I am a Snob
Jul. 23rd, 2003 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
addersljBuckle down, folks, this is gonna be a long one. This is more-or-less thinking aloud. Marriage seems to be a great catalyst for a re-examination of your life priorities. If you're not in a mood for self-analytical, self-indulgent musings, scroll up to the next entry in your friends page, now.
(Still here? Good.)
I had a revelation today: I'm a snob, at least in literary terms. I only realised it lately, as part of an e-mail conversation about Dark Ages: Rocks (in which I'm writing about granite, among other things), but in the last few years I really have become really picky about what I read.
I've been described as a "stealth geek" in the past because, while I write for the RPG industry, I don't display many of the other attributes of gamer geeks. Bad personal hygiene? Nope. Bad fashion sense? Nope. Anime/manga fixation? Nope. Computer gaming habit? Nope. Regular watcher of genre TV? Nope. (I have the first season of Buffy on DVD, and haven't watched the whole thing over a year later). Regular reader of fantasy / sci-fi novels? Nope. Heck, I haven't even read the Harry Potter series.
My one real geek vice is comics. Yeah, they're trash, but they're quick trash. A brief break from something more stimulating, at best. They're about the only trash fiction I can tolerate these days.
Like many Eng Lit graduates, I spent six months after my degree avoiding books with a passion. I had the luck of studying at Queen Mary's under a dynamic faculty headed up by the rather famous Professor Lisa Jardine. Thus, I got to study an extraordinary range of literature and drama. Reading three to four hefty novels and a play or two in a week was not unusual. It's no wonder most of us needed a rest after we graduated. After that, I spent a couple of years happily reading trash. I didn't want to read anything that triggered those analytical, discursive faculties the tutoring instilled in me. Those days have long gone. These days my reading is predominantly hardback and serious. I actively seek out work that raises questions and challenges me. Most of the paperback trash I accumulated a few years ago is long gone, donated to the local charity shop.
(Bear with me. There is a point here somewhere.)
Current reading includes:
Baudolino, by Umberto Eco
Granta: Best of Young British Novelists
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
The Four Nations, by Frank Welsh (originally BA: British Isles research. I enjoyed the early sections so much, I'm back reading the rest)
Open to Judgment: Sermons and Address, Dr Rowan Williams (the current Archbishop of Canterbury)
The problem I find with much geek and trash literature is that it is single layered: the book tells a single story. The plot can be strong. It can be involving. It just fails to provide anything but simple entertainment. If there is a second layer, it's one of ideas rather than one of philosophy or insight into the human condition. There's nothing wrong with that inherently: it's just not my cup of tea. I prefer stories that explore what it means to be human and what it means to exist amongst other humans. Careful students will note that much of my character voice writing for White Wolf has followed that model, as far as the game material demands of that writing will allow.
Now, the original discussion came up because I had to admit that I hadn't read any of the Dark Ages Clan novels yet. Now, don't get me wrong here.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
philboulle is doing a sterling job of dragging the quality of the WW fiction line upwards. His own Victorian Age Trilogy does a marvellous job of mixing a pastiche of the penny dreadfuls of the time with an interesting exploration of both the undercurrents of Victorian society and our own fascination with the vampire myth. Multi-layered, see? Greg Stolze's Trilogy of the Fallen mixed high action with deep theology and personal faith. Multi-layered. Unfortunately, you then get great heaps of leaden prose like Gherbod Fleming's Dark Ages: Nosferatu. (Compare the "burning city" scenes in Fleming's tawdry effort with that in Baudolino, and tell me that I'm wrong, I dare you.) It's symptomatic of far too much of the trash masquerading as genre fiction these days.
My late father would have said that my move away from geek fiction and media is symptomatic of me growing up. I'm not sure that's the actual truth. I think I'm returning to my roots. I've always been a slightly over-serious character with an addiction to reading literary fiction and academic studies. I gave up roleplaying in my late teens, when I discovered girls, bars and music. I only started gaming seriously again when I was offered freelance on arcane magazine at a point when I really, really needed the money.
