Quality Discussion Thread

[Treemaster]

This book sets forth mostly non-controversial points about prose.  

 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elements-of-style-william-strunk-jr/1100084919?ean=9781781393635

[Rand the Plumber]

This book sets forth mostly non-controversial points about prose.  

 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elements-of-style-william-strunk-jr/1100084919?ean=9781781393635

 

Ah, Strunk and White.  I had a copy of that once, and it repaid my investment many times over.  Extremely persuasive and even common sense.  Eminently reasonable.  A common standard, perhaps.  But objective?  What about its controversial points, are they also objective?  How much disagreement must there be for a point to be deemed controversial, and who deems it so?

 

I realise that I'm quibbling here, but I have a bee(hive? farm?) in my bonnet about subjectivity.  On the subject of "polish", if we could agree that "a reasonable person would find this prose unpolished" rather than "this prose is objectively unpolished", then I'd be quite happy (not that I'm expecting anyone to agree with me just to make me happy, I hasten to add).

[Treemaster]

 

This book sets forth mostly non-controversial points about prose.  

 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elements-of-style-william-strunk-jr/1100084919?ean=9781781393635

 

Ah, Strunk and White.  I had a copy of that once, and it repaid my investment many times over.  Extremely persuasive and even common sense.  Eminently reasonable.  A common standard, perhaps.  But objective?  What about its controversial points, are they also objective?  How much disagreement must there be for a point to be deemed controversial, and who deems it so?

 

I realise that I'm quibbling here, but I have a bee(hive? farm?) in my bonnet about subjectivity.  On the subject of "polish", if we could agree that "a reasonable person would find this prose unpolished" rather than "this prose is objectively unpolished", then I'd be quite happy (not that I'm expecting anyone to agree with me just to make me happy, I hasten to add).

 

No, I completely agree with you.  You could say Suttree and I reasonably agree that Sanderson's prose in AMOL is not polished.  

[Rand the Plumber]

No, I completely agree with you.  You could say Suttree and I reasonably agree that Sanderson's prose in AMOL is not polished.  

 

Perhaps consensus has been achieved.  I also agree on this point.  I would even go so far as to say that Jordan's prose (insofar as we know which bits he wrote) is also less polished than the works published in his lifetime, and understandably so.  Even if were it the case that Sanderson's prose was generally agreed to be of the very highest quality, I think that there might still be arguments over whether Jordan's work was as good as it could be.  We know that he spent a lot of time rewriting and reworking until he was completely satisfied.  Sanderson simply could not (objectively!) do this to Jordan's prose to the same degree, without it ceasing to be Jordan's writing.  Not only that but he might (subjectively!) have a bias against doing as much polishing as he might do on his own prose, for the precisely the same reason.

 

I think I've veered off into metaconjecture.  It might be time for bed.

[Cybertrolloc]

Rane, I'd take your point more seriously if you could give examples of major angreal's, all of them specifying buffers.

 

You are saying "most have the buffer" but I don't remember buffers being mentioned very often.

It's an RJ failing as well. Characters know this information, but it's withheld from us.

 

The fat man angreal might be another example, see where Rand goes to Rhuidean.

 

In the scene where Dem gives MacGuffin to Taim, you could interpret that as Dem is scouting with the TP again but Taim not knowing about that...

[MarkDiLillo]

 

 

 

 

This is one of the primary reasons that I place this series in the guilty pleasure column for me, rather than a "serious" work of fiction.

Oh, I'm not suggesting RJ's work stands up outside of genre as someone like Peake's does. When you start talking about great writers such as McCarthy, Pynchon or DeLillo they are just on a different level. To be clear if I hadn't come to these books at such an early age I doubt they would have had the same impact. Now when I see authors like Bakker it really shows what is possible in terms of fantasy writing that can hold up to the type of scrutiny usually reserved for "literary texts".

Suttree:

 

While I agree with you that Sanderson's prose is not good, I don't agree with your argument that the quality of prose can be evaluted 100% objectively. Certain aspects of it undoubtedly can be -- such as, for example, grammar, overruse of passive voice, and so on. But other parts of it are subjective. You listed three authors you believe are "great" and on a different "level," but I don't like the prose written by any of them. I tried to read McCarthy's Road several times, and found the prose to be so bad that I was unable to continue. On the first page (as far as I got), he overuses the device of fragments. Now, a fragment can be an effective way to convey sudden unexpected events, or particularly strong emotions. But when nearly every sentence is a fragment, the device loses its effect and just becomes annoying. I've also tried to read Pynchon and DeLillo, and have never be able to get into their prose, or "style" as another poster put it. Atonement is another modern book that I was unable to finish because I thought the prose was too pretentious and trying too hard to be "literary."

