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Gullible Jones
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 Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2010 10:17 pm Post subject: Glenn Beck, novelist |
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Well, it's "faction" supposedly, but then Beck has always had a strange idea of what the facts are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overton_Window
I saw this at the Borders bookstore earlier today, spent a couple seconds gawking at it, and moved on. Probably should have read a few pages to see if Beck writes as badly as he talks. Oh well.
(I wound up getting Jeff Vandermeer's Finch. So far I'm not regretting it at all.) |
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Rommie
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| Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 2:48 am Post subject: |
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Psh c'mon GJ, don't you realize he had a ghost writer?
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mike alexander
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| Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 2:55 am Post subject: |
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This excellent review in the Los Angeles Times is hilarious in itself.
| Quote: | This is as good a place as any to provide the inevitable sample of the book's prose, so here's Noah's first impression of Molly:
"Something about this woman defied a traditional chick-at-a-glance inventory. Without a doubt all the goodies were in all the right places, but no mere scale of one to 10 was going to do the job this time. It was an entirely new experience for him. Though he'd been in her presence for less than a minute, her soul had locked itself onto his senses, far more than her substance had."
You really can't make this stuff up. |
Oh, and Beck comes right out and says he didn't write it.
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Gullible Jones
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| Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 2:58 am Post subject: |
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swift
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| Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 3:22 am Post subject: |
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From the review
| Quote: | | The image of a train wreck comes quickly to mind, though this book actually has more the character — and all of the excitement — of a lurching, low-speed derailment halfway out of the station. |
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gethen
Joined: 07 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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And yet--it's number 6 on the NYT hardcover fiction sales. Ridiculous and badly written or not, it's selling.
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mike alexander
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| Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 4:30 am Post subject: |
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Should have called it Tea Party Troopers.
Or maybe Stranger in a Strange Rand.
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jlj
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| Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:55 am Post subject: |
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| i downloaded it last night and started reading it. so far so good. i figured i'd read it before i passed judgement. but that's just me. |
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jlj
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| Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2010 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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| gethen wrote: | | And yet--it's number 6 on the NYT hardcover fiction sales. Ridiculous and badly written or not, it's selling. |
The book is a masterpiece. The prose displayed as an example of the bad writing is, as one would quite naturally expect, taken out of context.
I've newfound respect for the man (Beck). He's a genius. Rule number one of any form of communication....know your audience. Rule number 2....know your material. This book captured this particular moment in history brilliantly. Outstanding piece of work. |
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gethen
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| Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2010 3:24 pm Post subject: |
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| jlj wrote: | | gethen wrote: | | And yet--it's number 6 on the NYT hardcover fiction sales. Ridiculous and badly written or not, it's selling. |
The book is a masterpiece. The prose displayed as an example of the bad writing is, as one would quite naturally expect, taken out of context.
I've newfound respect for the man (Beck). He's a genius. Rule number one of any form of communication....know your audience. Rule number 2....know your material. This book captured this particular moment in history brilliantly. Outstanding piece of work. |
I thought he said he didn't write it himself. So how does the book make him a genius? More of an opportunist maybe?
Or maybe I misread something.
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jlj
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| Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2010 3:38 pm Post subject: |
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| The word his....he is the brains behind the enterprise. He hired a team of writers to help him produce it. But, be that as it may, it's not just the text that makes it brilliant. There are lots of books like this out there (i can list a few if you're interested). None has been as thorough or as timely and none has sold nearly as well. He gives the people what they want. And they (we i guess) are happy to pay for it. |
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mike alexander
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 3:52 am Post subject: |
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Who you calling 'we', Kimosabe?
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geonuc
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 10:24 am Post subject: |
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| jlj wrote: | | i downloaded it last night and started reading it. so far so good. i figured i'd read it before i passed judgement. but that's just me. |
It's entirely possible and appropriate to discuss (not pass judgment on) whether the book should have his name on it as author (and by 'should' I mean appropriate. It's certainly legal and rightly so). While many people have others ghost-write non-fiction, particularly biographies, isn't it unusual to have a book of fiction published in your name if you didn't write it?
That said, anything Glenn Beck says or puts his name to is crap. |
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mike alexander
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| geonuc wrote: | | jlj wrote: | | i downloaded it last night and started reading it. so far so good. i figured i'd read it before i passed judgement. but that's just me. |
It's entirely possible and appropriate to discuss (not pass judgment on) whether the book should have his name on it as author (and by 'should' I mean appropriate. It's certainly legal and rightly so). While many people have others ghost-write non-fiction, particularly biographies, isn't it unusual to have a book of fiction published in your name if you didn't write it?
That said, anything Glenn Beck says or puts his name to is crap. |
My own quirk is that a book listed on the cover as a work of fiction by a single author should be so. This is not limited to Glenn Beck. In his later years Arthur Clarke did a lot of collaborations with other authors (always cover-listed, to be sure) where his input was minimal-and it usually showed (compare Rendezvous with Rama to subsequent collaborations in the series, for example).
