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Re: Author of a vastly DomA Send a noteboard - 21/06/2010 11:55:15 PM
I'm sure Dumas wouldn't appreciate the sorcery added to the swords,


Eh, eh...I wouldn't be so sure. Dumas loved "le fantastique", magic, supernatural etc. He's managed to put some of that in many of his historical novels (and has written quite a few "fantastique" tales and novellas, with ghosts, creatures, magical and cursed stuff). For eg: he milked that aspect of Cagliostro for all it was worth. In Joseph Balsamo, Cagliostro uses mesmerism/hypnosis to magically compel Andrée in the direction he wants, a plot device very little different from Jordan's "compulsion". A great deal of the OP effects and the tricks and pet habits of the Forsaken have equivalent in 19th serial fiction like Dumas... from masked meetings in abandonned fortress to dead ringers and false identities, etc.

IMHO, it's quite possible Dumas would have "committed" some Fantasy if he lived in the post-Tolkien decades. He loved stuff like Robin Hood, Ivanhoé etc.

Dumas also loved many of Jordan's "pet" obsessions and devices. Like Jordan he wasn't a psychological writer, but he was highly enamoured of long descriptions of locales, clothing, food and in general the details of daily life (and Dumas like Jordan was accused of padding when he did that). Dumas could spend 5 pages telling the back story of an inn's sign and name, when it's only connection to the plot is that one of the character resides there. His characters visit inns about as often as Jordan's, with page-long descriptions of the food served each time (a lot of that gets cut in English translation - the original ones anyway. The serials' translator had no time or budget for research on French cuisine or fashion. A two paragraphs truculent description of a meal in French becomes "three wonderful pâtés and a few bottles of an excellent Bordeaux" in English and so on.)

Jordan also has love of the "joys of life" typical of Dumas. Women, drinks, food, gambling etc.

Dumas's books are full of schemers, secret societies, side-plots, separated friends and siblings, "dead ringers" (merely the 19th century version of the Mask of Mirrors in Jordan), moles, traitors etc. He loves to use miscommunication the way Jordan does too.

Dumas really loved to show the big picture from the fringes, through side characters of very little "historical" relevance, but whose side stories helped him depict the times the story was set in, much like Jordan saw WOT as the fictional history of the end of an Age rather than purely an epic. Characters like Marie-Antoinette, Louis XIV, Richelieu all appear, but Dumas rather loved to give the center stage to maids and manservants, obscure figures like D'Artagnan, young apprentices etc.

As for the writing being comparable to Jordan's... Not quite (perhaps this is where Camilla finds the comparison offensive)

Their respective prose are massively different. Jordan is a good storyteller (to my taste, anyway), but a very average writer, his English is just serviceable. The scope of his story is a bit over his writing skills, he's lost control of a few things along the way (he either created too much story for some storylines, or the opposite, he didn't have enough plot in some storylines for what he had planned in the others... as they all came together down the line, that created big pacing issues).

