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Notes -
So, what are you reading?
Still on This Star of England.
Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread starts off as a surprisingly typical communist screed, but it starts distinguishing itself after it denies the labour theory of value, saying that new forms of production must yield new forms of consumption. An interesting discussion of liberty soon follows. He has a keen eye to underappreciated people, which ameliorates his otherwise combative style.
Again I was given a book, this one fiction, called Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, or the book the film is based on. I am 4 chapters in and I am already dreading the rest of it. The story, the plot itself, is fine-- interesting even. But the author's writing style sets my teeth on edge.
Example passage:
Ah. Dr. Grace. You look refreshed." She gestured to her left. "There's food on the credenza."
And there was! Rice, steamed buns, deep-fried dough sticks, and an urn of coffee. I rushed over and helped myself. I was hungry as heck."
The "hungry as heck" bug you? It does me. And he does this throughout the 1st person narrative. Now I don't need swear words to feel realism, but if you want to eliminate epithets, just go without. He doesn't. It's like reading a book written by a Sunday school teacher for ten-year olds, which might be fine if it weren't ostensibly a story based in science. The humor is equally twee and grating. I am rarely this annoyed by a writer's style. Ok that's not true I am often annoyed by writers' styles but rarely like this.
Andy Weir writes like a Redditor, and it shows. Truly a shame.
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