One Day In the Life
Aug. 26th, 2010 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynYou know what I'd like to read? Probably not book-length, maybe just a short story, but I'd like to read something where nothing outrageous happens to the characters, where the characters themselves are not overtly foolish or inherently moronic.
Normally if I wanted a book where nothing happens, I'd just pick any non-genre fiction book off the library shelf. That's what happens when you write about everyday life with everyday characters. The characters get caught up in the minutiae of everyday life to the point that they create their own personal drama tornados. But the problem is that these characters are inevitably stupid.
I'm reading the new Jeanienne Frost book (the title escapes me and I'm too lazy to go find it, but it's the Mencheres/Kira one) and Kira can't find her missing man, so she goes out to strip clubs where she knows women have been assaulted and abducted. In the context of the book, this almost makes sense, but it's still idiotic.
In the standard non-genre fiction book where people manufacture their own drama (like real life teenagers do about the whole boyfriend/girlfriend stuff because they don't have friends with cancer or a looming divorce that will require them to sell their house that's underwater) the characters are still stupid. They always seem to be the people who lose their car keys or forget to buy milk or who can't remember to pay their electric bill.
I'd like to read a story about someone who is adult and responsible and who doesn't do things that are the emotional and social equivalent of shooting themselves in the foot. Someone who sees the world without needing it to have added drama because they've had their own personal drama and recognize how nice it is when the day-to-day world is calm.
I read One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn and the whole matter-of-fact attitude throughout was really soothing even though the situation described was completely intolerable and extraordinary.
It would probably be boring if it went on too long when nothing happened, but I think it could be this post-literary conceptual idea, people would be expecting a twist like an O Henry or a Shirley Jackson. To a certain extent that's what these over-share journals can be or what the ridiculously excessive twits do on Twitter. But I want it to be fictional so it can be edited and controlled by a god-like author who cares about the quality and focus of the narrative.
I want to watch Sherlock Holmes updated for 2010 on a day when he doesn't have a case and isn't wrapped up in nostalgia. I want to see a tremendously bright character have a normal day where nothing happens.
Normally if I wanted a book where nothing happens, I'd just pick any non-genre fiction book off the library shelf. That's what happens when you write about everyday life with everyday characters. The characters get caught up in the minutiae of everyday life to the point that they create their own personal drama tornados. But the problem is that these characters are inevitably stupid.
I'm reading the new Jeanienne Frost book (the title escapes me and I'm too lazy to go find it, but it's the Mencheres/Kira one) and Kira can't find her missing man, so she goes out to strip clubs where she knows women have been assaulted and abducted. In the context of the book, this almost makes sense, but it's still idiotic.
In the standard non-genre fiction book where people manufacture their own drama (like real life teenagers do about the whole boyfriend/girlfriend stuff because they don't have friends with cancer or a looming divorce that will require them to sell their house that's underwater) the characters are still stupid. They always seem to be the people who lose their car keys or forget to buy milk or who can't remember to pay their electric bill.
I'd like to read a story about someone who is adult and responsible and who doesn't do things that are the emotional and social equivalent of shooting themselves in the foot. Someone who sees the world without needing it to have added drama because they've had their own personal drama and recognize how nice it is when the day-to-day world is calm.
I read One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn and the whole matter-of-fact attitude throughout was really soothing even though the situation described was completely intolerable and extraordinary.
It would probably be boring if it went on too long when nothing happened, but I think it could be this post-literary conceptual idea, people would be expecting a twist like an O Henry or a Shirley Jackson. To a certain extent that's what these over-share journals can be or what the ridiculously excessive twits do on Twitter. But I want it to be fictional so it can be edited and controlled by a god-like author who cares about the quality and focus of the narrative.
I want to watch Sherlock Holmes updated for 2010 on a day when he doesn't have a case and isn't wrapped up in nostalgia. I want to see a tremendously bright character have a normal day where nothing happens.
