Lucas Blogs About Books

SPOILER ALERT: These are the books discussed in today's post. Okay, you're definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel. Whoa, Hypothetical Reader, don't be a buzzkill before we even get started. Let me say that I am skeptical of the ability of Setting to sustain a reader's interest in a work of fiction. Don't underestimate the power of good world-building. Wait, we're only talking about made-up places? No, let's stipulate that even if the Setting is a real place, a writer still needs to make their fictional version feel real to the reader. I agree. Good, so let's talk about some books with a strong sense of place! Hmm, so we're going to talk about some assigned reading type book? But this time it's one where the setting is like another character or something cheese-y like that? We are. It's actually a book that was the only assigned book in my Senior Thesis class at UC Santa Cruz.* You went to UC Santa Cruz? Yes. ...

Oh, so we're actually doing a blog today? Well, yeah. . . . why wouldn't we? I mean, it's New Year's Eve, I figured after last week you'd find some bullshit excuse to get out of posting for another week. While it would be a lie to say that I hadn't considered it, it was more along the lines of skipping last Monday and this Monday and then posting on the Thursdays. Whatever. Did you have a good Christmas? I did. Thank you. What about you? Well, as a rhetorical device I generally don't observe holidays. With the exception of Isocrates's birthday. Isocrates? He was an ancient Greek rhetorician , I was making a joke. Well, we don't have time for jokes. I'm pretty sure that's a lie. Anyway, we haven't done a Load-Bearing Elements since. . . let me check. . . DECEMBER THIRD! I told you you'd been skimping on the work. Well, it's time to rectify that by talking about characters and, more importantly, Characteri...

You're not planning to do anything cutesy like spend the whole time discussing something other than Allegory only to reveal that you were actually talking about Allegory the whole time are you? Probably not. Okay, because I don't like Allegories. That's fine, I'm not here to tell you what to like. I'm here to blog about books. And before you say that your dislike of Allegory means that it isn't enough to support an entire work of fiction, let's just agree that whether or not you like it authors have been using it for millennia and we can't just ignore it. Well, we could just ignore it, but I suspect you've got a "because-it's-there" mentality when it comes to discussing literary devices. That's the spirit, Hypothetical Reader. So, what do you know about Allegory? The word itself derives from Ancient Greek and literally means something like "to talk about something else." But I would say most people would think ...

Hmm, my bias towards science fiction might be showing. Isn't there a more literary term you could use for this like "theme." Maybe, but that would limit our discourse, Hypothetical Reader. I'll pretend you didn't say that and we'll just move on. Cool! So, when you say Ideas can be a load-bearing element, are you referring to philosophical novels? You mean like Crime and Punishment , Notes From Underground , The Idiot , Demons , or The Brothers Karamazov ? Well, I mean, people besides Dostoevsky have written philosophical novels, but sure. Yeah, but I went on a big Dostoevsky kick after I read Crime and Punishment  as the summer reading for AP English. Also, the other example that most people would be familiar with is Ayn Rand, and I never had an Ayn Rand phase. Lucky you! I know, right? Anyway, you've probably guessed that we're going to start out by talking about Crime and Punishment ! So, you've read C&P , right? As f...

Hey! Check out these assholes with their well-known books and easily recognized writing styles! You're joking! Usually. . . Wait, what am I joking about? You expect us to just sit here and listen as you wax rhapsodic about being transported by an author's prose? Of course not, Hypothetical Reader. I just wanted to talk about prose style because I often find that it can be a major component of or stumbling block to enjoying a writer's work. But isn't this a little close to the previous Load-Bearing Elements ? The one on narrative voice . I'll grant you that there are similarities, but it's what I felt like writing about when I sat down to write this. Besides, a writer with just about any style can still use just about any narrative voice. Before we jump into any examples, how about you describe my prose style on this blog. You're sure you want this? Yes. Would you mind terribly? Okay, you asked for it. I did. Okay, so you definitely pr...

Pictured: Examples to be discussed below. Narrative Voice, eh? Yeah, Narrative Voice. Why? Is that not a good topic? Well, it's a little broad isn't it? And I'm not sure it's something that can "bear the load" of a work of fiction, so to speak. Well, maybe not on its own, but to belabor the metaphor, the individual support beams don't hold up the entire weight of a building either. Hmm. You may continue. All right, so let's begin by distinguishing point-of-view from Narrative Voice. Umm, aren't they the same thing? Kinda. They're related. Point-of-view is a component of Narrative Voice. While point-of-view determines just who is telling the story, Narrative Voice is more about how they tell it. An obvious example is Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Huck Finn narrates the story in his own words and in his own dialect. This is different from the presentation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer  which has a third-per...

Pictured: a selection of metafictional texts. Whoa! You can't just jump into the deep end like that! What'd'ya mean "the deep end?" Metafiction as a concept is neither new nor esoteric. Well, no, but the name is crazy pretentious. As is any word that begins with "meta-." What about "metamorphosis?" Fine! Any jargon from any humanities discipline that uses the "meta-" prefix is crazy pretentious. Just call it a "conceit" or a "framing device." No, we're sticking with "metafiction." So let's jump in, shall we? If you insist. What's the deal with metafiction? Well, while the term  "metafiction" may have arisen from Post-Modernism ( Wikipedia says it did, anyway ), the idea predates the term by centuries. As you pointed out, any work of fiction with a framing narrative is  metafiction. Let's look at a few examples. Yes, let's . So, let's start with Mary...

Pictured: a selection of books whose plots I have enjoyed. So, what's this feature's deal? So, you remember that time when we talked about Philip K. Dick instead of a book that I'd just read? Yes, I do. Originally, Lucas Blogs About X was meant to encompass any literary subject, but inertia kinda turned it into my jokey review feature. So I decided to start another new Monday feature: Load-Bearing Elements. So, here's the pitch. Do you need to pitch ideas to me? No. But don't you want to know what we're doing? You mean, for the sake of actual readers? Yeah. Well, it's pretty self-explanatory, I think they can catch up. You're the rhetorical device. Then let's just jump right in and talk about plot. You mean story, right? No, they're two different things. All right, so the difference between "plot" and "story" is . . . ? Well, a story is simply a series of events. Let's look...