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Prismattic comments on Three Worlds Collide (0/8) - Less Wrong
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Comments (95)
I like fanfic.
I don't, in general, post even constructive criticism on fanfic unless I'm specifically asked to (as a beta reader or something) and even then I will sandwich the con-crit between the most heaping helpings of praise that I can come up with for the work as a whole. The reason for this is that most fanfic writers are motivated by praise. They're not getting paid, after all: the praise is all the reward they get, so the praise had better be good. If I like a piece of fanfic, if I want more of it, I try to provide praise, and the more effusive the better.
I think most fanfic readers intuitively do this, and I worry that EY is taking comments like "HPMOR is the best thing I ever read!!!" literally, when a lot of that sort of stuff is just characteristically enthusiastic fan-feedback. (I'm willing to accept that JohnWittle means it literally, although, seriously? You'd trade Shakespeare and James Joyce--Neil Gaiman and Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin--for HPMOR? It's pretty hard for me to wrap my head around that.)
But in general, the reasons that I don't think HPMOR is as good as TWC have to do not with sentence-level construction but with plot momentum, tightness of theme, efficiency/consistency of characterization etc. It's obviously not really "fair" to critique HPMOR on these grounds since we're mostly seeing stuff that EY is posting as he completes, rather than a revised and polished final version, and because HPMOR is huge and rambling while TWC is a short story. But I was impressed that TWC had such focus, consistency, and drive because it's something that I've felt lacking in HPMOR.
I'm speaking generally but that's as critical as I want to get. I really don't want to trash HPMOR--it's just the "best thing in all of literature" comments that make me boggle a little. What I actually wanted to do was praise TWC, which I think is a truly excellent story.
Interesting choices to represent better literature.
Personally, I think James Joyce's work is the Sokal hoax of highbrow literature, but YMMV. (I'm not kidding.)
I don't think you're kidding, but my response to this will vary depending on whether you have made an honest effort to read Joyce. Have you actually sat down with any of his books? Which ones, and how long did you give it?
Personally, I feel that Ulysses delivered one of the single most transporting experiences I've ever had as a reader. However, the book is deliberately hard in places. It's kind of like "The Neverending Story" -- Joyce is writing about The Hero's Journey but he aims to make you, the reader, experience that journey on a visceral level along with the protagonist of the book. So when things are hardest for the protagonist, the book also becomes difficult to decode and to read.
My opinion is that this trick pays off in the end, when I as a reader experienced a sense of relief and homecoming just as the protagonist did. The last line of Ulysses can be endlessly quoted ("yes I said yes I will Yes") but the sweetness and the power of it is something that has to be experienced, by going on the journey.