Kinja reply list

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Kyle WagnerMaggie Lange
8/22/13 4:47pm
Isn't this just an argument against bad Easter Eggs and peripheral content, though? Which with books is basically all of it, sure. But what if someone worth a shit wrote and shot and directed and played those scenes?

I mean, I still buy paper books when I know I'll want to write in them, and read books on a Kindle otherwise (never a tablet, rarely a phone if I have nothing else),—I don't like distractions while reading. But when everyone bucks this sort of thing, I think it's usually not that we don't like new forms, or a new medium. It's that it's being done in a really lame way. Look at the difference in Vine from its first week to now: from droll navel gazing to smart, well-produced comedy.

But yeah, I have no doubt this sucks real hard.
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  Maggie LangeKyle Wagner
  8/22/13 5:00pm
  I think you have a good point that there is a tendency to criticize novelty or gimmicky distractions. But even if they were good, I think that actively engaging with a novel (read for pleasure, not for an analytical exercise in semantics) involves letting the words take place in your imagination. Constantly interfering with the reader (like putting photographs of the main characters) is a detraction from the reading process.
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  psychomagnetMaggie Lange
  8/22/13 5:30pm
  Agreed, as an avid reader this very idea makes my head hurt.
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raincoasterMaggie Lange
8/22/13 5:13pm
You tore the pictures out of your picture books as a child, didn't you?
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  Xyloraincoaster
  8/22/13 5:28pm
  Y'know, I think I could make that sweater.
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  raincoasterXylo
  8/22/13 6:38pm
  That sweater is awesome!
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ItsARampageLanaMaggie Lange
8/22/13 4:36pm
Wait, wasn't that plot an episode of "Masters of Horror?"

[looks in vain for anyone who was watching anything that wasn't "Dexter" on Showtime in 2007]
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  burlivesleftnutItsARampageLana
  8/22/13 4:44pm
  Cigarette Burns was about a hard to find movie which was an Angel snuff film. It was directed by John Carpenter. It was terrible. But that's the only one of those Master of Horror shitfests that I can remember bearing any resemblence to this.
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  EvenStephen7burlivesleftnut
  8/22/13 5:40pm
  Ungh, try as I might, I'll never get the image of Udo Kier putting his intestines in a projector, and turning it on as he watches it pull them all out. I don't squirm at much, but that did it for me.
  
  You're not kidding when you said the whole thing was terrible though. It felt like a chore to work my way through, and I ended up quitting about 15-20 minutes from the end. I just didn't care anymore.
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It takes a nation of millions to elect the corruptMaggie Lange
8/22/13 4:42pm

Seems like the basic set-up from Flicker. If you have not read it, skip the app and get Flicker.
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  IHateWhatYouHaveOnIt takes a nation of millions to elect the corrupt
  8/22/13 4:50pm
  I LOVED Flicker.
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  chadchadwoskiIt takes a nation of millions to elect the corrupt
  8/22/13 7:37pm
  I thought this book seemed familiar. Flicker was on the Barnes and Noble recommended books several years ago. Was surprised considering the S&M-ish cover and subject matter. But good read.
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snikles1Maggie Lange
8/22/13 4:40pm
If they were banned in the US, then where were these movies being shown?
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  Maggie Langesnikles1
  8/22/13 4:42pm
  In the book, Pessl establishes that there is a whole underground culture devoted to screening the films in scary, abandoned locations
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  grapeapessnikles1
  8/22/13 4:56pm
  I believe at one point 8 of the films were mentioned being available from Warner Brothers as a DVD box set that they watch from the comfort of a living room.
  
  page 189
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Groucho MarxismMaggie Lange
8/22/13 5:48pm
Let me see if I can organize my thoughts on this in any comprehensible fashion. I may return to them over the course of this list.

1. This reminds me a little of House of Leaves in that it's meant to be a deep, engrossing, unsettling tome, and also because you're meant to return to the book over and over and discover new things (the "easter eggs", at least for HoL).

2. But the easter eggs in this book are all frontloaded in the app, and, in a more traditional fashion, the connections that apparently the book doesn't trust its readers to draw on their own.

3. The mocked-up artifacts & false history thing, as well as epistolary fiction, have always interested me as an approach to fiction, but so many stories do it so poorly that I am wary of fiction whose first point of discussion/summary/advertising is that it is being presented as real. Typically, the works of fiction I like that use that approach let the reader figure this out pretty quickly on their own, or do not advertise it so obtrusively.

4. Maybe I'd like this? I dunno.
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  jlfGroucho Marxism
  8/22/13 6:42pm
  Yes, House of Leaves was amazing in this respect. Perhaps the issue is if it done badly? I mean, I understand it is not the traditional approach of eye meets page meets brain, but if it's done to move the ideas/story/characters forward, it could work.
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  OedipusWrecksGroucho Marxism
  8/22/13 6:45pm
  I loved her first book, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, so I'll give this one a try. That one also had some metafictional layers, with the first-person narration filled with citations to books that Pessl made up (but are real in the world of the book). A good story about growing up and disillusionment, with a gut-punch ending.
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Count_Zero_InterruptMaggie Lange
8/22/13 5:05pm
I could really get behind extras like the ones described above, if they were done well.
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midwesternmomMaggie Lange
8/22/13 8:51pm
It seems a bit like Infinite Jest, with the engrossing, life-changing movie in a book filled with annotations. Which makes me miss DFW even more.
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MamaMiaItsaMeaMaggie Lange
8/22/13 5:43pm
Well, shit. We're talking about it. Must be something to that, no?
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  HieronymusHiroshigeMamaMiaItsaMea
  8/22/13 7:08pm
  Heh, yeah.
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