The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by issybird

Chapter headings in Victorian novels which spoil the ensuing chapter...

Oliver Twist?

(Also I read the unabridged version for the first time earlier this year. It was very difficult to read. )

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Quoth

But did the author or publisher add them?

Dunno. Does it matter? Given that it was serialized first, I assume the chapter headings were part of the text early, especially as it's picaresque and adds to the fun, except for the spoilerishness! And this is far from the first time I've run across it.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Oliver Twist?

(Also I read the unabridged version for the first time earlier this year. It was very difficult to read. )

Barry Lyndon by Thackeray.

But I feel your pain. A couple of months ago I slogged through Dickens' Dombey and Son. Not my favorite Dickens, who is far from my favorite Victorian novelist anyway, but I've enjoyed some of his novels.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Oliver Twist?

(Also I read the unabridged version for the first time earlier this year. It was very difficult to read. )

I tried David Copperfield and just couldn't get into it. Since I also wasn't wild about A Christmas Carol, I suspect Charles Dickens just is not for me, though I enjoy other authors from that time (Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Eliot).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

Barry Lyndon by Thackeray.

Barry Lyndon is on my to-read list (mostly because of the Kubrick movie). Should I skip it?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Barry Lyndon is on my to-read list (mostly because of the Kubrick movie). Should I skip it?

Certainly not! It's a lot of fun, more amusing than I expected.

I have only the faintest recollections of the movie, but I thought I might give it a try after I'm done. I know I liked it at the time.

Favorite Kubrick: Paths of Glory, which is worth reading, too, but the film's better.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

Favorite Kubrick: Paths of Glory, which is worth reading, too, but the film's better.

I don't know if I have a favorite Kubrick. Maybe The Killing, 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Shining. But then I watch Spartacus or Paths of Glory or Dr. Strangelove or Full Metal Jacket and my opinions change.

[ownedbycats]

Reading books where the plot could be solved if the characters sat down for five minutes to talk to each other.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Reading books where the plot could be solved if the characters sat down for five minutes to talk to each other.

Heh, but who does that in real life?

[JSWolf]

Here is a summery of the chapter. Now you can move on to the next chapter.

[Colonel Cathcart]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Reading books where the plot could be solved if the characters sat down for five minutes to talk to each other.

That's, probably, unthinkable if you're English.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Reading books where the plot could be solved if the characters sat down for five minutes to talk to each other.

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Heh, but who does that in real life?

I agree.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Reading books where the plot could be solved if the characters sat down for five minutes to talk to each other.

Character 1: *gets possessed by aliens*
Character 2: Are you okay?
Character 1: I'm fine.

It's called drama!

[hildea]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Reading books where the plot could be solved if the characters sat down for five minutes to talk to each other.

Argh, yes, that's annoying. The worst case I've seen of this was a triology with a huge magical plot (most of Europe suffered under a multiple years long solar eclipse, and noone knew why), and at the end we learned that

Spoiler:

the godlike beings (sentient pyramids, I think?) who caused the eclipse were annoyed because of some stupid misunderstanding, and when the truth was explained to them, they lifted the eclipse and left Earth

I laughed out loud when Courtney Milan turned this cliche on its head in Unraveled: Heroine has a criminal past, and is now in love with a very principled magistrate of the law. Her previous criminal boss threatens to tell her lover about her criminal past unless she does a final favour for the crime organization.

“I was sent a threatening little note today, saying that he would tell you about all the things I had done if I did not agree to meet with him.”
...
She twirled her hair around her finger. “I assumed I would be better off telling you about this, rather than waiting for the entire thing to blow up in my face. You did ask for honesty, after all. It seemed to be a matter of basic common sense. When one is threatened by a shadowy criminal figure, one goes to the magistrate that shares one’s bed rather than the shadowy criminal figure.”

[Deskisamess]

“I was sent a threatening little note today, saying that he would tell you about all the things I had done if I did not agree to meet with him.”
...
She twirled her hair around her finger. “I assumed I would be better off telling you about this, rather than waiting for the entire thing to blow up in my face. You did ask for honesty, after all. It seemed to be a matter of basic common sense. When one is threatened by a shadowy criminal figure, one goes to the magistrate that shares one’s bed rather than the shadowy criminal figure.”

That is fabulous.

[DNSB]

“I was sent a threatening little note today, saying that he would tell you about all the things I had done if I did not agree to meet with him.”
...
She twirled her hair around her finger. “I assumed I would be better off telling you about this, rather than waiting for the entire thing to blow up in my face. You did ask for honesty, after all. It seemed to be a matter of basic common sense. When one is threatened by a shadowy criminal figure, one goes to the magistrate that shares one’s bed rather than the shadowy criminal figure.”

Was that quoted from the enhanced box set omnibus edition? I have unfond memories of carving out the mp3 files and the references to them since they crashed the ereader my wife was using at the time if she accidentally tried to play them.