Rothfuss XV: Move along, nothing to see here

[Darth Richard II]

Haha, that's not what woke means at all.

Good lord. Do you also call people SJWs when you're angry?

[kuenjato]

20 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Haha, that's not what woke means at all.

Good lord. Do you also call people SJWs when you're angry?

chill out, I'm just having fun, if the tone itself wasn't obvious. I like to make fun of the extremes on both sides, dwellers as they are in tightly-controlled fantasy zones of RightThink, continually supported by clickbaiters triggering the ire for monetization... or worse, gamed by sociopaths donning sheep's wool and subsequently discrediting progressivism by stoking ideological culture conflict to their own ends, be it for lulz or to establish corrosive ingroup bullying networks, as YA twitter is currently experiencing.

In all seriousness, though, the last point stands. Rothfuss is being tip-toed around because he's friends with some Big Names and there's still the uncertainty as to whether book 3 will address the underlying issues. Naturally, book 3 won't be coming out anytime soon, because in all likelihood Kingkiller was a wish-fulfillment project cobbled together by DAW editors (according to gossip from this forum, by those apparently "in the know") and one of the central tensions is the wish-fulfillment quality that attracts the core fan-base, vs. the rather disturbing slippage ("women are instruments," etc.) on the surface celebrated as "good prose" and, all in all, revelatory as to the underpinning geek immaturity that seeps across the genre's history.

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah I wouldn’t put much stock into the put together by editors bullshit that was spouted here, but I digress.

Political fighting aside for a moment, who are these Big Names he is supposedly friends with?

[Darth Richard II]

Oh and sorry for the double post here, on the phone, but B&N has had a bunch of “Start a new series” displays recently, and one of them was NotW, and I’m pretty sure the lady at the bookstore thought I was crazy I laughed so hard at that one.

[kuenjato]

8 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Oh and sorry for the double post here, on the phone, but B&N has had a bunch of “Start a new series” displays recently, and one of them was NotW, and I’m pretty sure the lady at the bookstore thought I was crazy I laughed so hard at that one.

I suppose that's one of the issues that triggers me -- this is seen (and constantly iterated across the infosphere) as a hallmark of the genre, the best of the decade, etc. Even with my issues with some of the other Big Names continually bandied about 'round these parts and others, I would prefer they received more attention/kudos, if nothing else than that Lynch, Sanderson, Erikson et al. don't contain (as much) problematic material and/or, for some, seem to be striving higher and pushing harder to move the genre forward to more interesting areas. To say nothing of the unfortunate trend of procrastination enabled through fame, and the tension fame then situates upon the unfinished work.

Of course, this is also the genre where Goodkind and Brooks remain Big Names, so...... 

[Darth Richard II]

Hey now, Brooks May be silly but he’s no where near the level of shit that Goodlkind is.

[baxus]

12 hours ago, sologdin said:

Semicolons are for wankers. Seriously. You can go your whole life without ever needing to really use a semicolon.

If you're a software developer, you can't go on your whole life without ever needing to really use a semicolon.

Still, that can be used to back up his claim semicolons are for wankers up to a point.  

EDIT:

To avoid confusion, the quoted part was not something sologdin said. It's part of something he quoted.

[The Marquis de Leech]

15 hours ago, Zorral said:

However, the Rothfusses of the world are not scholars nor are they researchers with true knowledge of anything.  The proof of that is all over his book.  His writing that is music oriented, for just one example, proves he knows nothing at all about how to read to music, how to play music, how to perform music or even how to listen to music, which latter, puleeze, a baby can do.  Even parrots know how to listen to music, find the rhythm and dance.

Writers aren't supposed to know things. Writing is a giant con-game, where the writer pretends to know what they're talking about, while being unrealistic as all hell in the name of story.

(Seriously. Aesop and Aristotle deal with this).

[Zorral]

To say writers aren't supposed to know things is foolish.  Writers have to know a very great deal, especially if they want their fictional universe to attract readers from the first page to the last -- unless they are so young, like an average adolescent boyo, or those like Rothfuss who never grow out of that.  Which is why these adolescents enthusiastically grab on to much -- like Ayn Rand -- that are just foolish.

