Let me start off by saying I haven't read a lot.
Very probably did I read more than most people of my age, but I still could've read more. I remember sitting on the bus/tram/train and wishing I had a book to read. It wouldn't matter what book, just anything to read.
Yes, I could spend that time listening to music, but my iPod is dying (barely a few hours battery life in normal (20°C) temperatures, "Back/REW" and "Play" button are refusing to work (thank you Center Button for not giving up on me), so I expect I'll need to replace it with something else by next year) and I often forget to stop by the library to pick up a book.
But thanks to friends I sometimes have something to read...
Anyways, back on topic.
Recently (today, that is) I finished the "Hunger Games" book. The first one that is (No, I haven't watched the movie, maybe I'll download it next year... or maybe I could convince someone to go to the cinema with me...) and I'm hoping my brother will find the sequels fast enough so I can finish the story.
But I don't like the writing style.
Don't get me wrong, it's a page turner once you get into the story (read it from begin to end in less than 2 days) but there aren't any passages where you can feel the translator had a hard time translating something that is very specific for the English language.
Yes, I read a Dutch translation, but I don't expect reading it in English would improve the story in any manner.
Let me bring in another story for comparison. One that many know, that isn't too complicated and that also has a
movie coming up. (Sheesh, did I get distracted for a few hours while trying to copy that link...) (To those hesitant to click the link: it's "The Hobbit")
I've read the story in both Dutch and English and believe me when I say that the latter is way more enjoyable. The first time I read it I needed a dictionary to figure out some words (oh, the synonyms for walking) but I liked it all the more.
If we go even further down the way of literature we find
Gormenghast.
I've read it a few years back, but I must say I'm still impressed by what the writer (Mervyn Peake) did with it.
It doesn't have a clear theme in which it's written. At first sight you may say it's "Fantasy"... But once you're reading you notice there isn't any magic happening, there are no characters that aren't human by definition (although lots of them are brute caricatures of humans) and everything seems plausible, since it may happen if some castle would've grown from the roman age and slowly progressing in size, building styles, functionality and weirdness to finally end up like the humongous castle that's described.
"Fiction" covers too much of what the book actually is and "Historical Fiction" isn't correct as there is absolutely no attachment to our existing world. In my opinion "Surreal" is the most fitting description.
Let me give you a quote from the book (found on the
Wiki):
Mr. Flay appeared to clutter up the doorway as he stood revealed, his
arms folded.... It did not look as though such a bony face as this could
give normal utterance, but rather that instead of sounds, something
more brittle, more ancient, something drier would emerge, something more
in the nature of a splinter or a fragment of stone. Nevertheless, the
harsh lips parted. "It's me," he said, and took a step forward, his
joints cracking as he did so. His passage across a room -- in fact his
passage through life -- was accomplished by these cracking sounds, one
per step, which might be likened to the breaking of dry twigs.
Here is described one of my favorite characters is the series.
I bet none of you know anyone like this Mr. Flay, now try to imagine him... May be kinda hard, lacking a lot more info on it, but I imagine most of the characters as cartoon characters instead of trying to compare them to real people.
But the book provides more than just strange characters. If you plan on reading it be prepared for pages filled with descriptions of a river running through a landscape, "hopping" from character to character while you're reading (you start with one, he meets someone, you hop on to that character, another encounter, another hop, and so on...), passages of "
Internal monologue", changes in telling perspective, ... A real feast for people enjoying the art of writing.
And here's the big thing I miss in a lot of stories. The art of writing the story. Not just telling it in a way so we know what's happening, but using the language you're writing in to the fullest to tell the story.
Sure, the Hunger Games lured me in because of the story, but I miss the joy of language. The playing with sentences to make some parts stand out, the vocabulary enrichment I kinda expect every book to be...
But hey. I'm not going to ignore books because of this, I just wanted to point out some things I would like to see more in modern literature.
I'm not saying my parts here are pure literature... I don't really think about the sentences, I just write whatever comes into mind, as some may have noticed...
But I'd rather read something more complicated (Maybe I'll once try to read
Finnegans wake, but not very soon) instead of another "
high fantasy" story where Elf and Dwarf and Man fight with/against each other and Light tries to defeat the Dark...
Anyways, I said enough on this topic for now.
If anyone has propositions for books to read, tell me in the comments.
Thank you for reading.
-ThOR