thought he used to be better in the old days than he is now). In “Lisey’s Story,” which was a perfectly serviceable if somewhat dull book, the main character didn’t say “fucking”. She said “smucking.” Constantly. By the time I finished the book, I was ready to chuck it at a wall every time I saw that damned word. He also likes to drop g’s on “ing” words without putting in an apostrophe, so you get “The Walkin Dude,” or “I was smokin a joint,” or whatever. I hate it.
Finally…J. K. Rowling. I love the Harry Potter series. I’ve read it or listened to it numerous times. But Jo, please, get an editor. You can’t have a character named “Sirius” say things “seriously” without looking silly. I’m sorry. You can’t. For that matter, lose about 60% of the adverbs in your prose.
God yes. I counted once, and found 13 adverbs (just in dialogue tags) in three pages.
Overuse of certain words is a pet peeve of mine too. I don’t remember who did it, but one fantasy writer never lets anyone walk – they stride. Sometimes a walk is just a walk. To me, striding means walking with purpose.
Horror writers love “preternatural”. I’ll allow it once, but if it appears a second time, I’ll dump the book. Lovecraft can use “eldritch” as much as he likes though. I think he invented the word. 
This reminds me of another one Rowling does: she has people “traipse,” even when traipsing isn’t appropriate. I can’t remember the specific case now, but I know there was at least one spot where it was a very serious occasion, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione traipsed out of the room. Kicked me right out of the story.
Oh, god, yes! Anne Rice couldn’t use preternatural more if she tried!
Oh, geez, how did I miss that gem?
Actually, the series got up to 5 books, AFAIK.
The books fall into the tolerable category, for me. I haven’t read #5 but Plains of Passage was the one I liked best - not as much of the emotional angst and sex, although Ayla continues to be Superwoman which got very old.
Back on topic, oddly enough, the ending (the wedding to Echozar) was a big disappointment, and probably why I never cared to move on to #5. It just seemed like she was going into total “Whatever” mode to finish up.
Oh god yes. I just read this recently and during the protagonist’s trip out into the land, I ended up skimming a hell of a lot of it. Endless repetitions of “he ate a little, he drank a little water, he slept, he crept around something scary” nearly drove me mad.
And then the trip back with the girl, where she’d be a brat - or worse, do something she knew was potentially deadly, like run off on her own - and he’d have to hit her or yell at her to make her behave? Ugh…
I was shocked when I read Deathly Hallows, because it seemed to me that she actually did lose the adverbs. Maybe I was too busy tearing through the book to notice, though.
Eddison’s worth it because of the writing style—if you like that sort of thing. Where Eddison can be accused of truly jarring (as opposed to archaic) writing is in his choice of names.
I dropped by to say “Dan Brown”.
The guy is a hack writer, but I think his stories could be better told by someone else, and even made interesting.
Okay, it certainly doesn’t fall into the category of Good Fiction. Most would say it wasn’t even tolerable.
But there was a certain romance novel I read when I was 12, and in it was the most hysterical line from a sex scene I have since encountered:
Even at twelve years old, an age when I thought The A-Team was a pinnacle in thinking man’s action television, I howled with laughter.
As did I. His initial description of Captain Bezu Fache in the Da Vinci Code was pure purple scenery-chewing prose. I didn’t notice anything quite so bad in the rest of the book, but I nearly stopped there.
Huh? I’m guessing this is a regional accent thing; the two words sound quite distinct to me.
Well, Jim Dale, who was the reader for the audiobook and has a British accent (no idea what region) spoke them so they sounded identical. I’m from California, and they sound identical to me too.
Come back in about 5 or 6 books. This won’t even register on your radar any more. And I say this as one of Jordan’s bitches…er…fans.
Well, not only because of the writing style–after all, the fight with the manticore on the mountain and the ending of the book are a couple of the great scenes in fantasy literature. But yeah, it is a reminder of the differences between the average modern reader and an author with a classical education and an interest in the sagas
Along those lines, another author in that general area is William Morris–great writing, but I need to keep a good dictionary by my side when reading his work; he’s very consciously channeling medieval romances, and he uses antiquated vocabulary a lot.
I read the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, in which Lin Carter edited out some of the more egregious problem areas; I’m trying to decide whether to take a crack at the original version. (But I still maintain that it’s one of the Great Works; imagine Stapledon on a bad trip…)
I’m going to upset fans and Scots together by saying this, but Trainspotting was utterly impenetrable to me. Written in a contemporary Scottish burr (or is it brogue? I always get those two mixed up), I couldn’t get more than 20 pages into it. Disappointing as I enjoyed the movie.