Rokkitnite - tricky as stilt sex?
Sun, 2005-08-21 01:32
#1
Rokkitnite - tricky as stilt sex?
http://www.abctales.com/rokkitnite/24_gauge_twisted_pair_-_first_episode...
Rokkitnite has posted up a new piece, 'Conurbations.' As you would expect, it is full of rich (at times bizarre) images and has the vocabulary of a man well fed on alphabetti spaghetti. I'm at the opposite end to the scale when it comes to vocab, but my ignorance of the English language and his skilful grasp of it have a happy meeting point at www.dictionary.com, so I've learnt meself some new words.
(Sluice. verb. sluiced, sluic·ing, sluic·es.
-To flood or drench with or as if with a flow of released water.
-To wash with water flowing in a sluice: sluicing sediment for gold.
-To draw off or let out by a sluice: sluice floodwater.
-To send (logs, for example) down a sluice.)
It is the images that I liked best though, piss in the shape of a fir tree, a bellybutton filled with yolk. The most important thing about an opening chapter is for it to be intriguing, and this is, partly due to it being written in the first person.
Brooklands
Shit me, that's scarily good. Steeple-sharp writing, Tim.
Too, too many good lines to list but:
"a trout in a mattress"
"silent as pies"
are so memorable.
The dialogue is absolutely spot-on. So noir-ish, very intelligent - reminds me of Pynchon.
I am prone to hyperbole in the afterglow of a particularly good piece of writing by Rokkitnite but I repeat "shit me" that's exceptional.
Is this the start to something bigger? If so, i'm excited. If not, I'm excited. In other words... I'm excited.
Oi! Oi! Oi!
Joe
Brooklands
Okay peeps. What on earth is going on? This story is difficult AND it is sci-fi but it is so so SO good. Unlike anything you are likely to read on this or any other day - it really is deliriously good and well worth taking the time over. Print it out - it needs your utmost attention.
Give it a crack!
Joe
Brooklands
Oh, and give this piece a cherry please. I have a poem called Banana - it really is a genuinely terrible poem - no false modesty here - go read it, it's terrible - and it got a cherry (admittedly that was years ago...) but this... this is not terrible. This is great. This is great in a publish it now sort of way. Cherry him up.
Joe
span
The detail the detail!
I really enjoyed it Tim and I don't like Sci-fi.
So much in it.
May go and read it again!
Span x
tcook
Cherry is duly given - it's proving difficult to keep up wiht the onslaught of wonderful material piling on to the site at the moment!
It really is a strange piece. I think it overloads with images and wordgames and therefore it takes some reading to keep up with whatever is happening. I suspect that it needs a serious pruning to keep to what passes for a plot - but I loved it all the same.
mcmanaman
It does need pruning, I've read it three or four times now, get something fresh from it each time. I do quite like Spack's Banana though. So to speak.
rokkitnite
'I suspect that it needs a serious pruning to keep to what passes for a plot...'
I agree wholeheartedly, but at the same time... well, I guess I'm trying to write something that, as with poetry, is less about plot and character and more about the pleasure of a well-crafted sentence and a feeling of constant surprise. It *is* tricksy, and it is very dense, but I hope that - if the reader manages to make the adjustment - it also has the potential to be very rewarding. I'm aware of the fact that by writing something more demanding I'm limiting my potential audience. What some people enjoy others may - completely legitimately - see as soulless showing-off.
tcook
It's certainly not soulless showing-off - but it is difficult for the reader. I thoroughly enjoyed it but I think that when you are demanding so much of your audience you should help them as much as possible. Maybe make the plot line clearer so that the the language can shine through - and prune it so that only the very very best of the allusions/similies/metaphors/whatever make it through.
This is a very fine piece of writing and deserves a lot of attention.
Brooklands
Episode Two is out. And it ain't no Attack of the Clones.
http://www.abctales.com/rokkitnite/24_gauge_twisted_pair_-_second_episod...
To whet your appetite:
It's called: My summer of tennis.
First line: We played no tennis that summer.
Trump!
Joe
Brooklands
Just finished it. It's good, it's really good. The dialogue really, really reminds me of Pynchon which is probably the best compliment I have.
I love the relationship between the two protagonists. They love each other. Aw.
My one problem: the overall title. "24 Gauge Twisted Pair"
It's clunky and confusing and too sci-fi by half. In my opinion.
rokkitnite
Okay, so I may come back to the title if and when it's complete. 24 Gauge Twisted Pair is a type of wiring, I believe. Possibly used in phone cables?
Jack Cade
How great is Firefox? You can have the story open in one tab, and the thread in another. Wow.
I see what Tim's up to here, (it reads a bit like 'The Ticket That Exploded', or the various books published by Eraserhead Press, or the first two chapters of 'Foucault's Pendulum' before the story starts) but the problem with such density of imagery is that the weaker examples stand out badly against the good ones. Big as a calf? Hit the road like a lettuce?
There is a metaphorical ear too close to a physical ear, I think, near the start. I would keep the metaphorical one. Also, the oil ('ink pooled') shows the world 'perfect and reversed', but I'm certain that oil tends to split light and show metallic rainbow colours.
I also think it might work to switch voices here and there, perhaps where there is a key, notable action, so that we're given very clear panels of plot progression between the verbal cornocopia.
Brooklands
Ooh, a type of wiring, you say. Well, in that case...