Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Perhaps my own endeavours in the field have made me overly sensitive, but I find such judgements on an author ... presumptuous. Just because I didn't like something the author did it wrong?
|
Certainly I think the author did it wrong. For me, and for readers like me. If I was purporting to speak for all readers or for you in particular I would indeed be presumptuous. I acknowledged that it did work for some readers, and that this is fine. For those readers he clearly didn't do it wrong. However, it is my strong impression that at least with this book he has written what he wanted to write in the full knowledge that many readers would find it frustrating and unsatisfying. I think this impression of mine originated with his explanation for something which didn't trouble me personally but did trouble others. That is, the passive acceptance by the clones of their fate. He answered that this (ie; a story about them resisting) was not the story he wanted to tell. Also the fact that he picked the concept of cloning as a vehicle to talk about characters that had been in his head for 20 years. He was very focused and I think he simply didn't care about the background.
@Catlady. Yes. Self-indulgence can amount to laziness, and it certainly could in this case. Personally I don't think it has. In earlier posts I think I put the word "story" in inverted commas. It is not uncommon in literary fiction, particularly in more pretentious literary fiction, for there to be so little plot that the word "story" is strained if not broken all together. As I understand it the author had characters in mind, and wanted to write a story about people facing their own mortality. The setting was simply used to create a background to examine this. He created a group of people with a compressed lifespan and wrote about their characters and interactions, which is all I think he wanted to do. There are any number of settings which he could have used to achieve this. But he created this particular world which to me cried out for explanation and development. He chose not to give any. To me, he failed with this book.