Can't Stop Watching Wednesday
Oct. 4th, 2017 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bWhat I've Finished Reading
I was disappointed that Reality Matters wasn't better.
Maybe 'better' is the wrong word - most of the essays were written with a particular audience in mind, as suggested by the subtitle (19 Writers Come Clean About the Shows We Can't Stop Watching)- people who are already familiar with a whole bunch of shows and want to talk about them with a certain amount of self-deprecating hyperbole and without a lot of boring analysis.
I'm used to reading essays about television, or plays, or whatever, that assume a certain level of familiarity with the text but also typically provide a summary or some context as a helpful reminder of e.g., what this guy Macbeth's deal is or the nature of Emily's relationship to Ilse, in the course of describing things in order to make claims about them. This is helpful even if I have seen the thing in question, since my memory is basically a mesh bag with a big rip in the side and I can't ever guarantee I'm going to remember the names of the imperiled spaceship crew on any given Doctor Who episode. That's what the written word is for. Most of the authors in Reality Matters hardly bother with the describing part at all, and take for granted that their subjects are not just something we've all seen, but something we've all seen yesterday. So the author will say, "We all have our own complicated feelings about Jackie!" without any further elaboration on who Jackie is or what these feelings might entail. It was a curious experience, like reading a gossip column from 1922, all opaque slang and innuendos long flattened and faded.
It's not surprising that the essay I liked the best was "Show Boat," Toby Young's account of his own participation in a show that hardly anyone saw and even fewer people remember. The show was called The Other Boat Race and had the premise "Olympic rowers train out of shape randos to race each other in rowing boats," a scenario it turned out no one really cared about except the randos in question. Since The Other Boat Race's ratings were so low as to be statistically insignificant, the author doesn't assume that anyone reading a book about reality shows has obviously seen this particular reality show, and so takes the time to describe instead of just elbowing the reader in the ribs from time to time.
I learned a little about reality shows of the early 2000s from Young's overview of his quest to become a reality show contestant, and I even learned something about the actual sport of boat racing. Did you know that if you put your oar in wrong during a boat race, you have to throw it away into the water and throw yourself in after it to spare your teammates the dead weight? According to this essay, it's true! Momentum is a harsh mistress.
So Reality Matters didn't give me what I wanted, but it did give me a funny story about a guy who superglued his tracksuit to a boat in order to prevent himself from falling into the Thames on TV. Sometimes when life closes a door, it opens a window.
Also finished: Nine Princes in Amber. It was ok. It picks up a little at the end - not coincidentally, when Corwin is blinded and thrown into prison, i.e., when he's returned to a state of confusion, disadvantage, and necessary cunning. Thoroughly self-confident dudes leading fantasy battle charges for the One High Throne of Whatever is significantly less my thing, it turns out. However! I've been informed that, as I might have expected based on my previous Zelazny experience, All Is Not What It Seems, so I'll be reading on.
What I'm Reading Now
The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis - a 99 Novels novel I've begun three times now without success. I'm not sure why I find it so hard to follow. Lucky Jim, also by Amis, was easy to read, energetic in its meanness, and downright addictive - I read it twice in a row just for the fun of it - so my almost total inability here to keep track of who is speaking and which one they are is disconcerting and discouraging. It can't just be my mood, because, like I said, I've tried it three times - but what is it? This time I've gotten further than before - about to Page 75 - but I still don't know who anyone is from one page to the next. The only exceptions are the two female characters (Designated Nympho and Not Actually A Lesbian) and the psychiatrist who thinks all heterosexuality is a symptom of repressed homosexuality, which is kind of funny in an abstract way. Maybe I need to start again from the beginning.
What I Plan to Read Next
The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, but I'm also still in catch-up mode. We Were Eight Years in Power just showed up on my doorstep, so maybe that, too.
I was disappointed that Reality Matters wasn't better.
Maybe 'better' is the wrong word - most of the essays were written with a particular audience in mind, as suggested by the subtitle (19 Writers Come Clean About the Shows We Can't Stop Watching)- people who are already familiar with a whole bunch of shows and want to talk about them with a certain amount of self-deprecating hyperbole and without a lot of boring analysis.
