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Okay, I do of course miss the perspective of what comes after. Legolas Send a noteboard - 27/05/2014 06:29:33 PM

View original postPerhaps with this knowledge, the prose takes on a different quality? It certainly is effective in setting up what follows after and that is why I quoted what I did, to see how the limited sample would appeal/not appeal to those who can't yet read the rest of the text.

But not really - as I said from the start, there are certainly good parts in the paragraph, but I can't say your comments about the points I raised really convinced me. The thing about stuttering if you're nervous, or that the awkward digressions tell us something more about the narrator - okay, that would make sense, if the paragraphs were told from the boy's own perspective, telling his backstory. If that is meant to be the case, though, I guess it's too subtle for me, as it looks much more like an omniscient narrator to me - apart from the bits that take Khanoom's own PoV.

If you don't mind really going into the details, I still don't see where the "sure" comes in in those two sentences - it's really just that word that throws me, take it out and it's fine. And that's not criticism so much as genuine puzzlement - in the other cases we discussed, I found things ugly or awkward, but in this case I simply don't know what it's supposed to mean or how it's supposed to make sense, quite apart from stylistic considerations. I'd be inclined to consider it a printing error, if reading this book on my own.

"Nobody imagined a dying man could produce the seed of another child, and yet. But a child like that, sure(...)".

Sure what? Sure, people do imagine that a dying man could produce a child like that, just not any other kind of child? That's the explanation that seems to make the most sense, but it still reads very oddly, following right after the "and yet".

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Friendly challenge to Larry and other literary "snobs" on the board..... - 25/05/2014 06:44:34 PM 1036 Views
As it happens, I wrote an example last year. - 25/05/2014 07:13:41 PM 996 Views
Nice *NM* - 27/05/2014 02:43:53 AM 422 Views
Fair enough, but do you mind me waiting just a little bit? - 26/05/2014 04:57:18 AM 996 Views
Re: Fair enough, but do you mind me waiting just a little bit? - 26/05/2014 09:10:31 PM 946 Views
I really should read Irving, I see - 27/05/2014 06:10:50 AM 859 Views
Re: I really should read Irving, I see - 28/05/2014 03:01:24 AM 866 Views
Promising opening paragraph, yes, but... - 26/05/2014 10:55:16 PM 761 Views
I think those shifts are part of the character, not something unintentional - 27/05/2014 06:08:44 AM 794 Views
So bad prose is okay if it is intentional? *NM* - 27/05/2014 03:54:34 PM 387 Views
Okay, I do of course miss the perspective of what comes after. - 27/05/2014 06:29:33 PM 690 Views
I proudly claim the title of literary snob, and will provide you with a quick, unscientific example. - 26/05/2014 08:15:04 PM 891 Views
LOL! - 26/05/2014 10:03:50 PM 995 Views
Huh. Lana Del Rey quotes Nabokov... I had not made that connection. - 26/05/2014 11:17:47 PM 972 Views
That quote from Lolita sounds like it is from a romance novel with Fabio on the cover. - 27/05/2014 03:40:37 AM 789 Views
Bah! - 27/05/2014 07:50:15 PM 844 Views
Alloy of Law was great *NM* - 28/05/2014 08:16:26 PM 403 Views
Hell Yeah! *NM* - 28/05/2014 08:36:40 PM 366 Views
The audiobook was pretty great, as well. *NM* - 29/05/2014 09:19:07 PM 423 Views

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