ILF BOOK CLUB: Entry the First: The City & The City

[D.o.S.]

Slippery slope there mate -- I think a lot of that thinking is based on present-ism, to use the wrong word -- all novels are "contemporary" at time of publication (if you'll allow that, obviously there are exceptions) but I don't think the whaling bits in Moby Dick push your buttons the same way, even if they are essentially a different facet of the same phenomenon.

[popvulture]

Yep, when written, MySpace was still hangin' on

It's funny—I show my typography students this movie Helvetica, which is a really great design history doc. It feels super relevant until the very end when they start talking about the future of social media and show heavily decorated/customized MySpace pages. Pretty amazing how intensely dated it suddenly feels

[damnableman]

xo

[odontophobia]

Slippery slope there mate -- I think a lot of that thinking is based on present-ism, to use the wrong word -- all novels are "contemporary" at time of publication (if you'll allow that, obviously there are exceptions) but I don't think the whaling bits in Moby Dick push your buttons the same way, even if they are essentially a different facet of the same phenomenon.

seemed funny when there's suddenly a Palahniuk name drop.
but it's not like the book was written this week... it's got some mileage on it.

[popvulture]

Haha yep the Palahniuk thing was funny.

I do very much agree that having too current period-appropriate descriptions is a bit problematic, or at least in modern day settings. I recently read a book called The Fold by Peter Clines, which is honestly one of the worst books I've ever read, but it was rife with descriptions like "an iPad-sized chunk of metal" that seemed to date it even now. Damnableman's point is good... those details are unnecessary more often than not, and it usually serves the story better to omit them.

[odontophobia]

It's hard when name checking something so firmly rooted in the now versus something a little more timeless.

iPad sized? There are three fucking iPad sizes -- what one? Not a good example.

[popvulture]

So how's everybody doin? We've got a real boisterous book club on our hands here.

[Invisible Man]

[D.o.S.]

Well, I finished it. It was pretty rad. How's everyone else doing.

[damnableman]

xo

[popvulture]

I've been keeping pace with the chapter plan, and am up to date. But then again, I've read it before so...

I guess we'll get our dissection on when everybody's finished? Seems like that's the direction we're headed.

[goroth]

What if the use of iPads, google, MySpace ect is not an attempt to be contemporary but an attempt to define a specific time period, that at the time of writing happened to be the present?

</devilsadvocate>

[odontophobia]

What if the use of iPads, google, MySpace ect is not an attempt to be contemporary but an attempt to define a specific time period, that at the time of writing happened to be the present?

</devilsadvocate>

myspace pre-dates the ipad so far as relevance goes.

ipad was released march 2010. people weren't really using myspace at that time. its death felt very real by 2010.

[goroth]

What if the use of iPads, google, MySpace ect is not an attempt to be contemporary but an attempt to define a specific time period, that at the time of writing happened to be the present?

</devilsadvocate>

myspace pre-dates the ipad so far as relevance goes.

ipad was released march 2010. people weren't really using myspace at that time. its death felt very real by 2010.

um...


What if the intention is to create a narrator that is the kind of person who was still using myspace 2010?

[popvulture]

Haha I think y'all might be arguing different things? Or at least maybe it's splintered a bit... I definitely think using something like MySpace in a narrative dates to a specific time and could mean a lot of things, positively or negatively affecting a plot or setting.

The thing I said about iPads was just referring to lazy writing—I thought it was a shitty writer making no effort to be creative in a particular description.