And in many ways Aristotle etc. was wrong.  For another their screeds on these matters include that 'poets' create social unrest and instability because they show paths that disrupt the ruling status quo.  Are we fascist yet?  Fascists have always lugged out Aristotle and Plato....

Making up how music is written, played, performed makes a fool of oneself.  For one thing too many people know better.  Fudging some chronology in a novel's narrative is something else, particularly when it is serving a fictional coherence.

 

[mactwist2]

I read the books and thought they were good enough to finish. I'm not a fan of Harry Potter so obviously that part threw me off. I'm also not a fan of all the deena shit, I just dont care anymore. That said the world is interesting to me, the magic is interesting, and the chandarian is interesting. I also enjoyed their adventuring looking for the bandits much more than pretty much anything else in either book. I can live with or without an end but if he finally writes it I'll read it and hope the juice was worth the squeeze. I have a feeling it probably wont be but that's life.

[kuenjato]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

To say writers aren't supposed to know things is foolish.  Writers have to know a very great deal, especially if they want their fictional universe to attract readers from the first page to the last -- unless they are so young, like an average adolescent boyo, or those like Rothfuss who never grow out of that.  Which is why these adolescents enthusiastically grab on to much -- like Ayn Rand -- that are just foolish.

And in many ways Aristotle etc. was wrong.  For another their screeds on these matters include that 'poets' create social unrest and instability because they show paths that disrupt the ruling status quo.  Are we fascist yet?  Fascists have always lugged out Aristotle and Plato....

Making up how music is written, played, performed makes a fool of oneself.  For one thing too many people know better.  Fudging some chronology in a novel's narrative is something else, particularly when it is serving a fictional coherence.

 

There's a fine line between implementing too much research in one's novel, and too little. Rothmusk flopsweats all over this line, rendering his novels both painfully inauthentic in certain details and in other places laughably long-winded.

Rothmusk had this lame "If you've never experienced this [blank] before, you probably don't know what I'm talking about" intro scattered across the first novel whenever he was going to drop some knowledge, like how horses tire out if you ride them too fast, but thankfully he stopped doing it in the second novel. Of course, that lame line was simply replaced 10x with other lame stuff, sooo....

[sologdin]

do we have here the beginning of an olfactory school of literary criticism, wherein the virtue of the author is to be deduced from the quality of the writer's bouquet? or does the aroma aforesaid skip neatly into the text itself, neither purely formalistic nor needlessly biographical? is there a direct or inverse relation between the corporeally malodorous and the ideologically malignant?

and if this works, i wonder what the future might hold for physiognomy and phrenology in literary theory.

[Darth Richard II]

Wait, we’re fascists if we like Plato? The fuck?

[sologdin]

doubtful.  i adore plato's dialogues on aesthetic grounds--they read like plays, and socrates is a great literary character. both plato and aristotle are however nasty aristocrats, and summoning these ghosts affirmatively for political or philosophical purposes now is irredeemably arriere-garde (such as how ayn rand with much misunderstanding attempts to use aristotle).

the jest in zorr's post, i think, is that this sentiment--

Quote

Writers have to know a very great deal, especially if they want their fictional universe to attract readers from the first page to the last

--is precisely the idea that socrates crushes in plato's ion.

[Myshkin]

31 minutes ago, sologdin said:

doubtful.  i adore plato's dialogues on aesthetic grounds--they read like plays, and socrates is a great literary character. both plato and aristotle are however nasty aristocrats, and summoning these ghosts affirmatively for political or philosophical purposes now is irredeemably arriere-garde (such as how ayn rand with much misunderstanding attempts to use aristotle).

the jest in zorr's post, i think, is that this sentiment--

--is precisely the idea that socrates crushes in plato's ion.

Oh man, I've missed you solo. Seriously, the only reason I clicked on this thread was because I saw your cute little hammer and sickle spinning around. Would it be okay if I wrote you an inappropriate PM?

