Capital-O Obsessed
Jun. 24th, 2009 07:02 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
shaylee-ann.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
queensthiefDiana Petefreund, a YA author, just today posted a blog entry called "Why Isn't Everyone Reading...?" In it, she plugs a few lesser-known books or book series that she thinks deserve more attention. My eyes nearly popped out when I read this little snippet in the second paragraph:
"Why isn’t everyone reading Megan Whalen Turner’s Attolia books? Everyone I know who has read them is Capital-O Obsessed. The recent announcement that she’d be writing a new book set in that world *did* set off a huge flurry of blog-located squeeing, but it was a drop in the bucket of the tidal wave of talk for, say, Catching Fire."
Just had to share this with fellow fans and hope it makes their day, too. :-D
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Date: 6/25/09 01:32 am (UTC)*contemplates this new label* Ok, I am liking it...
But she's absolutely right, why doesn't everyone read these books? I mean, it deserves as much attention as Harry Potter or Twilight if not more so (forgive me HP and Twi. fans). It just makes one wonder...why is it not as popular as those books? Maybe with the new book coming up they'll make a box-set so everyone can buy their own copies and get all addicted like us.
But somehow part of me doesn't want this to turn into something like Twilight, because then no one will ever see who are the true fans (us) and who are those just going with the fad. And wouldn't that just be so sad, everyone will think we're just going along with the rest of the world.
Ok...ignore the rant. I just needed to get that out.
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Date: 6/25/09 05:01 am (UTC)SIRIUS, but there's also a lot of references to the everyday world the Muggles inhabit, and a lot of time spent on character stuff that most people find very empathetic.These books, on the other hand, operate with an attention to detail that's very complex, and they have many many layers that require lots of rereading if you want to grasp all of them, and a lot of people don't have the time/energy to invest in that, and a lot of people don't find that particularly entertaining, either--when they read, they prefer to be more casually entertained, and that's perfectly all right (though, in my mind, completely incomprehensible--but that's life). And while I love reading about Gen's struggles with depression after getting his hand cut off (which is empathetical, in terms of depression with "thing that changes the way your life was going and [at least temporarily] hampers your ability to do what you love"), it's harder for me to identify with the struggles of ruling a country/coming up with brilliant plans to take down barons/etc. etc. etc.
so basically, not everyone's reading Attolia because it's not everyone's cup of tea (too many spices, maybe? like a really well-made chai, with levels of flavor that sit on your tongue, while like Harry Potter could be, mm, lemonade tea, tasty and involving a few layers of flavor, and then Twilight would be
a glass of milk filled with melted icecold tea left out for hours before five pounds of sugar was mixed ina not-as-interesting tea that appealed to a broad if bland taste palate).(clearly in any of these situations it's a fine line between "you just don't like my tea" to "you just don't like my tea and I pity you because MAN THIS TEA IS DARN TASTY" and yes we may have a bit of a superiority complex but...*sigh*. I do like chai.)
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Date: 6/25/09 05:25 am (UTC)Anyway, about the books. I guess you're right about that, everybody has different preferences of tea...oh I mean books so I guess we have to respect that. It's just too bad that everyone is missing out on the book because they're satisfied with less layers of plot. But if they find joy in that then what can we do. I have been a fan of both HP and Twi. (at least for a month or so, hey I was naive and have not read the QT books yet). I guess, what those two were lacking I found in the QT series. Twi. was just a love story and HP seemed to be full of action so QT (to me) was just the perfect balance of the two (plus the historical references and the political intrigue) so I liked it right away. And of course the characters, they are another reason I like these books as much as I do.
So yeah, I guess I'm ranting again. Sorry.
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Date: 6/25/09 05:31 am (UTC)Hahaha, you're all right with the ranting. I was attempting to be Mature Seasoned Fangirl (i.e., anyone who knows me would read that comment and go "wow, Jade's really restraining her inner snob, I bet she would like nothing more than to say THAT'S BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE ARE DUMB AND JUST DON'T GET IT"), but I totally understand.
That said, I do love this little fandom that we have here, because we pretty much attract the bestest of the best. And there's less crazy and less wank. So I will selfishly rejoice that only the bestest of the best seem to be reading these books, because I like my little Sounis.