But there is a difference betwen prose being objectively polished or unpolished, verse what you simply like or don't like. To be clear I agree that prose isn't entirely objective. Point being though for someone like McCarthy you can say you dislike his style, you can't say it his prose is bad. Especially when it won the Pulitzer Prize for literature and the prose was specifically referenced as one of the major reasons. For instance famed critic Harold Bloom who has spent his life researching such things had this to say:

 

>"there are four living American novelists I know of who are still at work and who deserve our praise". He claimed that "they write the Style of our Age, each has composed canonical works," and he identified them as Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, and Don DeLillo. He named their strongest works as, respectively, Gravity's Rainbow; American Pastoral and Sabbath's Theater; Blood Meridian; and Underworld. He has added to this estimate the work of John Crowley, with special interest in his Aegypt Sequence and novel Little, Big saying that "only a handful of living writers in English can equal him as a stylist, and most of them are poets...only Philip Roth consistently writes on Crowley's level".

Just a few examples of solid prose from my favorite author, who is very different from RJ.

 

Cormac McCarthy "The Orchard Keeper"

Far down the blazing strip of concrete a small shapeless mass had emerged and was struggling toward him. It loomed steadily, weaving and grotesque like something seen through bad glass, gained briefly the form and solidity of a pickup truck, whipped past and receded into the same liquid shape by which it came.

Notice the economy of words and natural cadence. The figurative language is also fresh and vivid and doesn't reach too hard.

 

Here in the an example from "The Road" his prose is almost perfectly minimalist with incredible clarity.

 

On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

& another that approaches poetry in how it sounds and the literary devices he employs.

 

The Road

In the morning they came out of the ravine and took to the road again. He’d carved the boy a flute from a piece of roadside cane and he took it from his coat and gave it to him. The boy took it wordlessly. After a while the man could hear him playing. A formless music for the age to come. Or perhaps the last music on earth called up from out of the ashes of its ruin. The man turned and looked back at him. He was lost in concentration. The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a traveling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have all been carried off by wolves.

 

 

The guy who wrote the pieces from "The Road" seems to almost ruin his writing by employing too many very short sentences back to back in these examples.

[MarkDiLillo]

One quick question since I managed to neglect these forums lately....

 

Originally, Brandon said that everything in the Epilogue was RJ with the exception of Cadsuane.  Now it looks like he is saying something else entirely.  Who wrote what?  Can anyone clear this up for me?  Please only someone who actually has been following with the latest Brandon updates only.  I am not looking for speculation; there's been plenty of that already.

[Suttree]

The guy who wrote the pieces from "The Road" seems to almost ruin his writing by employing too many very short sentences back to back in these examples.

A hallmark of McCarthy's writing is to avoid punctuation except when absolutely necessary. He thinks if you write well enough and clearly there is no need to muck up the page with it.

 

 

"James Joyce is a good model for punctuation, he keeps it to an absolute minimum.  There is no reason to blot the page up with weird little marks.  If you write properly you shouldn't have to punctuate..."

It really is the sign of a true master. To each his own, but McCarthy is often considered to be America's greatest living novelist.

 

@Mark

 

As for the epilogue it's not entirely clear as answers keep changing. This has now happened on a number of topics, including the notes which have turned out to be far different than what we were originally told.

[Agitel]

One quick question since I managed to neglect these forums lately....

 

Originally, Brandon said that everything in the Epilogue was RJ with the exception of Cadsuane.  Now it looks like he is saying something else entirely.  Who wrote what?  Can anyone clear this up for me?  Please only someone who actually has been following with the latest Brandon updates only.  I am not looking for speculation; there's been plenty of that already.

 

Latest quote I heard is that Rand and Mat were written by RJ for sure. RJ also wrote the scene exiting the mountain and "other scenes."

 

Brandon bridge the "gaps" with some Loial and Perrin POVs in the epilogue.

 

Those are straight from the horse's mouth. The others... well, it seems pretty much confirmed by what everyone says that Cads was Brandon. I don't know about the others.

[Suttree]

We have a "horses mouth" quote on Cads in the epilogue being a Brandon added part as well.

