PUNPUNNNNN I maintain that Punpun uses its depressingness to highlight the rays of warm human sunshine and it's beautiful
anyway I think you will be quite at home on Tumblr, where REALISTIC IS NOT PEOPLE DYING, DEFEND HAPPINESS *DONS SUNGLASSES* is a very prevalent theme.
I haven't read GoT but I suspect I'd feel similarly about that as I do about SnK. Page-turner WHAT HAPPENS NEXT plots do appeal to me, but I feel like, the ability to invoke suspense and tension is a technical merit rather than a deep artistic one. I can admit that this thing is fun and I would like to know what happens next, but I feel like that enjoyment stems from essentially the same place as enjoyment of escapism does: "oh wow this is fun I want to keep reading."
From what I've wiki-surfed, GRRM does seem pretty accomplished at creating realistic characters who react realistically to their situations. I think your frustrations here are similar to something I read recently about Frozen. Paraphrased, "It is no longer sufficient to present an illusion of life." I didn't altogether agree with that original writer's conclusion that it must be theatrical instead, but it is something that made me think about what many things now called literary are lacking.
There are so many literary works that present stunningly clear portraits of real people, but are missing that spark that makes a story special. Personally, I give like maybe half of a shit about worldbuilding, but I can certainly agree that artistic aimlessless would probably bore me. It's not that the characters need to have a firm sense of direction/motivation, or that you always know where the plot is heading, or that there's some great cosmic point you can put into words. I'd say Punpun does none of these things. But there's the sense that the artist knows how the gloom and doom fits within the greater scope of her work, and subtly makes it click with everything else she puts into it, and to make the ordinary extraordinary.
(Btw things go well for Punpun for a few volumes in the middle after Nanjou enters his life, but then the last volume is incredibly heavy oh my god have fruit juice and teddy bears on hand. Actually I'm not 100% sure how I feel about the ending either. It's not obviously "meh" like 14 Nights's ending, but while the last few pages are great I'm not sure about the lead up. I plan to reread the series at some point and I'll see how I feel about it then.)
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Date: 2014-06-05 05:43 pm (UTC)I maintain that Punpun uses its depressingness to highlight the rays of warm human sunshine and it's beautifulanyway I think you will be quite at home on Tumblr, where REALISTIC IS NOT PEOPLE DYING, DEFEND HAPPINESS *DONS SUNGLASSES* is a very prevalent theme.
I haven't read GoT but I suspect I'd feel similarly about that as I do about SnK. Page-turner WHAT HAPPENS NEXT plots do appeal to me, but I feel like, the ability to invoke suspense and tension is a technical merit rather than a deep artistic one. I can admit that this thing is fun and I would like to know what happens next, but I feel like that enjoyment stems from essentially the same place as enjoyment of escapism does: "oh wow this is fun I want to keep reading."
From what I've wiki-surfed, GRRM does seem pretty accomplished at creating realistic characters who react realistically to their situations. I think your frustrations here are similar to something I read recently about Frozen. Paraphrased, "It is no longer sufficient to present an illusion of life." I didn't altogether agree with that original writer's conclusion that it must be theatrical instead, but it is something that made me think about what many things now called literary are lacking.
There are so many literary works that present stunningly clear portraits of real people, but are missing that spark that makes a story special. Personally, I give like maybe half of a shit about worldbuilding, but I can certainly agree that artistic aimlessless would probably bore me. It's not that the characters need to have a firm sense of direction/motivation, or that you always know where the plot is heading, or that there's some great cosmic point you can put into words. I'd say Punpun does none of these things. But there's the sense that the artist knows how the gloom and doom fits within the greater scope of her work, and subtly makes it click with everything else she puts into it, and to make the ordinary extraordinary.
(Btw things go well for Punpun for a few volumes in the middle after Nanjou enters his life, but then the last volume is incredibly heavy oh my god have fruit juice and teddy bears on hand. Actually I'm not 100% sure how I feel about the ending either. It's not obviously "meh" like 14 Nights's ending, but while the last few pages are great I'm not sure about the lead up. I plan to reread the series at some point and I'll see how I feel about it then.)