tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post4814245957301372861..comments2024-03-17T11:05:22.464+00:00Comments on The Life And Opinions of Andrew Rilstone: The End of The EndUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-69563518651749831072018-10-01T11:13:29.199+01:002018-10-01T11:13:29.199+01:00And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a F...And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?<br />Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-55955147803262229592018-10-01T11:04:16.385+01:002018-10-01T11:04:16.385+01:00Well, of course, I bow to Victor Hugo's absolu...Well, of course, I bow to Victor Hugo's absolutely right to write precisely the book he wanted to write. The thing is, I don't really want to read that book, but the one about Jean Valjean and his wacky crew.<br /><br />But my position is completely untenable, because as it happens I really enjoyed <i>Moby-Dick</i>, including all the digressions about whaling (though I was distressed to find Melville classifying whales as fish). I can't explain that. Maybe I'm just more interested in whales than in military history.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-14787087273220755282018-10-01T10:44:41.910+01:002018-10-01T10:44:41.910+01:00Of course there is a big problem with the idea of ...Of course there is a big problem with the idea of "irrelevance" and "the story". We tend to assume that the book is about Jean Valjean and Javert and think that Hugo wasn't paying attention one morning and accidentally wrote a hundred pages about the battle of Waterloo. He would probably have said "Oh la-la, zut alors, didn't you pay attention to the title? My book is about The Poor, all of the poor, and about the reasons they are poor and what ought to be done about it. (Clues: Sewers.) Of course I focus down on some of the poor in particular, but that is only one thread of the book." (C.S Lewis complains about modern critics who go to great lengths to cleverly explain how the long sermons in e.g Chaucer are very relevant and important to the overall Theme. I don't think they necessarily were relevant, says Lewis. I think that people in the olden days just liked sermons.) <br /><br />Knausgaard doesn't fit in at the prestigious writing college he wins a place on because the prevailing assumption is that a proper book is small and perfectly formed and that a good writer spends all day writing One Perfect Sentence. He says somewhere that one of the books he most admires is Moby Dick -- a book that leaves nothing out and tells you everything there is to be said, not just about one whaling voyage, but about the whole universe and world. Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-34870128443526523642018-10-01T10:12:52.043+01:002018-10-01T10:12:52.043+01:00Actually, this is the one really concrete disadvan...Actually, this is the one really concrete disadvantage I've discovered of reading on a Kindle instead of a physical book: it's much harder to leaf through, skipping irrelevances and finding where the actual story picks up again.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-16602692134599928582018-10-01T10:08:35.357+01:002018-10-01T10:08:35.357+01:00I think everyone skips the battle of Waterloo and ...I think everyone skips the battle of Waterloo and rhe swears of Paris. And my edition is so sure I’m going to skip the history of the convent and thieves slang that it leaves them out. And it’s still an enormously long book. <br /><br />spoiler: it was the rotten innkeeper who save the life of Marius’s dad.Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16934052271846235431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-48964216203897017722018-10-01T09:34:05.568+01:002018-10-01T09:34:05.568+01:00It's true that I read a large number of books,...It's true that I read a large <i>number</i> of books, as those blog-posts show; but it doesn't follow that I read a large <i>amount</i> of prose, as most of what I read is very lightweight: Agatha Christie, comic-book compilations, Chesterton, Rowling, etc. It's been a while since I attempted a "proper" book: that was <i>Les Miserables</i> and I got mired in the interminable irrelevant account of the Battle of Waterloo. Some day I will try to pick it up again.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-71465584626005970972018-10-01T09:25:47.035+01:002018-10-01T09:25:47.035+01:00Indeed. People keep recommending TV shows to me an...Indeed. People keep recommending TV shows to me and wonder why I go away laughing pityingly. (I make time to read, write and go to concerts and plays; I occasionally even spend time with other human beings. Television has entirely dropped out of my universe, although Radio 4 is useful for sending me to sleep.) How could I have reached the point where there is an Iron Fist TV series and I haven't had time to watch it?<br /><br />I gather from your blog that you do, in fact, read quite a lot of books. Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-52177081131065406732018-10-01T09:12:43.412+01:002018-10-01T09:12:43.412+01:00That suggestion is a perfectly rational one, which...That suggestion is a perfectly rational one, which I would follow were it not that I have 3,456 other things to do.<br /><br />(Aside: one of the big transition points into adulthood may be the realisation that you simply can't do all the things you want to do -- the transition from finding things to fill your time into trying to fit in as much of what you'd like to do as you can. How retired people ever find themselves bored, I can't begin to imagine.)Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-40935583218995445222018-09-30T23:44:34.761+01:002018-09-30T23:44:34.761+01:00The only response to that I have is: you read more...The only response to that I have is: you read more and more quickly than I do; why not take the first volume out of the library and read the first hundred pages or so and see if you find it as addictive as I did.Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-56119923669762258122018-09-30T19:11:15.386+01:002018-09-30T19:11:15.386+01:00Well, that really does sound the like the most abs...Well, that really does sound the like the most absolutely tedious and pointless waste of time. I'm glad you enjoyed it.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.com