(no subject)
Aug. 21st, 2002 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanaiseSo I sent my mom Ted's book and Kelly's book. And I remembered yesterday that I should see if she'd read any of either of them. So I called her, and she'd finished Ted's the night before. And loved it. I am *such* a good daughter. She did try to tell me he didn't write SF, but as if.
Anyways, her least favorite of the bunch was Understand. Which I took exception too. See, I really liked "Understand" because I like "Flowers for Algernon," and it reminded me very much of that story. And I love the idea of being rendered incomprehensible by your awareness of patterns in everything that I saw in it--for a while I thought it was going to end up with the guy being essentially autistic, overwhelmed with complete and total comprehension of the world. And it sort of reminded me also of "Madonna of the Wires," with the way the kid seeing the world being completely different from the way we see the world. But, hey, maybe that's just me. :)
My mom *loved* the book. She was raving about it, and about how strong his endings are, which I hadn't noticed at the time, but which was completely obvious in retrospect.I was comparing his stories with Kelly's and while I love them both, I just think his endings are stronger. her stories are more like European movies, where they just suddenly stop, like they hit the end of the budget. And while it works well for her stories, because it makes you think a lot about what they mean and all that, his endings are just amazing.
And I think "Liking What You See" may be my favorite, but it's darn hard to pick just one. Esp. since I was reading Stranger Things Happen at the same time, and ended up just blown out of the water by both of them, for completely different reasons. Kelly's were the sort of fairytales that are completely faithful to the *real* old fairytales, not the disney versions. It was the sort of thing I *want* to be writing. Whereas Ted's are just what I love reading, being as I grew up reading mostly SF, and occasionally go through withdrawal.
Anyways, her least favorite of the bunch was Understand. Which I took exception too. See, I really liked "Understand" because I like "Flowers for Algernon," and it reminded me very much of that story. And I love the idea of being rendered incomprehensible by your awareness of patterns in everything that I saw in it--for a while I thought it was going to end up with the guy being essentially autistic, overwhelmed with complete and total comprehension of the world. And it sort of reminded me also of "Madonna of the Wires," with the way the kid seeing the world being completely different from the way we see the world. But, hey, maybe that's just me. :)
My mom *loved* the book. She was raving about it, and about how strong his endings are, which I hadn't noticed at the time, but which was completely obvious in retrospect.I was comparing his stories with Kelly's and while I love them both, I just think his endings are stronger. her stories are more like European movies, where they just suddenly stop, like they hit the end of the budget. And while it works well for her stories, because it makes you think a lot about what they mean and all that, his endings are just amazing.
And I think "Liking What You See" may be my favorite, but it's darn hard to pick just one. Esp. since I was reading Stranger Things Happen at the same time, and ended up just blown out of the water by both of them, for completely different reasons. Kelly's were the sort of fairytales that are completely faithful to the *real* old fairytales, not the disney versions. It was the sort of thing I *want* to be writing. Whereas Ted's are just what I love reading, being as I grew up reading mostly SF, and occasionally go through withdrawal.
