Kelly > Status Update

No statement has ever been proven truer- nor with more evidence!- than that one has around these parts for the last dozen years :)

Those Malazan stans are indefatigable. Every time I see a new comment show up on your review of that, I wince. If my own two star review of that book had gotten 10% of the ire yours has I'm sure I'd have just deleted the thing. Keep fighting the good fight.

They truly just keep coming out of the woodwork! And truly think this time that insulting tactic that hasn’t worked the last five times will work it’s magic this time!

I feel like the multi-book fantasy epic has bred a particular brand of geek pretentiousness. It's like Proust fans + the added aggression that derives from not having your beloved 1000+ page art branded as such.

I’d buy that theory. There have certainly been enough of them who feel entitled to call me stupid and lecture me about how much “complexity” I’m missing due to not liking the thing. That also tracks with the worst kind of Proust people (with the caveat that most Proust people I’ve met here are actually lovely).

Yes, I should have mentioned that I am speaking as a Proust person xD

And double yes, I suspect that people who defend their favourite books with terms like 'complex' or 'complexity' are themselves simpler than they think. I don't think I've ever heard this term used to successfully defend books or films or anything in any art form.

For instance, to use the example of Proust: if there's a problem with his novel, it's not the complexity. The various elements that would fit that description are what makes Proust so exhilarating. If there's a major drawback in Proust I'd say it's tedium, which is a barrier to the great complexity. Similarly, it sounds like you would have loved Malazan's complexity if all manner of downsides didn't get in the way.

Oh I am a Proust person myself! I mean... or maybe a half-Proust person? I bogged down in the middle of book four like five times but loved the first three. Maybe I make the junior league? :)

I totally agree with you about Proust not being super complex. And by the way, I also feel the same about my other fav who is oft reputed to be “difficult”- Tolstoy. They just require intense concentration. They have long strings of thought that you need to follow from start to finish in order to follow along. There aren’t huge breaks in the need to pay attention- as simple and straightforward as a lot of it is on its own. *and* some of it is tedious.

And.. there was not complexity in Malazan. Just a mess. A lot of things happening doesn’t automatically mean complexity. It just means disorganization and lack of forethought in a lot of cases.

Yes, the weakest parts of Proust for me are the drawn out scenes in high society. I was gradually run to ground across the tail end of book 3 and somewhere in the first half of book 4 I crash landed and put Proust aside for a bit. But the latter half of the same volume gets back to being amazing and compelling and full of all the stuff we love Proust for. And that standard has hardly wavered since (as of this writing I'm reading book 6). So if and when you return to the Search, know that the worst is behind you, and some of the best is yet to come =)

That’s good to know, thanks! Do you think I can just skip the rest of volume 4 and go onto volume 5? I swear S&G has defeated me five solid times- I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who hit a wall there.

Helas, the one volume runs straight into the next - volume 4 even ends on a cliff-hanger, of all things!

For me the worst part of volume 4 ended once I got to the exquisitely beautiful 'Intermittences of the Heart' section. From there my enjoyment slowly accelerated until arriving at our old friends the Verdurins, after which it accelerated far more rapidly until I hit a scene that slightly forgives this extended motorcar metaphor, and from there it as good as took off.

Your mileage may vary, but maybe this is a good chance to use that synopsis at the back? Start with Intermittences... and if you find yourself heading for that wall again, just use the synopsis to skip ahead?

Sorry I dropped off this thread but I might just do that and start fresh with book five! I really don’t want to permanently give up.

This is weird - twelve copies of a comment from some other thread. Probably a problem with the app.

Anyway, just wanted to say that trolls do what they do for their own reasons, and it has little to do with their target. Not sure what you mean by mom-ing, but it would seem to be a natural response to immaturity...