Thoughts on Dialect/Male Characters
1) Something I've noticed that Rowling does in both the HP series and The Casual Vacancy, is to try and capture regional accents. This is most obvious with Terri: "I di'n' - I never...E's fine." What are people's thoughts on this? Do you find it effective/distracting etc?
2) This passage also stood out to me "Other people, Fats had discovered, were mired in embarrassment and pretense, terrified that their truths might leak out, but Fats was attracted by rawness, by everything that was ugly but honest, by the dirty things about which the likes of his father felt humiliated and disgusted. Fats thought a lot about messiahs and pariahs; about men labeled mad or criminal; noble misfits shunned by the sleepy masses" (74). One theme I've noticed that runs through the book is this idea of the "measure of a man." We've got Barry, Fats' awful wife beating dad Cubby, & Gavin. Barry's goodness stands in stark contrast to these other men sort of echoing the latter part of the passage above. Anyone else have thoughts about the male characters in this book?
Em
2) This passage also stood out to me "Other people, Fats had discovered, were mired in embarrassment and pretense, terrified that their truths might leak out, but Fats was attracted by rawness, by everything that was ugly but honest, by the dirty things about which the likes of his father felt humiliated and disgusted. Fats thought a lot about messiahs and pariahs; about men labeled mad or criminal; noble misfits shunned by the sleepy masses" (74). One theme I've noticed that runs through the book is this idea of the "measure of a man." We've got Barry, Fats' awful wife beating dad Cubby, & Gavin. Barry's goodness stands in stark contrast to these other men sort of echoing the latter part of the passage above. Anyone else have thoughts about the male characters in this book?
Em
posted by Smart Cookie @ 8:12 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
The accents are essential for Terri and Krystal, they're from another planet compared to the other characters.
Not sure Barry was such a saint, Measure of a Man: most of the men, except Vikram, are described as soft and out of shape, unappealing and unattractive.
Don't think I've found a character yet that I give a hoot about.
I'm only pages in, but I'm intrigued by her opening governmental reference and her Dickinson homage (all those evocative names and all those characters) and the Austen sense -lots of deficient people satirized - e.g., Samantha "had Ben a great user of sun beds when younger."
More and more reminds me favorably of "Emma." Just has characters in it we are conditioned to find repulsive rather than quaint or charmingly upper class.
That's an interesting thought about this book being similar to Austen. I'm going to read with that in mind. To Bobbie's early email, one obvious similarity to Austen is the sheer number of characters that were introduced so early on in the story
Just finished it tonight! Liddy's done, too. More later...
P. 362 "they're completely deluded..."
Tessa's thought is much like Austen's in Emma. Just because there's ONE Barry Fairbrother or ONE BaRook O'Blowme does not mean that there is any meaningful movement between classes in a capitalist society, nor does the upper class actually want it nor does the lower class expect it.
PS Pagford and Yarvil also function like Highbury and Hartfield in Emma.
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