Watch the n00b do linguistic acrobatics! (Language

[Hunter]

My first reaction; this piece is FRANTIC. Not just poetic, but franticly so! You lose your rhythm after a while throughout the piece, which is very, very wordy without seemingly have a purpose.

Granted, it is incredibly well concieved. It must have taken hours upon hours to come up with the structure. It's very unconventional, which results in a tough read. Some parts are unnecessarily wordy, where others are unfulfillingly simple. Your character and plot are lost in the wordiness of it all, and the lack of conventional dialogue and changing perspectives confuses the reader. I would double, triple, and quadruple check your sentence craft, because I see countless run on sentences that are only run ons because of the punctuation used.

HOWEVER. Know that your style is very unique, and you have a way with words that makes it all sort of flow in perfect harmony, until you choose to break it up, emphasizing the breaking words. It's all very poetic and creative with an abstract feel to it...but perhaps...too abstract for the average reader.

--Phoenix

[jollymcjollyson]

phoenix said:

My first reaction; this piece is FRANTIC. Not just poetic, but franticly so! You lose your rhythm after a while throughout the piece, which is very, very wordy without seemingly have a purpose.

Granted, it is incredibly well concieved. It must have taken hours upon hours to come up with the structure. It's very unconventional, which results in a tough read. Some parts are unnecessarily wordy, where others are unfulfillingly simple. Your character and plot are lost in the wordiness of it all, and the lack of conventional dialogue and changing perspectives confuses the reader. I would double, triple, and quadruple check your sentence craft, because I see countless run on sentences that are only run ons because of the punctuation used.

HOWEVER. Know that your style is very unique, and you have a way with words that makes it all sort of flow in perfect harmony, until you choose to break it up, emphasizing the breaking words. It's all very poetic and creative with an abstract feel to it...but perhaps...too abstract for the average reader.

--Phoenix

This is meant to be a High Modernist piece, and unfortunately I can't remove any of the words in the first section, because they've all been meticulously chosen to reiterate the major themes (decaying language, flawed Cartesian views of the world, cyclical existance, and lack of progress). It's too abstract for the average reader because it's meant for close, intellectual reading and analysis.

Umm, just out of curiosity, you do realize that this contains a lot of stream-of-consciousness, right? The breaks in grammar are there because the narration slips into the mind of a character, who is not framing his thoughts in complete sentences. Sentences crafted in light of the narrator's mind are grammatically sound.

And about it not seeming to have a purpose: I do appreciate the compliment.

[jollymcjollyson]

Also, this is meant to be read at least twice.

[jollymcjollyson]

Ok, I can see people might need a little help, so I'll post the guide I wrote for the Doubting Thomas section. Remember that the narrator of stream-of-consciousness is an ambiguous figure:

This isn't so much an explanation as it is a schema, a guide. Remember when you see art,think language, not art.

One of the themes, and probably the most central, is that language denies reality and ugliness. Remember that in LITERARY terms, "reality" means ugliness, horror, waste, and generally disagreeable things that are still part of life. The main images under that theme are the plaster statue, the lack of an anus in classical sculpting, the "marble" floor and pillars revealed as limestone, and the fact that the curator and this secretary are having sex hidden behind a wall.

Inadvertently limiting progress by confining oneself to both preconceived notions and the past is another major theme. Ancient art, the old architecture of pillars, Vanessa (who, to beat in the somewhat clear similarity, parallels the Venus de Milo), and both Thomas and the curator's scheduled repetitions all conform to an idea of a linear time frame. A sense of time that can be controlled and manipulated, but always locked in past action, habit, and routine. The frame of the Monet, the "plastershell" statue, and the reference to "Procrustes" all define self-imposed limitations and borders that ultimately lead to imprisonment and decay.

The final theme that I'll mention is infertility, the inability of this elevated,
supposedly superior art (language) to produce viable offspring. David, decaying in plaster, brings in the first example with his genitalia sculpted as they are--flaccid. Venus de Milo, of course, is without a vagina as well as without a rectum (the denial of the vulgar or waste). Though she does have breasts, and can feed her young, she cannot birth them. So here we see the necessity of that "higher" language, though it cannot survive on its own. Thomas ejaculates in his pants, an obviously infertile sexual experience, and the curator is "Protected, a Son of Troy" (aka wearing a condom). Hiding
this sexuality has lead to infertility, as living in the past also leads to an inability to create for the future.

[Hunter]

Never said it didn't have a purpose

All things do, lol...

To answer your question: yes, I do ralize you use a lot of stream of consciousness here. However...and editor isn't going to accept that answer when he reads it for publication.

If the story is written for people to not read, but analyze, then well done. I'm a fiction writer, myself

EDIT: If you have to post an analysis in order for people to understand...well, it shows either your story is too complicated for the audience it's been presented to or you've written a piece that's only meant to be analyzed. It reminds me of the movie Northfork which has a very medicore story but an impressive deeper meaning that can only be fully realized upon watching the movie multiple times.

[jollymcjollyson]

phoenix said:

However...and editor isn't going to accept that answer when he reads it for publication.

If the story is written for people to not read, but analyze, then well done. I'm a fiction writer, myself

EDIT: If you have to post an analysis in order for people to understand...well, it shows either your story is too complicated for the audience it's been presented to or you've written a piece that's only meant to be analyzed. It reminds me of the movie Northfork which has a very medicore story but an impressive deeper meaning that can only be fully realized upon watching the movie multiple times.

Well, an editor would be able to recognize an actual run-on sentence or grammatical error. Since this story contains none save in the mind of Thomas himself, I'd say I'm in the clear.

I posted the analysis for the first reason, because it's not meant MERELY for analysis and judging from the age range here, not that many members are going to be easily able to navigate this style, case in point. It's meant both to be enjoyed for the tonality of the words and to be analyzed.

EDIT: Oh, and one quick thing. It took about as long as it took my pen to write the words on my page to come up with the structure. The word choice and thematic interweavings are much more important in the editing process.

[Hunter]

Word choice and thematic interweavings help compose the structure of the pice...

[jollymcjollyson]

phoenix said:

Word choice and thematic interweavings help compose the structure of the pice...

Ah, I thought you meant stylistic structure--syntax.

[Hunter]

So you don't confuse my personal thoughts with my critique...

I really enjoyed this--it was a great relief from the normal stuff I read.

[jollymcjollyson]

phoenix said:

So you don't confuse my personal thoughts with my critique...

I really enjoyed this--it was a great relief from the normal stuff I read.

Haha, and so you don't confuse my personal thoughts with my response: I really do appreciate your critique; this story is only meant to be comprehended by people who want to look at it from an analytical, theoretical perspective, so it's mostly for modernist writers and scholars. However, with any story I write I try very hard to choose the words in such a way that anyone can read through and enjoy (with his inner ear) what he just read, even without understanding a damn thing.