Does that mean Swift was anal-retentive over Lilliput?
(Well, it IS a digression thread - and I AM reading "Mistress Masham's Repose"....)
I don't know. I can't read any Swift longer than A Modest Proposal. Did he create the Lilliputians with the utmost care? If he actually made them, out of clay and dust and the breath of life and whatnot, I should think he'd have had to've been, or he'd have just ended up with a messy pool of protoplasm, and somebody would have had to mop Lilliput off the floor.
(And what exactly AREN'T you reading -- I'll be sure to discuss that instead...)
I believe the protoplasm was metaphorical - but surely he breathed life into'm as never was! AND - with much care and finesse to create such delights and exactitude of scale that they seem set to live forevermore, as well as equipping them with such exactitude of topical and evanescent satirical baggage as no amount of footnotes will ever fully remedy.....alas.
Surely A Modest Proposal would have lured you further in? No? Hmmmmmmmm....
Hmmm, had a nice long post, which then waited in a vegetative tstate for too long. Oh pooh. Are you recommending this Crichton? It might make an excellent Xmas present. PFK is absurdly interested in nano-technology.
[Should I say that? Will you now think he's anal retentive? Heeee. Oh, I wish! Let's just say, in the Odd Couple he would not have played the Felix.]
He is, however, a Crichton fan and, as I said, likes the technology, as does his son, who has already asked that I purchase this, on the strength of my requesting info after hearing you were reading it. PREY, eh?
Thanks! You do like it, right? No matter, anyway. They'll want to read it.
It is ok - it is a Crichton....
Craven says his pre-fame, ie pre-Jurassic Park, I guess, stuff is better than his current work. I know not.
Actually (bactstepping a touch), I received a very nice antique copy of Gull's Travs as a wee one, and never got past the first couple of pages. I must confess that I'm not much of a reader these days, and for the last year or two it's pretty much been popular science, textbooks, and travelogues.
So's not to let on that I'm too literate or nuttin'...
Nowhere to go for the poor bugger Crichton but down, I suppose.
PD -- Well, the travelogues are a sort of literature. Oh, (after re-reading) you meant having the antique copy of G.Travels?? Yes, that would mean you were literate. Signed and Sealed Literate, I'd say.
(no, useless travel tomes like Paul Theroux and Dervla Murphy and Colin Fletcher and Bruce Chatwin write/wrote. no clue where the old Swift is -- and such a nice gift it was, too; just not to your average 11 year old guy.)
Colin Fletcher? He of the Complete Walker fame? Was such an icon to us that Mr.PFK's group was known as "The Walkers." I didn't realize he was still, well, still!
Bummer about the old Swift... probably worth gazillions!
That be he, I'm sure. I'm thinking of Thousand Mile Summer (Mexico to Oregon in six months, solo) and his book on the Grand Canyon (also solo, naturally). No idea if he is still well or not. Excellent writer, though.
Now, where was I - I'm in a total State of Confusion
You know what my fave Stephen King novel is? The non-fiction 'On Writing.' It's a great kick in the arse, and very pointed for those who wish to succeed in writing.
Yeah yeah, so technically it's not a novel...sue me.
Hmmmm . . . must consult my attorneys . . . Robb, Cheatham and Howe . . .
Piffka -- I do recommend Prey for anyone who admits to being a Crichton fan. (I think I said as much months and months ago on the 'What Book are you Reading' thread.) As I said there, while it's full of scientific nonsense, it is, nevertheless, a page-turner. If Crichton knows how to do nothing else, he does know how to get and hold your attention.
To digress, he was a best-selling writer long before Jurassic Park. The first big hit, if I remember correctly, was The Andromeda Strain. This was back around 1970 and, at the time, I thought it was one of the best sci-fi novels I had ever read, although, strictly speaking, it's not quite sci-fi. The people who say his "early stuff" was better are more likely to be referring to the days when he wrote medical thrillers, a la Robin Cook. None of those ever sold as well as the post-Andromeda stuff. He was fresh out of Harvard Med School at the time and quite determined not to go into healing.
Doggy, Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux need not be apologized for. Chatwin, especially, is(was) a writer of a very high calibre, indeed. His Song Lines surpass anything I have ever read about Australia. But Theroux, too, gives so-called travel writing a very respectable name, indeed.
dlowan wrote:
Craven says his pre-fame, ie pre-Jurassic Park, I guess, stuff is better than his current work. I know not.
I don't remember saying that. What I do remember is that his tendency to try to pass off fiction as nonfiction worked to a greater degree when he was less famous.
The Eaters of the Dead starts with nonfiction and segues into fiction very well.
The Great Train Robbery carefully conceals that it wasn't (the Great Train Robbery).
And all his books generally do lil' things to try to make it look like non-fiction (like footnotes ad annotations about fictional characters and companies).
He even tried to make Jurassic Park that way, and I think if it had not been a film (and the highest grossing at that point in history at that) he would have been able to better pull off the "it really happened and was covered up" theme he was going for.
Ah, yes, Andrew. His first book was "A Case of Need"...He and Clive Cussler are in the same category, but I'm thinking of other things:
To be continued
Two authors that I have read in their entirety (Clive and Mike).
But I don't think they are comparable. Clive's always look like a cheap film's screenplay. Oh well, I liked 'em as a kid anyway.