Dumas' French is elegant and musical truculent in places, and flawless in the 19th century fashion (he gets quoted in grammars for kids for good reasons). It's "serviceable" only in the sense that it's classical and "comfortable" in a way the really great writers of his time, who innovated with their prose and the forms of the novel itself, weren't (they considered his French to very ordinary and uninspired). Dumas sure doesn't have the personal style of a Victor Hugo, Flaubert - though he had the same wide classical culture, and was extremely well-travelled and curious of everything etc. For all that, language wise, Dumas offered a massively superior output of popular literature than what the masses are offered today.
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Titles or covers? - 18/06/2010 02:15:56 PM 851 Views
Title I guess - 18/06/2010 02:29:14 PM 617 Views
More the cover. - 18/06/2010 03:07:29 PM 613 Views
Probably title - 18/06/2010 03:15:11 PM 557 Views
Nope - 18/06/2010 03:29:54 PM 635 Views
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Indeed... - 18/06/2010 07:01:38 PM 637 Views
Re: Indeed... - 18/06/2010 07:05:01 PM 634 Views
Title if I had to choose, but unlikely I'd get an unheard-of book without a blurb. *NM* - 18/06/2010 04:17:23 PM 272 Views
Why don't you people want to play? - 18/06/2010 04:19:21 PM 605 Views
Okay, so the Martians come down and make you pick between McDonald's and Burger King. - 18/06/2010 04:53:26 PM 565 Views
That is not a fair comparison - 18/06/2010 04:54:33 PM 544 Views
Yes it is. And you didn't answer my question. Why won't you just play the game? - 18/06/2010 10:57:24 PM 604 Views
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Stop spelling it wrong! - 18/06/2010 11:15:29 PM 612 Views
I'm sorry. I don't often have reason to spell it. - 18/06/2010 11:16:42 PM 565 Views
Re: I'm sorry. I don't often have reason to spell it. - 18/06/2010 11:20:31 PM 626 Views
Well, in that case - titles. *NM* - 20/06/2010 02:07:19 PM 265 Views
really you just never pick up a book ans say "what the hell I will read this one" - 18/06/2010 05:49:05 PM 660 Views
Very rarely, and only in the library if that. - 18/06/2010 05:54:48 PM 582 Views
I found one of my favorite writers that way - 18/06/2010 06:12:00 PM 606 Views
I agree. That was how I got hooked on fantasy. Sort of. - 18/06/2010 11:21:41 PM 580 Views
Maybe the scenario is hard to imagine but I have picked up some treasures by title alone. - 18/06/2010 11:16:17 PM 542 Views
Re: Maybe the scenario is hard to imagine but I have picked up some treasures by title alone. - 18/06/2010 11:17:52 PM 578 Views
No they don't. I have lost on several gambles. But I have had enough success that I keep trying. - 18/06/2010 11:24:09 PM 592 Views
Agreed. *NM* - 18/06/2010 11:25:10 PM 256 Views
The Aardvark is Ready for War. - 18/06/2010 11:25:59 PM 620 Views
Re: The Aardvark is Ready for War. - 18/06/2010 11:28:55 PM 566 Views
Re: The Aardvark is Ready for War. - 18/06/2010 11:53:57 PM 589 Views
Neither. I own too many books. - 18/06/2010 04:52:30 PM 576 Views
I would cheat. - 18/06/2010 05:37:29 PM 620 Views
But I buy Playboy for the articles! *NM* - 18/06/2010 08:02:52 PM 281 Views
Neither would be the determinant factor for me... - 18/06/2010 08:20:37 PM 652 Views
Now that's a reply - 18/06/2010 08:27:34 PM 685 Views
Re: Now that's a reply - 18/06/2010 09:06:10 PM 653 Views
Re: Now that's a reply - 18/06/2010 09:12:19 PM 657 Views
Re: Now that's a reply - 21/06/2010 05:00:07 PM 592 Views
Why? *NM* - 21/06/2010 05:19:20 PM 290 Views
Because - 21/06/2010 05:20:26 PM 595 Views
Author of a vastly - 21/06/2010 07:27:35 PM 602 Views
Re: Author of a vastly - 21/06/2010 07:28:20 PM 660 Views
Re: Author of a vastly - 21/06/2010 11:55:15 PM 668 Views
Re: Author of a vastly - 22/06/2010 12:15:06 AM 659 Views
With nothing else to go on I'd say Title. *NM* - 18/06/2010 10:27:24 PM 242 Views
Cover - 19/06/2010 12:30:44 AM 625 Views
Fantasy books have notoriously bad covers. - 20/06/2010 07:51:31 AM 554 Views
What about opening sentence or paragraph? Why isn't that an option? *NM* - 20/06/2010 01:50:59 PM 254 Views
Because it is my survey - 20/06/2010 01:52:39 PM 597 Views

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