[kuenjato]

47 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

Oh man, I've missed you solo. Seriously, the only reason I clicked on this thread was because I saw your cute little hammer and sickle spinning around. Would it be okay if I wrote you an inappropriate PM?

Ditto.

[The Marquis de Leech]

On 7/24/2019 at 4:32 AM, Zorral said:

To say writers aren't supposed to know things is foolish.  Writers have to know a very great deal, especially if they want their fictional universe to attract readers from the first page to the last -- unless they are so young, like an average adolescent boyo, or those like Rothfuss who never grow out of that.  Which is why these adolescents enthusiastically grab on to much -- like Ayn Rand -- that are just foolish.

And in many ways Aristotle etc. was wrong.  For another their screeds on these matters include that 'poets' create social unrest and instability because they show paths that disrupt the ruling status quo.  Are we fascist yet?  Fascists have always lugged out Aristotle and Plato....

Making up how music is written, played, performed makes a fool of oneself.  For one thing too many people know better.  Fudging some chronology in a novel's narrative is something else, particularly when it is serving a fictional coherence.

1. The art of fiction is that of creating an illusion. Rothfuss' sin isn't making stuff up (every author does this) - it's getting caught. Rothfuss himself has said that his finest achievement was when he fooled an actual musician into thinking that he himself was a musician.

(A situation where you, the author, are accurately portraying something, but the reader thinks it's unrealistic? That's a sin too).

2. Plato and Aristotle were a wee bit different on their attitude towards Poetry (and Women, and Metaphysics, but I digress). In summary...

Plato: Poetry is a strange and unknowable thing, that comes from the gods, and channels artists for its own purposes. It misrepresents reality, and distracts us from Truths. Poets also corrupt public morals, by presenting unsavory acts as admirable, and often end up serving and promoting tyranny. Plus Aristophanes made fun of Socrates in The Clouds - the bastard!

Aristotle: Poetry comes from humanity's natural instinct to imitate - it is a very human art, and centres around eliciting audience emotion. Poetry expresses universals, and one cannot get bogged down in strict accuracy of depiction - the story is more important, and an attempt to try and represent everything distracts from the unity of the art, Plus a good story has certain features (insert list), and tragedy is the highest form of drama.

3. Check out Plato's Ion, for an exploration of what you are describing (Plato agrees with you, BTW, but he's wrong). Basically, you get Socrates interrogating a professional poetry reciter, who claims to know Homer better than anyone. Socrates' response is to ask whether he knows the chariot scenes better than a charioteer... which is, of course, missing the point. Art obeys its own rules, quite independently of reality.  

[The Marquis de Leech]

On 7/24/2019 at 8:29 AM, sologdin said:

doubtful.  i adore plato's dialogues on aesthetic grounds--they read like plays, and socrates is a great literary character. both plato and aristotle are however nasty aristocrats, and summoning these ghosts affirmatively for political or philosophical purposes now is irredeemably arriere-garde (such as how ayn rand with much misunderstanding attempts to use aristotle).

the jest in zorr's post, i think, is that this sentiment--

--is precisely the idea that socrates crushes in plato's ion.

Actually, Socrates is promoting the idea. That's what makes it so hilarious - Plato just didn't "get" fiction (Aristotle did).

Also, how does using Aristotle's Poetics necessarily imply a support for the rest of his ideas (let alone his teacher's?). Does this mean we can no longer talk about catharsis or a deus ex machina without be pilloried?

[Larry of the Lawn]

On 7/23/2019 at 12:32 PM, Zorral said:

.  For another their screeds on these matters include that 'poets' create social unrest and instability because they show paths that disrupt the ruling status quo.  ..

.

 

No!  Everyone knows poets maintain the social order by keeping labor costs down through their mastery over the andats!  

[Vaughn]

On 7/23/2019 at 8:16 AM, The Marquis de Leech said:

Writers aren't supposed to know things. Writing is a giant con-game, where the writer pretends to know what they're talking about, while being unrealistic as all hell in the name of story.

(Seriously. Aesop and Aristotle deal with this).

 You should reach out to Neal Stephenson then. You could probably save him a LOT of time in getting his books out.