Answers to Me Meme
Sunday, 03 April, 2005
I'm feeling a little better today and have started taking extra Vitamin C to get over this wretched cold. My mother thinks that it might be allergies given that she and my father both have truckloads of them so that's something I ought to get checked out some day. I still reckon it's a cold because my head still feels all groggy and dysfunctional and I should probably listen to my body and go to sleep (like this site recommends). Anyway, before I do, here's my answers to my meme:
1. If you could be any character from a book, who would you be and why?
Harry Crewe from The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley). She has a giant cat for a pet (Narknon); the king gives her a warhorse called Sungold (called “Tsornin” in his language); she's taught swordplay and riding in six weeks; she is first in the lapruns, she inherits Lady Aerin's sword, Gonturun; she becomes a King's Rider; she saves the kingdom; and, of course, she gets the guy in the end. (I hope I haven't spoiled it for you!)
I was going to say Beauty from Beauty (Robin McKinley), but on reflection, Harry would be much cooler to be.
2. Which book do you wish you had written and why?
The problem with this question is that any book I put down in answer means that I cannot then enjoy reading it. If I wanted to have written it, I know it would have been difficult and frustrating. So I think it must be something worthwhile—something that I would be proud of accomplishing at the end. I think I would say Possession (A.S. Byatt) because it is clever, beautifully written, diverse and engaging. Plus it won the Booker prize. And I'd just like to be as smart as Byatt.
3. What book(s) have you wanted to change the ending of?
I'd have to agree with Guan that the ending to Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) is truly awful. So is the ending to The Diamond Age. But I wrote this question with Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) in mind—I was thinking about how most people wanted Jo to end up with Laurie in the end and didn't think that Amy was deserving of him. If Dead Poets Society wouldn't you have wanted Neil to live and for the boys to have started a revolution?
I'll have to say that I am still sore at J.K. Rowling for killing off one of my favourite characters in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I understand why she did it and I do kind of admire her for having the gall to do it but I would still change the ending and bring him back!
4. What is most important to you in a book and why?
Story/Plot?
Story and plot is the MOST IMPORTANT thing for me in a book. And it has to work and work well. It has to be told well. It has to engage me. It has to be consistent and true to the characters (which is why that scene where Harry goes walking around Hogwarts at night without his invisibility cloak in Harry Potter and the Prisoner from Azkaban is so completely stupid that the writers should probably be taken out and shot. I think this is why I have never been completely captivated by Neal Stephenson and why I have absolutely no respect for David Eddings (who, I've been told, just recycled the same plot line into a different series), Isobelle Carmody (who still has not finished the Obernewtyn Chronicles) and Robert Jordan (whose Wheel of Time Series is probably aiming for infinity at this rate). Okay, I know I've probably offended a heap of people out there who have different reading tastes to mine ... this is why you ought to do the meme!
Character?
Character for me is not as important as plot. Isaac Asimov seems to pull off his works brilliantly with having little character development. Ditto Neal Stephenson. Ditto J.R.R. Tolkien (though I understand what he was doing with his characters and respect his choice). I would prefer it if the characters were more well-rounded and less two-dimensional. I would like to be able to identify with them in some way (Robin McKinley and Orson Scott Card do it very well). It's hard for me to read a book about a character I despise.
Language?
Language plays a fairly major role so I'd probably place it before Characters and after Story/Plot. I think it's because bad writing simply detracts from the whole reading process (I'm pointing the finger at Raymond E. Feist, Sara Douglass and those absolutely awful Shadow books written by Chris Claremont and George Lucas which claimed to be a sequel to Willow but kills off my two favourite characters in the prologue [Chris should have stuck to writing comics]).
