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Why I hate Ann Radcliffe.
First off, she's not a Gaian. And no, she's not a singer, actress or some freakish amalgamation of the two plus a robot like Paris Hilton, no, she's an author. And not even a recent author (or authoress, as she would have preferred). She was born in 1764 and is almost certainly dead by now. Why I hate her is perfectly clear though; her writing sucks.
I could say that about a lot of authors, but most of those authors didn't get critical acclaim, a huge fan base and forced down my throat in a deadful parody of an English Lit class that I regret ever taking.
Second year university at one of the top three universities in my country. I'm a Bio major, but taking an English course because I've always loved English, it's easy, and the course is called 'Fantasy.' Come on! Fantasy! It should be the most awesome course that ever awesomed.
Sigh.
The reading list has been:
Utopia (Thomas Moore) - arguably the first fantasy ever written, though not a novel per se, because it has no plot
A Sicilian Romance (Ann Radciffe) - look at the title, is the word Fantasy there? No. It takes place in our world and has so many ridiculous plot contrivances that it would neve be published today.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) - again, not fantasy
The Hobbit (Tolkein) - at last, a fantasy novel! And an awesome one. But it's a kids book and everyone and their dog has analysed it in some form already
Voyage of the Dawn Treader (CS Lewis) - aha! Another fantasy novel. And another kids novel. Gee, sensing a pattern here?
1984 (Orwell) - I guess this counts as a fantasy, although I'd call it more science fiction. I have been wanting to read it thugh, so I won't complain too loudly.
So. We have this reading list and I've read half the books before, the other half is NOT FANTASY. But they are legitimately important to the development of fantasy, I guess.
Except for that uber-shitty Sicilian Romance.
Why it is horrible:
1) The author clearly did no research into the time period she was attempting to write about, or the how the world is set up. Monks and nuns live in the same building? Umm...no? And one of the characters plays the painoforte. If I wrote about Amish people and their electric guitar solos, do you think people would say I wrote a great novel?
2) Coincidences! The main criticism of Jane Eyre is that she escapes from Mr. Rochester's house only to some how end up at (SPOILER) her cousin's. Wow. In this book the characters keep losing and finding each other all across the countryside. One ends up in a nunnery and is immediately befriended by the sister of her true love. Madame de whatever is kicked out of the castle and comes across her escaped charge at random.
3) They ignore the older sister. Okay, the book is about the younger one, fine. So why put the older one in at all? She spends almost the entire novel locked in her room because the younger one ran away. She's in the castle with her evil father and does her sister or brother care? No. For that matter, she could have married the vicious count, she was supposed to be beautiful. But no. Nobody likes the older sister. Fine.
4) The main character is a moron. She has three responses to everyday life: to faint, to cry or to blush. And because of that men fall in love with her? I wanted to hit her. She was boring! And she kept abandoning the people that had helped her whenever danger threatened. I get that it was supposed to be proper behaviour for a woman at the time, but she was boring as hell. Why not make the book about her brother, who fought bandits, than a stupid b***h who spent half the novel in a faint.
There, I'm done ranting. This is one of the few posts that are going to be serious and I promise that when I gather my strength, the next one will be more lighthearted.
Fare thee well, constant reader!
B.
 B.longimanus · Sun Jan 28, 2007 @ 03:23am · 0 Comments |
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