(July 20, 2018 at 11:29 am)mlmooney89 Wrote:(July 20, 2018 at 10:32 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: I appreciate Jane Austen’s elegant and minutely observant writing style even if the stories bore me. But literature is not all about the story.
I greatly enjoy Patrick O’brien’s Aubrey Maturin series of napoleonic nautical adventure novels both for the story and the writing style. Despite the radically different stories and settings I can see how Patrick o’brien Imitated Jane austen’s Writing style. The writing style absolutely converted the obrey maturin novels from run-of-the-mill swashbuckling paperbacks unlikely to be read more than 5-10 years after publication to richly textured historical novels that probably will remain classics of the genera for a very long time.
At least with Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Brave New World, etc I could delve into the different aspects of hidden meaning or how it relates to today. With 1984 and Brave New World you can compare too much government to too little or compare it to America now. Grapes of Wrath had imagery that was so well placed it placed a "crown of thorns" on a preachers' head as he was beat up and then reborn a better person or how the milk of the young mother that was meant for a child that would never live gave life to an old man. I mean they had substance. Emma... it had a girl trying to set up her friend then getting upset when he fell for her. I can't and don't want to delve into that.
I think there is substance in minute and insightful observation of the people’s environment, motivation, emotions and psychology in worlds not clearly related to the present, even if they seem to be engaged in mundane, trivial or frivolous activities. I think there is value in simply trying to reconstruct in the mind as completely as we can what we would see and how we would think if we were born and raised in a different age and place, and not just evaluate everything and everywhere that might be shown to us solipsistically from the narrow perspective of the here and the present.