My time is precious theses days. I'm a 30-something guy with a consuming day job, two separate loads of freelance work, a wife I love very much and want to spend time with and even a few friends to visit. Those years of my early 20s with their plentiful free time are gone. I have no choice. I have to be a snob. Life is too short to read (or watch) trash.
Of course, this all could be a symptom of hitting middle age, too. I'm listening to classical music now...
Anyway, I got my DA:Rocks redlines back frominnocent_man and they're pretty light, which is a relief. I'm extremely confident in my abilities with character voice and fiction-style material. After all, that's what my bulk of game writing has been and what I spent a good few years of my life studying. I'm less confident with general game material and background stuff. Partially this is because I constantly have to resist the temptation to sink into a journalistic style of writing, which is inappropriate for the material. The struggle to keep it from becoming that makes it less enjoyable for me than IC stuff, which is distinctly different from what I spend my days doing. Partially, it's because it's less involving. My wife has noted before that I take on aspects of the character I'm writing when I'm doing character voice stuff (which was an interesting experience when writing Wayward, let me tell you). General source material just doesn't offer me that depth of involvement.
For all I've enjoyed this project, I think that once the financial imperatives of supporting Lorna through her PhD have passed, I may be a lot more selective in the writing I take on.
(Still here? Good.)
I had a revelation today: I'm a snob, at least in literary terms. I only realised it lately, as part of an e-mail conversation about Dark Ages: Rocks (in which I'm writing about granite, among other things), but in the last few years I really have become really picky about what I read.
I've been described as a "stealth geek" in the past because, while I write for the RPG industry, I don't display many of the other attributes of gamer geeks. Bad personal hygiene? Nope. Bad fashion sense? Nope. Anime/manga fixation? Nope. Computer gaming habit? Nope. Regular watcher of genre TV? Nope. (I have the first season of Buffy on DVD, and haven't watched the whole thing over a year later). Regular reader of fantasy / sci-fi novels? Nope. Heck, I haven't even read the Harry Potter series.
My one real geek vice is comics. Yeah, they're trash, but they're quick trash. A brief break from something more stimulating, at best. They're about the only trash fiction I can tolerate these days.
Like many Eng Lit graduates, I spent six months after my degree avoiding books with a passion. I had the luck of studying at Queen Mary's under a dynamic faculty headed up by the rather famous Professor Lisa Jardine. Thus, I got to study an extraordinary range of literature and drama. Reading three to four hefty novels and a play or two in a week was not unusual. It's no wonder most of us needed a rest after we graduated. After that, I spent a couple of years happily reading trash. I didn't want to read anything that triggered those analytical, discursive faculties the tutoring instilled in me. Those days have long gone. These days my reading is predominantly hardback and serious. I actively seek out work that raises questions and challenges me. Most of the paperback trash I accumulated a few years ago is long gone, donated to the local charity shop.
(Bear with me. There is a point here somewhere.)
Current reading includes:
Baudolino, by Umberto Eco
Granta: Best of Young British Novelists
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
The Four Nations, by Frank Welsh (originally BA: British Isles research. I enjoyed the early sections so much, I'm back reading the rest)
Open to Judgment: Sermons and Address, Dr Rowan Williams (the current Archbishop of Canterbury)
The problem I find with much geek and trash literature is that it is single layered: the book tells a single story. The plot can be strong. It can be involving. It just fails to provide anything but simple entertainment. If there is a second layer, it's one of ideas rather than one of philosophy or insight into the human condition. There's nothing wrong with that inherently: it's just not my cup of tea. I prefer stories that explore what it means to be human and what it means to exist amongst other humans. Careful students will note that much of my character voice writing for White Wolf has followed that model, as far as the game material demands of that writing will allow.
