SH Comments
Reged: Feb 16 2004
Posts: 1056
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This thread is for comments about The Floating Otherworld, by Tom Doyle.
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Don
Unregistered
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I've heard it said before: the only way to fit into Japan is to become Japanese. You're always a guest in Japan; you'll never "truly" fit in. Even Japanese who leave the country for business or pleasure become a little less "Japanese". I've spent a little time there but I don't pretend to understand a fraction of it. Still, it's fascinating! Subtle and complex.
Once I was singing karaoke at a Japanese establishment. I was singing a Chicago song, "25 or 6 to 4." They played videos along with the music. As I was singing I noticed the video showed old black and white pictures of burned out buildings so I thought, OK, it's a Chicago song so it's pictures of the Chicago fire. Then the video showed pictures of burned and dead Japanese people. That's right; I was an American singing in front of a crowd of Japanese while a video of the aftermath of Hiroshima was playing. It's the only time in my life when I thought that my instant death would be the best way to get out of a situation.
Anyway, this is the long way of saying "great story." It brought back a lot of, um, interesting memories.
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The Red Pen Lady
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All right, now, I must say I'm a grammatical stickler through and through; I tend to have the instinct sniff disdainfully and whip out a red pen. If this was on paper, it'd be covered in red.
First of all, it's interesting that the story is written in second person, but seriously, who writes like that? It just gets jumbled and confusing, and the reader, floundering helplessly in the tumult of "you"s and "your"s, is very much tempted to get up and leave.
Secondly, the dialogue is rather choppy. Here's the stickler speaking: Whenever another person is to speak, you start a new paragraph. Now, I know it sounds stupid to cling to gramatical conventions like lint to a fresh-out-of-the-wash sock, but really, it makes reading a lot smoother.
I was also lost in the characters. I had to re-read paragraphs and paragraphs to make any sense of what was happening. Again: it's the fault of the continuous flow of "you do-"s and "you say"s.
This piece is, I grant you, imaginitive and... interesting, but it has serious clarity issues.
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Don
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Concerning the new paragraph with a new speaker: there could be a possible defense (for the author). I've had print editors really f-up some of my work before, so it might not be the author's fault.
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Jed Hartman
Fiction Editor
Reged: Oct 15 2003
Posts: 151
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I, too, am generally a grammatical stickler, but when an author carefully and consciously chooses to write in a style that doesn't follow standard conventions in various ways, I have no problem with that. In this story, my impression is that Tom (the author) knows what he's doing.
You wrote:
Quote:
First of all, it's interesting that the story is written in second person, but seriously, who writes like that?
I'm not sure what you mean. It sounds like you're saying that stories should never be written in second person; if that's what you mean, there are certainly other people who share that opinion. But I'm not one of them; when second person is handled well, as I feel it is here, I like the effect it gives. And not all readers are tempted to get up and leave while reading second-person stories. If I remember right, Theodore Sturgeon's brilliant story "The Man Who Lost the Sea" is in second person; Arthur C. Clarke declared that to be his favorite science fiction story, and it was nominated for a Hugo award in 1960.
But if you're not objecting to second person in general, just in this story, then my above paragraph is irrelevant; in that case, I think it's just a matter of differing tastes.
Quote:
Whenever another person is to speak, you start a new paragraph.
I just counted, and there are only three paragraphs in the story that don't conform to this convention. And in one of those cases, the first bit of "speech" is something that he wants to say but doesn't. So really there are only two paragraphs in this story in which two different people speak, and in both cases I think it's justified, and pretty clear (to me) from context who's saying what. (And in response to Don's note, the paragraphing is exactly as the author specified -- and I support his decision in both cases.)
That particular convention (starting a new paragraph for a new speaker) is one that I usually push authors to follow; I do think it's a good convention, and it's very widespread. And I agree that it generally helps with clarity. However, once in a while conventions get in the way of other things an author wants to do: the author (and editor) have to take into account style, rhythm, tone, clarity, and various other factors when deciding in any given case whether to stick with a particular convention or not.
Anyway, it sounds to me like the prose style of this story (and the fact that it's in second person) just didn't work for you; I'm sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, not every story will work for every reader. I hope you'll stick with us and see if other stories are more to your liking.
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Jed Hartman
Fiction Editor
Reged: Oct 15 2003
Posts: 151
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Addendum: on re-reading my note from yesterday, I think it sounds more antagonistic than I'd intended. I meant it to be in a tone of friendly discussion; apologies if it didn't come out that way.
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Tom Doyle
New user
Reged: Aug 09 2004
Posts: 6
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Thank you Don and Red Pen for reading my story and for commenting on it, and thank you Jed for your response. Re: Don's comments, I'm glad the story seemed to trigger for you that same cascade of odd Japanese memories that I might get from smelling green tea or watching "Lost in Translation."
Re: Red Pen's comments, I too am sorry that you didn't like the story's style, but appreciate that you read it and responded. I stand by my choices and the work of the SH editors. Jed's response covered a lot of the ground, but if you are interested in my specific reasons for the choices for this story, I would be happy to discuss them further either through this forum or direct e-mail.
And thank you again Jed for all of your thorough work on this story. As I said before, I'm not sure I would have written it if Strange Horizons didn't exist, so I appreciate Strange Horizon's publication of it very much.
Happy holdiays, Tom Doyle.
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Anonymous
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Authors usually provide two different forms of dialogue in the same paragraph in order to produce a breathless flowing effect. It is widely regarded as truth that in fiction authors can break conventional grammatical rules if it is done knowingly and with reason. So therefore, in this particular story, the red pen wouldn't apply.
--Simon Owens
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Tribeless
Regular reader
Reged: Mar 15 2004
Posts: 26
Loc: New Zealand
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An enjoyable, and more, educative, read. I know nothing of Japan thus cannot speak to the cultural differences, however, this story created the milieu of being caught between two cultures very well. Admittedly I was confused in places, however, this added to the experience (vis a vis above) - or perhaps was due to the fact I read it at 1.00am (thus will read again in the light of day).
The only aspect I was 'dubious' about was use of second person, however, this is a personal beef with myself, and besides which, in terms of creating the 'milieu' I noted above, the second person served toward this as it put 'myself' in the protagonist's position (which is ironically one of my usual beefs with second person; that is, I am not the protagonist, why put me there). Perhaps I will rethink my position on second person.
Finally, stylistically lovely writing also - the prose led me along the narrative seamlessly. But the real strength was in creating that 'in limbo' feel of being between two cultures. I see you have a story up on Futurismic also, so you've piqued my interest enough to have a read of that story.
(Oh, Jed - I love SH's forays into slipstream).
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Blue Jester
Unregistered
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I'm living in Japan now (gaijin) and that helped understand at least half of this. I always get lost in symbolism, however, so I struggled with the different Hell scenes. I do understand the phrase "small is beautiful" now ;)
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