[MarkDiLillo]

Why are we getting such conflicted answers about this stuff from this guy...I mean how hard is it to just state who wrote what in clear english?!

 

He stated pretty clearly that the ENTIRE EPILOGUE WAS ALL RJ with the exception of one bit piece (which was Cadsuane).  Now he's just changing his story.  I am totally confused as to why we can't get a straight answer.

[Matthew79]

 

 

 

 

Anyone else feel that the flaw in Vora's s'angreal was a convenient invention? I mean, we never heard about this before and almost all angreal have that buffer standard. Really it seemed like Brandon saying, "Oh yeah, Eg's gotta die, better make something up!"

At 1st I thought this as well. When considering it a bit more I realised that every Sa' angreal seems to have the same buffer problem, our at least some major flaws. We don't get confirmation of this with Demandred's Sa' angreal, just a guess from Taim's POV.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Most angreal and sa'angreal have the buffer. That's why the lack of a buffer in Callandor is referred to as a flaw. If Sarkanen also had one, I'd chalk that up to Sanderson inventing it, since he wrote both in. Seems like a deus ex machina device to me.

I'm talking Sa' angreal only; every one so far has been shown to have no buffer .( not sure about sarkenen(spelling? ) but Taim seemed to think it had a flaw)

[Suttree]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone else feel that the flaw in Vora's s'angreal was a convenient invention? I mean, we never heard about this before and almost all angreal have that buffer standard. Really it seemed like Brandon saying, "Oh yeah, Eg's gotta die, better make something up!"

At 1st I thought this as well. When considering it a bit more I realised that every Sa' angreal seems to have the same buffer problem, our at least some major flaws. We don't get confirmation of this with Demandred's Sa' angreal, just a guess from Taim's POV.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Most angreal and sa'angreal have the buffer. That's why the lack of a buffer in Callandor is referred to as a flaw. If Sarkanen also had one, I'd chalk that up to Sanderson inventing it, since he wrote both in. Seems like a deus ex machina device to me.

I'm talking Sa' angreal only; every one so far has been shown to have no buffer .( not sure about sarkenen(spelling? ) but Taim seemed to think it had a flaw)

Every one? Care to tell us which those are? The CK certainly had buffers.

[Matthew79]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone else feel that the flaw in Vora's s'angreal was a convenient invention? I mean, we never heard about this before and almost all angreal have that buffer standard. Really it seemed like Brandon saying, "Oh yeah, Eg's gotta die, better make something up!"

At 1st I thought this as well. When considering it a bit more I realised that every Sa' angreal seems to have the same buffer problem, our at least some major flaws. We don't get confirmation of this with Demandred's Sa' angreal, just a guess from Taim's POV.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Most angreal and sa'angreal have the buffer. That's why the lack of a buffer in Callandor is referred to as a flaw. If Sarkanen also had one, I'd chalk that up to Sanderson inventing it, since he wrote both in. Seems like a deus ex machina device to me.

I'm talking Sa' angreal only; every one so far has been shown to have no buffer .( not sure about sarkenen(spelling? ) but Taim seemed to think it had a flaw)

Every one? Care to tell us which those are? The CK certainly had buffers.

To my knowledge there are only 5 Sa'angreal.

We've been told directly that Callandor and Vora's wand lack the buffer.

Sarkanen(not sure of the spelling) has some sort of flaw.

As for the CK, the access keys themselves have a buffer but not the CK themselves; Remember Selene and Rand's reaction to his encounter with the male statue in TGH?

[Agitel]

Matthew's right about the Choedan Kal. It was only with the access key ter'angreal that a channeler would have a buffer using them. These were completed during the Breaking, right?

[Matthew79]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone else feel that the flaw in Vora's s'angreal was a convenient invention? I mean, we never heard about this before and almost all angreal have that buffer standard. Really it seemed like Brandon saying, "Oh yeah, Eg's gotta die, better make something up!"

At 1st I thought this as well. When considering it a bit more I realised that every Sa' angreal seems to have the same buffer problem, our at least some major flaws. We don't get confirmation of this with Demandred's Sa' angreal, just a guess from Taim's POV.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Most angreal and sa'angreal have the buffer. That's why the lack of a buffer in Callandor is referred to as a flaw. If Sarkanen also had one, I'd chalk that up to Sanderson inventing it, since he wrote both in. Seems like a deus ex machina device to me.

I'm talking Sa' angreal only; every one so far has been shown to have no buffer .( not sure about sarkenen(spelling? ) but Taim seemed to think it had a flaw)

Every one? Care to tell us which those are? The CK certainly had buffers.