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Date: 6/25/09 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 10:57 am (UTC)*also likes chai*
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Date: 6/25/09 12:15 pm (UTC)Nah, Twilight is like Coke -- no relation to tea whatsoever, caffeine content is debatable, lots of people seem to like it for some reason I'll never understand, leaves an awful taste on my mouth at the first sip (and I'm avoiding ever having more than a sip), and it's really bad for you (dude, stalking is not sexy!).
(I also like chai, but I am currently hummingly happy over the really good puerh tea I had last week. OMG, it was like drinking an afternoon sitting on the cliffs watching the seagulls soar over the ocean!)
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Date: 6/26/09 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/26/09 11:53 am (UTC)And hey is that Mr. Darcy *reads the text of the icon* Why yes, yes it is. *Hyperventilates after an episode of squealing* Have I meantioned how much I adore Mr. Darcy?
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Date: 6/27/09 05:03 am (UTC)And oh my gosh, I love Darcy!
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Date: 6/27/09 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 02:06 am (UTC)Tanith Lee (whose books are wonderful, and I highly recommend them) had recently become favoured by the literary cognoscenti as a writer of 'magic realism.' Of course she'd been writing f and sf for twenty years before she was discovered as a 'new' writer.
'oh,' I said (innocently - really, innocently, I was a young and naive librarian) 'You'll find Miss Lee's earlier work in the Scince Fiction section.'
Madame drew herself upright like a pouter pigeon. If she'd been wearing a fox-fur stole it would have bristled with indignation.
'Science... Fiction...?' she said, with the same scorn that Lady Bracknell said, 'A Haaand bag?'
She didn't deign to investigate the SF section; thus she denied herself the very books she had come to obtain. Pure prejudice against SF.
Dunno what my moral is. Maybe it's that punters only regard some book genres as proper. Maybe it's because some publishers don't advertise good books far enough for every potential reader to pick them up. Maybe it's because bookshops don't take up good books and promote them.
What can we do, apart from telling all our friends-and-relations that these are wonderful books?
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Date: 6/25/09 02:37 am (UTC)SOMEBODY BESIDE ME HAS READ TANITH LEE!!!
I love the "Claudia Journals". I've read the whole quartet three times. Pure magic those books.
I know what you mean about genre prejudices. I, for one, judge books for what they are not by what genre they are in.
People who are too "educated" to read fantasy and sci-fi, really need to read this comm. Considering how educated, the members of Sounis obviously are.
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Date: 6/25/09 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/27/09 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 12:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 02:23 am (UTC)Have I mentioned (today) how wonderful it is to have found a community of people who actually get it? ;D
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Date: 6/25/09 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 04:31 am (UTC)I WAS READING IT TO HER AND WENT TO HELP MY OTHER ROOMMATE AND SHE KEPT READING AND AND AND...
EEEEK.
We just gotta keep advertizing them, word of mouth and all that, doncha know.
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Date: 6/25/09 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/27/09 01:04 am (UTC)Will we be seeing her, do you think? :D
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Date: 6/25/09 04:52 am (UTC)Granted, it was the ugly Sounis-on-his-throne-with-his-ugly-haircut cover...
But telling her I read it when I was in 6th grade and have loved it since didn't make one ounce of difference. If anything, it made it worse since at 23 I am TOO OLD TO BE COOL.
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Date: 6/25/09 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7/4/09 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 06:33 am (UTC)Friend: 'What's that, TA?'
TA: 'The bestest book! You've never heard of the Atolia books, have you?'
Friend: 'THE ATTOLIA BOOKS? OMG YES! IS THAT A NEW ONE??'
TA: *inner desire to convert as many people as possible to Gen's brilliance wrestles with inner desire to sleep with KoA under my pillow for the rest of my life*
TA: 'Wanna borrow?'
Friend: *grabs book* 'Shiiiinyyy...'
It helps that all the bookish people my age grew up with the same very limited library, so we were pretty much forced to read the same books.
Most of those five people loved them, but one returned it me without finishing and said that after the assassin scene, it just got boring.*weeps*
She just didn't get it. My usual strategy these days is to wait till frends try to convert me to their favourite books, and then offer to do a swap.
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Date: 6/25/09 03:31 pm (UTC)Can't. Wrap. Brain. Around.
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Date: 6/25/09 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/26/09 04:30 am (UTC)Unfortunately, I think everyone else is right. These books require some actual reader participation to be fully enjoyed, and not everyone's prepared to do that.
Poor things. They don't know what they're missing.
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Date: 6/26/09 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/25/09 06:10 pm (UTC)