Comments for Jonathan Goodwin

Comment on Gene Wolfe as Apologist for Torture by slick

slick — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:07:37 +0000

Browsing your site after visiting to read a review linked at LT. Someone, sorry I am not more helpful here, recently (within the last 4-12 months, I’d say) published a book expressly advancing the corporal punishment can be better than incarceration argument. You may already know this. I wish I could remember the title.

Comment on Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods: A Review by Gabriel

Gabriel — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:05:42 +0000

Like you, I don’t see “influence”, just some similarities.

Oh, I expressed myself poorly (or wrong – again, sorry for my bad english)! I agree with you: “a deliberately flat style”.

Sometimes, she write as the book was a blog – I had this impression before you reply my comment. I feel it especially when the main character talks to itself. Do you know when – the year, I mean – the book was writen? There could be any influence in this direction?

Anyway, I belive she got a style very fluid, although poor most of the time.

Thank you for the chat, I have not found anyone who has read LR. :)

Comment on Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods: A Review by Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:22:33 +0000

I’ve read her blog, and I believe that she’s expressed some appreciation for Wallace there. I think this particular book was written quite a while ago (much before it was published, according to her account), however, and I don’t know if there’s a direct influence.

I also didn’t quite read the sentences as repetitive. Perhaps written in a deliberately flat style.

Comment on Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods: A Review by Gabriel

Gabriel — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:35:06 +0000

Seems to me that Dewitt’s prose, in this book, is very direct, straightforward. I like the narrator’s voice. Despite not having read “Oblivion”, I belive the repetitive sentences maybe conect DFW and HD. Maybe they write about paranoic minds, in somehow, in some level.

Do you see more points of contact?

Comment on Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods: A Review by Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:09:38 +0000

I thought that the book, with its absurd premise written about in a realistic and detailed style, would be similar to Wallace’s corporate satires: “Mr. Squishy,” “The Suffering Channel,” and The Pale King. But it didn’t turn out that way.

Comment on Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods: A Review by Gabriel

Gabriel — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:02:35 +0000

Hello, I’m don’t write very well, sorry for my bad english.

Do you refer to David Foster Wallace? I don’t understand the conection between DFW and DeWitt. Can you tell me more about it?

This book is very funny, but in the other hand is very sad see the way the sexual obssessions (and desire for money) lead the americans.

This book never could been writen in a country like Brazil. Would be fake, no one would believe in it.

Comment on Some Surprising Remarks on Lem by Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:09:12 +0000

I know. I mean, this has to be a put-on, right? The joke being that the LRB readership doesn’t know anything at all about science fiction?

Comment on Some Surprising Remarks on Lem by Cosma Shalizi

Cosma Shalizi — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:07:36 +0000

I sputter. Lem is the one who adapts new ideas for less sophisticated readers? The author of His Master's Voice needs Algis Burdys to give him ideas about why SETI hasn't found anything?

Comment on Writing by Jonathan

Jonathan — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 14:13:41 +0000

I remember when you wrote that novel in a month (or whatever it was) on a bet.

I have the sense (or hope) that it’s easier to revise academic prose, though. The line between gibberish and acceptable is much thinner.

Comment on Writing by Brendan

Brendan — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 02:32:44 +0000

I find fiction FAR easier to write quickly than academic writing. Of course, I have no measure of whether my fiction is any good, as I haven’t published any yet. :-/