To my knowledge there are only 5 Sa'angreal.

We've been told directly that Callandor and Vora's wand lack the buffer.

Sarkanen(not sure of the spelling) has some sort of flaw.

As for the CK, the access keys themselves have a buffer but not the CK themselves; Remember Selene and Rand's reaction to his encounter with the male statue in TGH?

[Suttree]

With the CK the statue and key are made to work together so you can't really throw that in. Regardless we have word of God with Callandor that it's a manufacturing flaw, not the way they all are.

 

Leaving aside all of that even if all we have seen did lack a buffer(which they don't) it would be a fallacy to then make th assumption you are putting forth.

 

Edit: There are also more sa'angreal. It has been referenced that there are more in the WT.

[Matthew79]

I was thinking along the lines that all powerfully made Sa'angreal have this manufacturing flaw. Whether or not the Choedan Kal were made to be used with the keys, it seems that the Sa' angreal themselves are unsafe to use without the ter' angreal access keys. the most likely reason would be no buffer. Though whatever the flaw is, it's still a flaw- intended or not. So we still have 5 Sa ' angreal , all flawed in someway.

[Mats Spare Hat]

The most likely reason, in actuality, for the access keys would be so that you could use the Choedan Kal without having to lug around 2390724906724906724906 tons of statue.

[Suttree]

I was thinking along the lines that all powerfully made Sa'angreal have this manufacturing flaw. Whether or not the Choedan Kal were made to be used with the keys, it seems that the Sa' angreal themselves are unsafe to use without the ter' angreal access keys. the most likely reason would be no buffer. Though whatever the flaw is, it's still a flaw- intended or not. So we still have 5 Sa ' angreal , all flawed in someway.

Errmm no. That reasoning doesn't hold up.

[Agitel]

The most likely reason, in actuality, for the access keys would be so that you could use the Choedan Kal without having to lug around 2390724906724906724906 tons of statue.

 

That's a perk. The Choedan Kal are unsafe to use without the access keys.

[Suttree]

 

 

The most likely reason, in actuality, for the access keys would be so that you could use the Choedan Kal without having to lug around 2390724906724906724906 tons of statue.

That's a perk. The Choedan Kal are unsafe to use without the access keys.

They were made to be used with the keys. That is totally different from a manufacturing error causing a lack o buffer in Callandor. There is zero correlation between the two.

[Agitel]

 

 

 

The most likely reason, in actuality, for the access keys would be so that you could use the Choedan Kal without having to lug around 2390724906724906724906 tons of statue.

That's a perk. The Choedan Kal are unsafe to use without the access keys.

They were made to be used with the keys. That is totally different from a manufacturing error causing a lack o buffer in Callandor. There is zero correlation between the two.

 

The Choedan Kal didn't suffer a manufacturing flaw, I see. And I know they were designed to be used with the access keys, they weren't made after the fact to compensate for error. To answer my own question earlier, the Choedan Kal were built before the Breaking, as well as the access keys, but the access keys were lost after an attack by the Shadow.

 

But to address Mat, as I said, the Choedan Kal weren't safe to use without the access keys. Tapping them directly would risk them being consumed by too much of the One Power. That's not necessarily an issue with the buffer, but the access keys were as much for safety as for portability.

[rane008]

It would be best to leave the Choedan Kal out of this discussion since they are unique.  We know more about their construction than any of the others and they were on a level of power so far above anything else that they are could almost be considered a sa'sa'angreal.  I mean, could Rand have used Callendor to destroy the world as he could have with the Choedan Kal?  Could Egwene have used Vora's wand to do so?  It's unlikely (although I am speculating, and I admit that).
 

But here's the thing: We KNOW for a FACT that angreal have buffers.  They are standard.  That means that a lack of one is not the norm.  Logically, one would have to ask why something that is mass-manufactured would intentionally be set up to lack the buffer.  In essence, you'd be industrializing the flaw. 

 

What Sut is saying is that even if we have 3 that don't have the buffer, you can't say that all sa'angreal don't.  That's a sample size issue.  I don't accept that the three were supposed to lack a buffer, as I don't think RJ would have left it to the last minute to tell us.  He was a bit more subtle. 

[rane008]

The most likely reason, in actuality, for the access keys would be so that you could use the Choedan Kal without having to lug around 2390724906724906724906 tons of statue.

Yes.  This.