I'm not saying that the writing has to be so “poetic” that it's almost pretentious. I'm just saying that it must add to what the book is doing. In the Palace of the Peacock (Wilson Harris) is fantastic but makes absolutely no sense (descends into pomo twaddle by the final chapter). Michael Ondaatje is someone who does it well. So does A.S. Byatt, Tanith Lee and Mark Helprin. How can one be not enchanted by passages such as these?:
A forest of silver struts and perforated metallic arches surrounded Peter Lake, who reclined comfortably in a bent and fruitless grove, where riveted limbs were lit here and there by the backwash of small electric lights on the floor. The floor itself was a great half-barrel, the ceiling a grid of steel. All this was warmed by nearly visible streams of air rising above the lights, which were the stars of the constellations in the great vaulted roof of Grand Central Station - recently built with the notion of installing the sky indors to shine permanently and in green. Peter Lake was one of the few who knew that beyond the visible universe were beams and artifice, a homely support for that which seemed to float. And he had returned by craft and force to the back of the sky, where once in another life he had helped to forge the connections between the beams, to rest now amid the props of the designer's splendid intentions. He had provided himself with a plank platform of solid oak; a corner (canned goods and biscuits were stacked among the beams); a pile of techical books for late-night reading; a little lammp that had once been a star below; and a long rope on a drum, part of an elaborate escape system worthy of Mootfowl's best and brightest pupil.
Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale, Arena, London, 1984, pp. 105-106.
Ideas?
Ideas are like icing on the cake when it comes to books. I greatly admire Neal Stephenson and Guy Gavriel Kay for the way they use ideas in their books. I guess also I'm not a huge ideas person—I'm not an abstract thinker so there are parts of Orson Scott Card's Children of the Mind that I really struggled with.
Other?
I couldn't think of anything else that is important to me in a book. Perhaps packaging because I love to hold beautiful books in my hands but I'm not heaps shallow and you can't judge a book by its cover.
5. In your opinion, who is the writer who is best at:
story/plot?
character?
(Incidentally, I believe that Neil Gaiman is the one who is best at doing both story and character.)
language?
ideas?
6. Which book(s) have you most wanted to burn/obliterate the memory of off the face of the planet?
So far, just two. The first is A Sport and a Pastime (James Salter): basic plot is boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl have sex, boy and girl break up. I had to read it for Uni and I totally loathed the book because it was so meaningless. I don't know why it made me feel so angry because I have other books equally as meaningless (like Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee) but this one was just horrible. The second is A Fringe of Leaves (Patrick White) which is based on the Eliza Fraser story and reads like Jane Austen i the opening chapters. I thought this book was really horrible too for reasons I've long since suppressed. I think it was because she was so horrible and the author's attitude towards her was horrible. I read both of those right to the end when I probably should have given up. Well, I suppose you can't really when they're required readings for your Uni degree. Nowadays, I don't bother finishing books I dislike. Life is too short.
7. Describe your favourite place to read (plus essential accompaniments, etc. tea).
Like others, I love reading in bed at night but being married makes that a little hard. So I'd have to say sitting in a lovely cosy comfortable chair in the sunshine (which isn't too hot) for hours on end with yummy things to nibble and a glass of milk.
8. Which books are your “comfort” books? (ie. the ones you keep coming back to to read over and over again because you enjoy them so much each time.)
- The Hero and the Crown (Robin McKinley)
- The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley)
- Beauty (Robin McKinley)
- Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
- All the Harry Potter books (J.K. Rowling)
- The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede)
- The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exup&eacue;ry)
- The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Fairy Tales (Jay Williams)
- Jane of Lantern Hill (Lucy Maud Montgomery)
- The Blue Castle (Lucy Maud Montgomery)
- The Changeover (Margaret Mahy)
- Holes (Louis Sachar)
Much as I love Diana Wynne Jones, she hasn't stood the test of time like the others have.
9. What attracts you about your favourite genre?
My favourite genre is fantasy. I love being transported to another realm where things are just a little bit different. Life may not be easier but it certainly is more interesting, and the difficulties of life—those “dragons” that Chesterton refers to—can certainly be overcome if you know what to do.
10. Which book has had the biggest impact on you/completely changed your life? (apart from the Bible)
C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity because it opened my eyes to what Christianity was all about. I think that book really helped me on the road to becoming a Christian.
11. Which book do you most want to see as a movie done well which has not been turned into a movie already?
Undoubtedly The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley).
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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Consider me memed.
yeah take lots of vitamin c and multi vitamins it will kick the cold within a week or so…