xp that's fair remy, i've not read the books. my point would've been better made by saying that just because the narrator's voice isn't the authors that doesn't mean that the author's attitudes within a book can always be written off as "it's the narrator"
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:37 (three years ago) link
Re: the point about Boyne responding like a bell end to reasonable feedback from trans critics
I am sure there was much reasonable feedback
I wonder if there was also a wall of hostility and people going from book is a bit questionable to author is transphobic, lose him work, get this book out of schools and off reading lists, in 60 seconds flat or less
It would not surprise me if this had happened, on Twitter, nor would it surprise me if him experiencing that had caused him to act like a bell end in response because that is precisely the response that Twitter denunciation is trying to get (whoever's doing it at whoever)
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:41 (three years ago) link
It's really very simple playground tactics, get a group together and have them point at the target saying how terrible they are. Target attempts to defend self. Judges unmoved. Target eventually explodes in anger. This is taken as an example of how terrible they are.
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:44 (three years ago) link
lol @ those accusing you of white knighting for victims of cancel culture
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:44 (three years ago) link
"lol"
― all cats are beautiful (silby), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:45 (three years ago) link
the author's attitudes within a book can always be written off as "it's the narrator"
Certainly not, but identifying the extent to which an author's attitudes seep into their works is never as simple as that, if only because the mere act of writing fiction – and/or poetry, for that matter – tends to depersonalize the writer and put them in touch with a version of themselves (and of all things, really) that diverges from day-to-day lived experience. Completely? No, never, but just enough to plant seeds of doubt (…to varying degrees, depending on who/what we're talking about).
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 20:47 (three years ago) link
well lit crit isn't science, no. but it's not nothing either
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:48 (three years ago) link
For sure, but ime lit crit is often at its most 'scientific' when it refrains from making grand pronouncements about what the author really meant. (I don't give a rat's ass about Boyne btw, this is interesting to me from a theoretical perspective.)
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 20:50 (three years ago) link
yes i assumed that's what we were doing, probably belongs elsewhere, Boyne convicted himself outside the pages of his books by the look of it
i'm on record all the time as not being very interested in intent, or in meaning as part of some form/function binary
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:52 (three years ago) link
cardamon i know you enjoy white knighting for the oppressed victims of cancellation but (...)i'm not even gonna ask why your reaction in these situations always seems to be to try and find a defence for the poor gobshite who's attracted the ire of people they've miscategorised, lied about or misrepresented. it's a boring question, i'm sure you've got your own answers.― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, July 20, 2020 9:18 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglinkclearly as far as defending the poor victim of horrible woke Twitter you're not the only one always at it― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, July 20, 2020 9:20 PM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
i'm not even gonna ask why your reaction in these situations always seems to be to try and find a defence for the poor gobshite who's attracted the ire of people they've miscategorised, lied about or misrepresented. it's a boring question, i'm sure you've got your own answers.
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, July 20, 2020 9:18 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
clearly as far as defending the poor victim of horrible woke Twitter you're not the only one always at it
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, July 20, 2020 9:20 PM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
If this isn't an accusation I must have misread your authorial intent. Soz!
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:53 (three years ago) link
albeit i'd need a more detailed breakdown of why his new book is so cancelled
― imago, Monday, 20 July 2020 20:12 (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
having read a little deeper into the links from the initial twitter thread it does seem extremely sus at best tbf
― imago, Monday, 20 July 2020 20:54 (three years ago) link
It's a cash in, no?
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:55 (three years ago) link
just to spin back to relevance to this thread pom, the difficulty of showing intent works both ways - if your book contains shitty ideas then intentionality doesn't really come into it, the least you can do when people who know much much more about a situation than you do point out what they hate about yr work is listen to them respectfully
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:55 (three years ago) link
no my accusations were just that cardamon, the "lol @ people accusing you" bit was an ironic callback based on you making two or three posts about how awful the woke twitter mob is in bullying people with more media profile and power than them. unless those posts were ironic? who knows, i'm not that interested in intent.
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:56 (three years ago) link
Everyone is asking about the ending... Jessica's mum wants to be Prime Minister. She's on the brink of getting the job when her rival leaks the fact that "her son thinks he's a girl" to the press (cue transphobic headlines). It's made very clear that this has ruined her career.— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) April 16, 2019
cancelling boyne for this alone on the grounds of sheer crassness tbh
― imago, Monday, 20 July 2020 20:57 (three years ago) link
It's funny, I don't recall mentioning a 'woke Twitter mob'
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:58 (three years ago) link
It's really very simple playground tactics, get a group together and have them point at the target saying how terrible they are
that's enough being trolled i think
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 20:59 (three years ago) link
Go on?
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:00 (three years ago) link
Boyne convicted himself outside the pages of his books by the look of iti'm on record all the time as not being very interested in intent, or in meaning as part of some form/function binary
Yeah, I'm on board with all that. Through his responses Boyne seems to have validated the (potentially) reductionist readings of his critics, so tough shit to him. In and of itself, however, and shorn of its (obv. deader than dead) author, the book may have had a chance.
Perhaps. But once again, I don't really care, I'm just annoyed with YA fans who parse every single novel that falls into their lap as clear-cut allegories that swing between Bibles of Absolute Good and Grimoires of Absolute Evil, with nothing in between.
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:02 (three years ago) link
well again, it'd be wrong to make a judgement without close reading a bunch of books, but i feel like that dynamic applies to an awful lot of (in particular) genre fiction for readers of all ages
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:05 (three years ago) link
and again, if you as a creator want to participate on social media for marketing purposes that's fine, just do your marketing and shut up. if you engage with social media then get used to everything being amplified, whether it's fawning praise or people telling you to fuck off. amplification is the nature of the medium
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:07 (three years ago) link
Agreed, you've made your bed, etc.
