Comments on: A Sci-Fi Writer’s Manifesto: Detail #4

By: Graham Storrs

Graham Storrs — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:45:52 +0000

LOL. Lucky you don’t live in Melbourne, Merrilee, or the intelligentsia would be hanging you from a lamp-post about now. In Perth the only intelligentsia you have to worry about is my Aunt Maggie and her mates, and they’re all pussycats.

Have you ever read The Dubliners, by the way? Joyce used to know how to write a bloody good story at one time.

Interesting that you picked Graham Greene as the anti-Joyce. He’s one of my big-time favourites too.

By: Merrilee

Merrilee — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:19:10 +0000

Huxley for sure!

“A lot of ’serious’ literature seems to be written by people who would rather rhapsodise themselves into an orgasm of technical pyrotechnics, than plainly say what on Earth they set out to say – if it was anything at all.”

There’s a point where art becomes wank. Self-indulgent prose satisfies no-one but the writer, and those people who think that, if they can’t understand it, it must be clever.

James Joyce should have been shot, not lauded. I’d rather read Graham Greene any day.

By: Graham Storrs

Graham Storrs — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:18:42 +0000

So true. I'm a big fan of Aldous Huxley and J D Salinger (among many others) for their beautiful, clear prose styles.

By: J_Dalgliesh

J_Dalgliesh — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:58:58 +0000

Which is why 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is still a favourite. Simple, clear storytelling at it's best, it stays true to the child-narrator POV, yet simultaneously communicates adult concepts to the adult reader. Magic indeed…