| Commentary and Philosophy Non-Fiction posted April 13, 2021 |
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Not gonna buy the book (Freebie? Maybe)
Fictional First-Sight Fever
by Elizabeth Emerald
It is rightly said that one doesn't have a prayer for publication unless the book hooks the reader from the get-go.
I am an exception to the rule: once I start reading, I generally follow through, even when I think the book sucks. (My reward for slogging through: relishing kindred one-star reviews.)
I recently finished a complex and compelling novel, The Weight of Water, by Anita Shreve. After the acknowledgements there's a sneak preview of her next book, All He Ever Wanted.
On the last sentence of page four, Shreve flouts (by proxy) "show-don't-tell"; the narrator states (to the reader) that he is inexplicably, and irrevocably, drawn to a woman he spies in a throng.
To be fair, prior to his declaration of instant, and undying love attraction obsession, whilst acknowledging, paradoxically, that she isn't quite "his type," he waxes eloquently on the woman's striking attributes.
So yes, in the sense of meticulous and magnificent imagery, there is a glut of show preceding the tell. Regardless, though I don't fault the fine writer (quite the reverse), I want to shake some sense into the insipid narrator.
Whether rendered in fiction or purported in fact, I find at-first-sitis to be an unbearably irritating condition.
Though, mercifully, at least as regards myself, not in the least contagious.
It is rightly said that one doesn't have a prayer for publication unless the book hooks the reader from the get-go.
I am an exception to the rule: once I start reading, I generally follow through, even when I think the book sucks. (My reward for slogging through: relishing kindred one-star reviews.)
I recently finished a complex and compelling novel, The Weight of Water, by Anita Shreve. After the acknowledgements there's a sneak preview of her next book, All He Ever Wanted.
On the last sentence of page four, Shreve flouts (by proxy) "show-don't-tell"; the narrator states (to the reader) that he is inexplicably, and irrevocably, drawn to a woman he spies in a throng.
To be fair, prior to his declaration of instant, and undyinglove attraction obsession, whilst acknowledging, paradoxically, that she isn't quite "his type," he waxes eloquently on the woman's striking attributes.
So yes, in the sense of meticulous and magnificent imagery, there is a glut of show preceding the tell. Regardless, though I don't fault the fine writer (quite the reverse), I want to shake some sense into the insipid narrator.
Whether rendered in fiction or purported in fact, I find at-first-sitis to be an unbearably irritating condition.
Though, mercifully, at least as regards myself, not in the least contagious.
I am an exception to the rule: once I start reading, I generally follow through, even when I think the book sucks. (My reward for slogging through: relishing kindred one-star reviews.)
I recently finished a complex and compelling novel, The Weight of Water, by Anita Shreve. After the acknowledgements there's a sneak preview of her next book, All He Ever Wanted.
On the last sentence of page four, Shreve flouts (by proxy) "show-don't-tell"; the narrator states (to the reader) that he is inexplicably, and irrevocably, drawn to a woman he spies in a throng.
To be fair, prior to his declaration of instant, and undying
So yes, in the sense of meticulous and magnificent imagery, there is a glut of show preceding the tell. Regardless, though I don't fault the fine writer (quite the reverse), I want to shake some sense into the insipid narrator.
Whether rendered in fiction or purported in fact, I find at-first-sitis to be an unbearably irritating condition.
Though, mercifully, at least as regards myself, not in the least contagious.
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