Speaking of YA fiction, it occurs to me that I've never knowingly read any, even as a YA. Some of the low-tier high fantasy I was into at the time probably counts, though.
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:09 (three years ago) link
I'm trying to parse NV's approach to this stuff and it seems like essentially 'caveat emptor'? Is that about right?
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:10 (three years ago) link
xp
depends whether i can class Ian Fleming and Jackie Collins and Jack Higgins and Frederick Forsyth as YA. i think there's a case :D
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:11 (three years ago) link
Perhaps. But once again, I don't really care, I'm just annoyed with YA fans who parse every single novel that falls into their lap as clear-cut allegories that swing between Bibles of Absolute Good and Grimoires of Absolute Evil, with nothing in between.A lot of YA authors are also involved in the community, and to some extent play this game cf. Rainbow Rowell
― rb (soda), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:12 (three years ago) link
This is rather obvious, but I'm still somewhat amazed by how almost every single time this thread gets bumped, YA fiction is the culprit.
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:14 (three years ago) link
nothing quite like the o.g. YA, Swallows & Amazons
― imago, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:15 (three years ago) link
actually S&A is not quite YA as there are not really any themes of budding romance, which seems p crucial for the genre
Robin Jarvis would have to be my YA author of choice then
― imago, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:16 (three years ago) link
I had to look that up. It doesn't seem to have exported itself as well as its peers.
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:17 (three years ago) link
ok so here is what i can gather from the context
this boyne fellow decided to write a book about a trans person from the pov of a cis person
the first time any trans person got to see any of what this boyne fellow had to say about trans people was when review copies started going out to the press
some of us had some problems with some of the things he was saying and voiced them
boyne reacted by flying into a tizzy and generally behaving badly
i feel like things might have gone better if he'd given any indication, at any point, of actually listening to anything a trans person might have to say?
― Kate (rushomancy), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:19 (three years ago) link
that's about the size of it
tizzy seems to have involved legal threats against at least one trans critic
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:20 (three years ago) link
Yep, that sums up it.
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:20 (three years ago) link
no no, he needs perfect silence in his mind castle
― lukas, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:21 (three years ago) link
this thread is why babywitch tumblr are hexing the moon
― mark s, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:22 (three years ago) link
Babywitch Tumbler is an outtake from Alien Lanes, dude.
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:24 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKA7KCIvwGs
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 21:25 (three years ago) link
I think it’s babywitch tiktok rather than tumblr.
― Notes on Scampo (tokyo rosemary), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:39 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuYCX5XK_So
― ℺ ☽ ⋠ ⏎ (✖), Monday, 20 July 2020 21:39 (three years ago) link
Moving on…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/jul/20/an-author-bought-his-own-book-to-get-higher-on-bestseller-lists-is-that-fair
― pomenitul, Monday, 20 July 2020 22:08 (three years ago) link
that's not "news" is it
― all cats are beautiful (silby), Monday, 20 July 2020 22:39 (three years ago) link
This is properly hilarious, though:
ATTENTION: Cis author John Boyne, who spun out into transphobia when criticized for his poorly-developed trans novel My Brother's Name Is Jessica, has accidentally put zelda recipes in his new historical fiction book pic.twitter.com/KpHfio6S8h— Nightling Bug 🗝️ (@NightlingBug) August 3, 2020
― emil.y, Monday, 3 August 2020 15:06 (three years ago) link
omg I saw someone else tweet about that but didn’t clock that it was the same author - that is gold!
― Roz, Monday, 3 August 2020 15:37 (three years ago) link
Awesome.
― jmm, Monday, 3 August 2020 15:38 (three years ago) link
kinda sad it's this dumbass because his response was pretty funny... he just didn't really care that much!
― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Monday, 3 August 2020 15:41 (three years ago) link
I wonder how many proofreaders passed over "Octorok eyeball" without batting an eye.
― jmm, Monday, 3 August 2020 15:42 (three years ago) link
― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel)
Thing is, if it is historical fiction as stated in the tweet, that's not really very funny. If it were magical realism/fantasy in a historical milieu, then fair enough, we can all have laughs together. And it definitely makes me wonder about proofing/editing - were there instructions not to fact check, or are they massively understaffed, or was there just a huge failure on the part of the editorial team?
― emil.y, Monday, 3 August 2020 15:58 (three years ago) link
Their stories will intertwine and evolve over the course of two thousand years. They will meet again and again at different times and in different places. From Palestine at the dawn of the first millennium and journeying across fifty countries to a life among the stars in the third, the world will change around them, but their destinies remain the same. It must play out as foretold.
seems to be pretty loose historical fiction
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Monday, 3 August 2020 16:02 (three years ago) link
That does sound a lot like Zelda, tbf.
― jmm, Monday, 3 August 2020 16:03 (three years ago) link
A bit of wiggle room, then. I'd still hope that if you're doing something set in multiple times and places you'd aim for a teeny-tiny bit of accuracy in your portrayals, and not Zelda recipes, but maybe that's just me.
xp lol
― emil.y, Monday, 3 August 2020 16:08 (three years ago) link
I read too much hilariously dumb shit about how language works by ostensibly smart non-linguists to be surprised that most historical fiction is lazily written and wildly inaccurate
― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Monday, 3 August 2020 16:27 (three years ago) link