Now, the original discussion came up because I had to admit that I hadn't read any of the Dark Ages Clan novels yet. Now, don't get me wrong here.
philboulle is doing a sterling job of dragging the quality of the WW fiction line upwards. His own Victorian Age Trilogy does a marvellous job of mixing a pastiche of the penny dreadfuls of the time with an interesting exploration of both the undercurrents of Victorian society and our own fascination with the vampire myth. Multi-layered, see? Greg Stolze's Trilogy of the Fallen mixed high action with deep theology and personal faith. Multi-layered. Unfortunately, you then get great heaps of leaden prose like Gherbod Fleming's Dark Ages: Nosferatu. (Compare the "burning city" scenes in Fleming's tawdry effort with that in Baudolino, and tell me that I'm wrong, I dare you.) It's symptomatic of far too much of the trash masquerading as genre fiction these days. My late father would have said that my move away from geek fiction and media is symptomatic of me growing up. I'm not sure that's the actual truth. I think I'm returning to my roots. I've always been a slightly over-serious character with an addiction to reading literary fiction and academic studies. I gave up roleplaying in my late teens, when I discovered girls, bars and music. I only started gaming seriously again when I was offered freelance on arcane magazine at a point when I really, really needed the money.
My time is precious theses days. I'm a 30-something guy with a consuming day job, two separate loads of freelance work, a wife I love very much and want to spend time with and even a few friends to visit. Those years of my early 20s with their plentiful free time are gone. I have no choice. I have to be a snob. Life is too short to read (or watch) trash.
Of course, this all could be a symptom of hitting middle age, too. I'm listening to classical music now...
| You are 24% geek |
</td><td valign="top">OK, so maybe you ain't a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you're probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.</td>Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com
Anyway, I got my DA:Rocks redlines back from
innocent_man and they're pretty light, which is a relief. I'm extremely confident in my abilities with character voice and fiction-style material. After all, that's what my bulk of game writing has been and what I spent a good few years of my life studying. I'm less confident with general game material and background stuff. Partially this is because I constantly have to resist the temptation to sink into a journalistic style of writing, which is inappropriate for the material. The struggle to keep it from becoming that makes it less enjoyable for me than IC stuff, which is distinctly different from what I spend my days doing. Partially, it's because it's less involving. My wife has noted before that I take on aspects of the character I'm writing when I'm doing character voice stuff (which was an interesting experience when writing Wayward, let me tell you). General source material just doesn't offer me that depth of involvement.For all I've enjoyed this project, I think that once the financial imperatives of supporting Lorna through her PhD have passed, I may be a lot more selective in the writing I take on.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 11:02 am (UTC)As a fan myself, I see that as a bad thing, because I really like your writing. As a writer, I see it as a *good* thing, as the rest of us will have less competition :O))
"My one real geek vice is comics. Yeah, they're trash, but they're quick trash. A brief break from something more stimulating, at best. They're about the only trash fiction I can tolerate these days."
Obviously you are ignoring or are unfamiliar with:
Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN (Review at this site)
http://www.grovel.org.uk/reviews/sandma01/sandma01.htm
Alan Moore's Watchmen (Review at this site)
http://www.grovel.org.uk/reviews/watchm01/watchm01.htm
And
Batman:The Dark Knight returns, reviewed at the above site.
Those are but a few examples of what happens when great writers use the comics medium to tell tales of people with real emotions and character flaws, dealing with problems both everyday and supernatural. Read them, you might just change your mind about 'trashy' comics.
-G
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 11:22 am (UTC)They are very much the exception, not the rule.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 11:38 am (UTC)And you didn't answer my original question, Btw...
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 11:41 am (UTC)Possibly. I'm closing in on 30 books for White Wolf now. There must be a limit on how much one person has to say in the gaming arena. I don't know for sure, though. It'll be six months before I'm making those sorts of decisions.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 02:57 pm (UTC)Soul brother!
Admittedly, I do play computer games. And I have been reading some genre novels lately, but I haven't actually liked many of them, so it doesn't count.
Apart from that, we could be twins. Maybe not identical twins, but fraternal.
(Incidentally, go read Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex if you haven't already.)
It's occasionally weird, being a game writer who doesn't like Star Wars or Tolkien, but I think there should be more of it.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 04:46 pm (UTC)These days, I tend to read either thrillers (particularly psychological ones), stuff like Robert Pirsig (which challenges my thinking) or my guilty pleasure, which is modern pulp adventure (ala Clive Cussler, Matthew Reilly or Jack du Brul).
