Part 1
My favourite extract was Cormac Macarthys Blood Meridian. I was really chilled by the cold and clinical definite article he used for 'the child'. This reflected the description of the cold upbringing and also, i feel, added tension to the piece. If this was the beginning of the book, i'll presume it is, it was a brilliant way of starting. I paticularly liked the way he summed the character of the child up in a short exerpt. This, for me, is a relief because i can't bear the brussel sprouts before the meat.
Part 2
The End. (This is meant to be read aloud)
Each beat hit the floor running. Rippling through the souls of every bystander, cutting through the tension and loosening inhibitions. There isn’t a place for alcohol here. Soulless people aren’t allowed. You can speak softly here, but most prefer to shout
Loud
And
Proud.
Each ender has no reason. That’s the reason they come. They don’t seek applause or appraisal. They judge each other by just one thing.
Their love for love.
If beats aren’t rippling they’ll make their own. In this franchise of frivolity each crowd is alone. Each mistake is forgot. No one has a stake in what this lot do.
No one.
Some Enders say that it’s a state of mind... It’s just a house built on an old quarry really.
But soon they will find, that happiness, freedom and peace don’t come without planning permission.
Bureaucrats wince through their monocle at The End. Their spectacles skew the image:
They mistake purple for grey
They mistake orange for grey
They mistake yellow for grey.
Each clone is an individual and each individual is an enemy.
Each one would distort creativity and at the end put a word completely out of context just so it would rhyme, like…
Lemony.
They wait in the bushes. They leave their mother earth insurance details by the crushed flowers. When they fight and they wreck, the Enders can’t do anything.
After all they have the system by the
Scruff of its neck.
Hi Naboo.
ReplyDeletePART 1:
Some good observations, but I wonder if you can dig a little deeper into the text? What did you think about the rest of the language used, other than the well-observered point about 'the child'? What did you think of the delivery of information? What was the effect of an introduction that is basically a summing up of past events, instead of throwing you into direct present action? I love the phrase 'the brussel sprouts before the meat', but maybe you could unpack which parts you felt were meaty, and the kind of brussel sprout writing you are glad it avoided? ;) As I say, what you have written is well observed, but I think there is a bit of room for expansion.
PART 2:
I had to read this one through a couple of times to get a clear(er) picture in my head of what was going on. It's pretty dense, but that's not a bad thing. I also read it out loud. There are some great rhythms in this piece; it sometimes feels like a poem, especially because of the way you have laid it out, with certain line breaks and very, very short paragraphs that almost look like lines of a poem. A very interesting structure. I wonder if you could make more of it, or if you had certain intentions? Does the poetic form represent the Enders? And the more traditional prose form, the polititions? (I could be reading too much into it.)
I must admit I am still a little confused, even after several reads. At first, I thought the Enders were a part of some kind of brutal secret sport (the 'bystanders' and the 'beats' confused me a little). I'm really not so sure about the first line. I don't understand at all what the beats are, and I can't visulise how a sound (a beat) hits the floor 'running'.
Minor point about consistency: the ender/the Ender
"each crowd is alone" - I'm not sure about this phrase. To my mind it brings together images of many small crowds, distinct from each other, but non the less still in groups. However, with the rest of the text, I suspect that perhaps you are more likely trying to convey that the individuals in the crowd are isolated? I think it might need some clarification.
"Each mistake is forgot." - 'Forgot' works well with the rhythms you have created, but the critic in me screams out that it should technically be 'forgotten'. If you are deliberately using the wrong form for effect, it would be up to you, though.
"But soon they will find, that happiness, freedom and peace don’t come without planning permission." - this is a great line. But you don't need the first comma.
"Bureaucrats wince through their monocle at The End. Their spectacles skew the image:" - this is a great image. But an inconsistent one. Having monocles in one, and spectacles in another confuses the image for no reason. Maybe say 'Their lenses skew...' instead? Then it is ambiguous, but still fits with 'monocle'.
The beaurocrats seem to be the ones with all the legal power (though the Enders have the state of mind victory), and usually those who think they are powerful don't skulk around in bushes. So I'm not sure if that image works. I would imaging them storming up to the place. Unless you are talking about the Enders at that point. In which case, I think you need to make that paragraph a little more clear, again.
In all, this is very creative. I love the way you have experimented with form and rhythm in a prose piece. You have some great phrases and images. But I'd say just be careful that you don't lose clarity by trying to be overly creative. Try to read every sentence from the point of view of someone who had no previous idea what the piece is about (pretty tough since, as the writer, you will already have this in your head.) Perhaps get a few people to read it through and ask them what they think is happening. A really great effort though. Nice one.
Sophie's given you some pretty invaluable feedback, that I don't feel I can add much to!
ReplyDeleteYou’ve seized the chance to be extremely original and creative with this task, and the risks you take often pay dividends. Virginia Woolf wrote about the importance of rhythm in prose writing, and I’m glad you’ve grasped its importance, too. Good sentences have to be well structured, to flow well, and so many of yours do: ‘The mistake purple for grey. They mistake orange for grey. They mistake yellow for grey’ is one of my favourite examples of this. Here the repetitive structure echoes the monotony of the bureaucrats’ world-view – a very strong pairing of content and form. The short, sharp rhythms and repeated structures of the bureaucrat half stand in stark and effective contrast to the looser, more lyrical rhythm of the Enders half of the excerpt. Very well done!
However, I agree with Sophie that the inconsistencies in this piece make it confusing, such as the characterisation of bureaucrats skulking in bushes, and lexical conflicts such as monocles vs. spectacles, enders vs. Enders. There are a LOT of ideas packed into this piece, but if it’s an excerpt from a longer work (which I read it to be?) then I don’t think this is necessarily a problem. However, a clearer sense of place at this point would, I think, be beneficial. I read the first line as showing The End to be some kind of club, and The Enders were revellers, clubbers, ravers… But I’m not sure if this is right or wrong, and so felt somewhat alienated from the piece. I think if you gave the reader a stronger sense of spatial location within the excerpt, it would lessen this alienation.
A really strong effort though. Well done!
Hello again Naboo, and thanks again for a highly riveting read.
ReplyDeleteYou've really excelled yourself in regards to imagery this time, and the complexity and depth of the ideas you've presented here in this small excerpt is more than would generally be found in many a full-length novel.
You have also proven yourself adept at that rarely mastered skill of rendering dense and complex imagery very accessible and re-readable. Indeed this piece seemed to have a different effect on me than on my fellow moderators. While I have to agree that I found the narrative as difficult to understand as they did, I didn't necessarily see this as a negative or alienating reaction; Indeed I read the piece as a sort of experiment in Dadaist imagery. I know that this was obviously not your intention as you clearly are presenting a narrative, but I still feel that your ability at rhythm and imagery is so formidable that this piece can survive on those skills alone; even at first reading I wasn't remotely perturbed by the obscurity of the narrative, I was just loving the writing style and the images.
Therefore it certainly couldn't hurt you to present a slightly clearer thread of exposition, just to ensure as big a readership as possible, but believe me, your writing in this piece is so strong that you don't need much,
Well done again,
Eoghan