TBH I’m really looking forward to when TNC is over
I remember this happening near the end of Floornight too. I guess this tendency is probably preferable to the opposite, since a lot of writers tend to extend stories on and on because they don’t want to give them up, I think?
It was Dai-Yu who spoke next. She had been struck by Li Wan’s mention of a happy event, and said with some excitement:
“There was once a family of farmers who had a thornbush. There were three sons in the family, and one day these three sons decided to leave home and go their separate ways. No sooner had they gone than the thornbush began to fade away and die. But for some time later the brothers began to yearn for each other’s company, returned home and were reunited. And at once the thornbush began to flourish again. So you see plants follow closely the fortunes of the people to whom they are attached. […]”
-Dai-Yu recounts an oddly Salby-esque story (from Story of the Stone Vol. 4)
Thanks. Writing stuff that is “weird” on purpose can go wrong in a lot of ways – being unintentionally cliched or otherwise not as weird as you wanted, seeming “random” in a contrived way, just being gibberish with no resonance for the reader at all, etc. – so I’m glad my weirdness is working for you.
Thanks!
I wanted to clean up that Northern Caves / Secret History thing this week, and then I didn’t, and I’m not going to this weekend either, so here is the unclean (UNCLEAN!) version.
If you’re reading The Northern Caves, you should also be reading @typicalacademic‘s excellent commentary posts. (Spoilers, obviously)
(Insert obligatory joke about internet commentary on TNC)
Holy shit, I just finished Chapter 20 and Chapter 20 was amazing. Definitely my favorite chapter so far. I’m not sure if I agree at *all* with Salby’s philosophy or what Glasswave is talking about.
But it’s hard not to find that style of writing uplifting!
I guess what I am trying to say is, for me, Chapter 20 is #the aesthetic.
Awesome!! Thank you!!
I was really proud of that chapter myself – it was one of those cases where I got in “the zone” and the whole thing just came tumbling out fully formed and glistening
“it looks like sally kept pretty detailed journals” Do you mean Salby?
Yes, thanks for pointing that out.
The Instructions by Adam Levin is my favorite novel, is a big influence on TNC, and is way less popular than it deserves. However, it is very long.
We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson is short and mindblowingly good, and depending on what you liked about TNC there may be crossover appeal.
For something more wham! cool! exciting! but also very very good, I recently read The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins and it’s the most fun novel I’ve read in a long time.
I didn’t consciously draw from any particular Borges story – TBH I don’t really like Borges that much. (He thinks of cool concepts, and is a technically competent writer, but I find him really boring to actually read.)
I guess the “imaginary artistic oeuvre” thing might have been inspired by the fictional films in Infinite Jest? I’m not sure if I was inspired by anything in particular – mostly I wanted to write a story about fans responding to an ongoing story that changed significantly over time, and in order to do that I had to invent such a story.
Chapter 22 of The Northern Caves is up here.