When I first started writing - particularly RPG material - I had this burning desire to have the surface level of the game by metaphoring for the stuff that's really going on, which usually revolved around the curing of mental neuroses. I can't say if I was successful or not, but at least that was my intention.
Although I drifted away from that somewhat, lately I find myself starting to come back to it, as the reason for actually writing stuff. It's something I'd like to become more conscious of and adept at, and that's going to take some effort.
I don't think you're alone. I'm sure people like
no subject
Date: 2003-07-24 07:15 pm (UTC)Not that I'm personally biased or anything, of course. :-D
But seriously -- speaking strictly for myself, even when I'm writing game fiction I try very hard to hold it to the same standards I would use for any other writing project, and to make it meaningful not just to gamers but to anyone who happens to read it. Knowing that some people will dismiss it out of hand just because it's "genre" or "tie-in" is unsurprising but still rather bothersome.
Anyhoo...
no subject
Date: 2003-07-25 12:40 am (UTC)However, I have since been informed that, unlike the original Clan Novels, it's not so necessary to read all the books, so I might try to skim read through Nossie and move on to later books.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-25 05:03 pm (UTC)Oh, I realize you weren't personally categorically damning all genre fiction. I was just taking the opportunity to complain a bit about those who do (a group of folks which includes the one and only writing teacher I ever briefly had -- I was mildly gratified to see his own first novel hailed in a review as, essentially, an enjoyable written sitcom).
In any case, you can hate all the genre fiction in the world as far as I'm concerned, as long as you make an exception for mine. Oh, and my friends', and that of the other authors that I really like.
;-)
Dark Ages and Genre Stuff
Date: 2003-10-30 12:53 pm (UTC)Author of Dark Ages: Assamite here.
So I was searching around for reviews of the Dark Ages Clan series and came upon this blog, which had a few thoughts that sounded kind of familiar, being a tad older than Mr. Tinworth (since when is thirty-something middle age? Please!) So, I thought I'd add my own.
Yeah, after writing all day, it's real tough to find something satisfying - and yes, most of everything is crap - but you never really can tell where the sublime will pop up, be it in a comic or a genre story or something considered more literary.
And "literary" stuff can suck just about as badly as genre. Umberto Eco never did it for me, for instance, and I thought the Illuminati Trilogy (arguably a more pop form) covered the subject matter of something like Foucoult's Pendulum, much better and with a sharper sense of humor.
The last thing I read which really blew me away was THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT, written from the perspective of an autistic kid trying to solve the killing of a dog. It was stunning, reminiscent of Flowers For Algernon, which is itself arguably a genre story. And, I found it and read it as a result of working with my own autistic character in my own genre novel.
For Assamite, I read parts of the Koran, first person accounts of the fall of Constantinople, and lots of history I would have otherwise been aware of - trying to give the novel more depth and breath. I was rewarded with a lot of great reviews and a second printing - so to echo Sara's comment above, it really is what you bring to it.
- Stefan P.
Re: Dark Ages and Genre Stuff
Date: 2003-10-30 02:58 pm (UTC)As for the rest, well, you're preaching to the converted. Research? When I was working on Veil of Night for the Dark Ages line, I read the Koran as well, as well as umpteen guides to medeival middle eastern thought, culture and religion. I have a whole bookcase full of research materials for various White Wolf projects down the years.
Genre stuff? I wasn't attacking it directly. You'll note that in the original post I specifically praise certain books. Indeed, it would be a foolish thing for me to do, as I've worked on over 25 books for White Wolf, both fiction and game material.
Literary stuff sucking? Sure. I'm working my way through this year's Booker shortlist right now and some of that is certainly over-rated.
My main point is that, on the whole, the aspirations of genre material can often be a lot lower than the aspirations of other types of writing. Yes, I know that happens in all fields, but it seems more prevalent in what we call "genre". Which reminds me, I must get around to a post developing the points made here in another direction. One for tomorrow, I think.