I'm used to reading essays about television, or plays, or whatever, that assume a certain level of familiarity with the text but also typically provide a summary or some context as a helpful reminder of e.g., what this guy Macbeth's deal is or the nature of Emily's relationship to Ilse, in the course of describing things in order to make claims about them. This is helpful even if I have seen the thing in question, since my memory is basically a mesh bag with a big rip in the side and I can't ever guarantee I'm going to remember the names of the imperiled spaceship crew on any given Doctor Who episode. That's what the written word is for. Most of the authors in Reality Matters hardly bother with the describing part at all, and take for granted that their subjects are not just something we've all seen, but something we've all seen yesterday. So the author will say, "We all have our own complicated feelings about Jackie!" without any further elaboration on who Jackie is or what these feelings might entail. It was a curious experience, like reading a gossip column from 1922, all opaque slang and innuendos long flattened and faded.
It's not surprising that the essay I liked the best was "Show Boat," Toby Young's account of his own participation in a show that hardly anyone saw and even fewer people remember. The show was called The Other Boat Race and had the premise "Olympic rowers train out of shape randos to race each other in rowing boats," a scenario it turned out no one really cared about except the randos in question. Since The Other Boat Race's ratings were so low as to be statistically insignificant, the author doesn't assume that anyone reading a book about reality shows has obviously seen this particular reality show, and so takes the time to describe instead of just elbowing the reader in the ribs from time to time.
I learned a little about reality shows of the early 2000s from Young's overview of his quest to become a reality show contestant, and I even learned something about the actual sport of boat racing. Did you know that if you put your oar in wrong during a boat race, you have to throw it away into the water and throw yourself in after it to spare your teammates the dead weight? According to this essay, it's true! Momentum is a harsh mistress.
So Reality Matters didn't give me what I wanted, but it did give me a funny story about a guy who superglued his tracksuit to a boat in order to prevent himself from falling into the Thames on TV. Sometimes when life closes a door, it opens a window.
Also finished: Nine Princes in Amber. It was ok. It picks up a little at the end - not coincidentally, when Corwin is blinded and thrown into prison, i.e., when he's returned to a state of confusion, disadvantage, and necessary cunning. Thoroughly self-confident dudes leading fantasy battle charges for the One High Throne of Whatever is significantly less my thing, it turns out. However! I've been informed that, as I might have expected based on my previous Zelazny experience, All Is Not What It Seems, so I'll be reading on.
What I'm Reading Now
The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis - a 99 Novels novel I've begun three times now without success. I'm not sure why I find it so hard to follow. Lucky Jim, also by Amis, was easy to read, energetic in its meanness, and downright addictive - I read it twice in a row just for the fun of it - so my almost total inability here to keep track of who is speaking and which one they are is disconcerting and discouraging. It can't just be my mood, because, like I said, I've tried it three times - but what is it? This time I've gotten further than before - about to Page 75 - but I still don't know who anyone is from one page to the next. The only exceptions are the two female characters (Designated Nympho and Not Actually A Lesbian) and the psychiatrist who thinks all heterosexuality is a symptom of repressed homosexuality, which is kind of funny in an abstract way. Maybe I need to start again from the beginning.
What I Plan to Read Next
The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, but I'm also still in catch-up mode. We Were Eight Years in Power just showed up on my doorstep, so maybe that, too.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-04 02:05 pm (UTC)Considering the transitory nature of reality shows - by the time the next one comes around the audience has forgotten who'd won never mind anyone else - it is poor that the authors didn't explain what was going on in the shows.
Good luck with Amis.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-04 02:58 pm (UTC)Corwin of Amber has a lot of superpowers, so his underdog position might always be a little temporary, alas. But I'm hoping that the plot will find lots of ways to kick him back into the gutter and steal his lunch money whenever things start to look up.
I'm probably not being fair to all 19 authors (18 not counting Young). Some were better than others. But there was so much presumption of familiarity, it made me tired. And to be honest I got off on the wrong foot entirely due to the noisy and embarrassing James Frey intro about the inescapable fakeness of everyday life, so began reading in a spirit of more skepticism that usual.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-05 03:24 pm (UTC)Crossing fingers Corwin gets cursed for you;p
no subject
Date: 2017-10-04 07:38 pm (UTC)I don't know, that sounds like the way to be stuck in a recurring surrealist nightmare of re-reading the same few pages. Possibly plough on or give up? Amis had only one book for you?
no subject
Date: 2017-10-04 07:45 pm (UTC)