There is nothing wrong with a collaboration, as long as the whole is greater than the sum (Mutiny on the Bounty comes to mind). And there's no problem with other writers playing in another author's universe (Quite a few SF writers have doodled in Larry Niven's Known Space, and Tom Clancy has gobs of people, it seems, pulling games from his playbook). For that matter, one could offer the example of an architect, who usually gets the credit for a bridge or building she didn't put one brick in personally.
Above said, what's my a priori dismissal of Beck's book all about? Partly that I see an inch or more of text 'written' by a highly partisan person who has shown no previous literary ability. I am a very slow reader and have to exercise some prior restraint on starting anything. His spoor is not promising to me in that regard. I also have an admitted prejudice in the matter of writing; a book listed as a work of fiction by a single author should be a work of fiction by a single author.
What else? I had never heard of 'The Overton Window' as some sort of sociological theory, so I noodled around and came up with a 'meh' summary. I think that's what Hari Seldon was doing. Giving the obvious a cool new name doesn't make it less obvious.
But I have to assume that Beck delivers what his intended audience wants, reinforcement of currently-held beliefs. Many of us seek this at least some of the time (I know I do). Since Beck is not going to change my mind using his current set of tropes there is little reason for me to read his book.
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Gullible Jones
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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So this "Overton window" thing basically describes a spectrum of opinions on various ideas in political discourse. The window is the range of opinions that consider an idea to be at least somewhat sane. Or something like that.
But one of the ideas in the Wikipedia article is that the window could be moved, to encompass increasingly extreme ideas. One way this can be done is by incessantly spouting outrageous, extremist bullshit. If people aren't canny enough to realize you're fucking with them, then your previous "extremist" policies will eventually start looking sane and moderate by comparison.
Sound familiar? It should. The Republicans have been pulling this crap for the past ten years.
Edit: actually it strikes me, this may explain a lot about the existance of extremists in "moderate" political systems like the US'. The loonier people in the Republican party, for instance, aren't a liability at all; in fact they make the core Republicans look sane by comparison, even when they push for something that's totally nuts. The Republicans who don't believe what the loonies are spouting will put up with said loonies anyway, because they're actually helpful in carrying out the party's more popular objectives.
Hell, it might even explain the McCain/Palin ticket in '08. Palin is just bananas enough to make most of the stuff McCain said look closer to being on the money. |
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Hap
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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GJ, you could replace 'Republican' with 'Democrat' in your post, and it would be just as true. The moderates in both parties do the 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' thing when it comes to the extremists. (I assume you probably already see that, but I still felt compelled to point this out as Republicans get the majority of the bad press on this board.)
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Gullible Jones
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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Actually I really don't see a whole lot of extremism in the Democratic party. Which makes sense, because the Democrats are barely left of center. The only thing I've really seen the Dems go nuts over is gun control.
I might also point out that the more "extreme" Democratic positions tend to be about "saving people from themselves" - annoying, and often stupid, but sometimes it has something to it. Whereas the Republican positions tend to be - I will be blunt here - at best about consolidating power, and at worst about making life miserable for people they don't like.
I'm sure all political parties work this way when you get down to it, but let's not play games about who the more extremist major party in the US is. I mean, the Republicans enabled the government to strip people of their citizenship. The Democrats tried, and failed, to get a neutered and hamstrung implementation of national healthcare passed. There is really no comparison.
(And I will say that some of President Obama's moves, e.g. further expanding govt. surveillance powers, strike me as dangerous. But he's the president, and he's not exactly a party-line Democrat, so I don't think he's a very good example of Democratic extremism.) |
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jlj
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Oh my. |
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brite
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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meh... both sides of the aisle have their extremists, IMHO. I have just gotten to the point that I don't really care any more. (How sad is that?) The major difference is that the left side of the extremists tend to do their ranting a bit quieter... I personally think that Glen Beck and his ilk are morons. I'm tired of listening to their yelling on the airwaves, and I sure as hell won't buy their books so that I can read their crap.
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Rommie
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:49 am Post subject: |
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| Gullible Jones wrote: | Actually I really don't see a whole lot of extremism in the Democratic party. Which makes sense, because the Democrats are barely left of center. The only thing I've really seen the Dems go nuts over is gun control.
I might also point out that the more "extreme" Democratic positions tend to be about "saving people from themselves" - annoying, and often stupid, but sometimes it has something to it. Whereas the Republican positions tend to be - I will be blunt here - at best about consolidating power, and at worst about making life miserable for people they don't like.
I'm sure all political parties work this way when you get down to it, but let's not play games about who the more extremist major party in the US is. I mean, the Republicans enabled the government to strip people of their citizenship. The Democrats tried, and failed, to get a neutered and hamstrung implementation of national healthcare passed. There is really no comparison.
(And I will say that some of President Obama's moves, e.g. further expanding govt. surveillance powers, strike me as dangerous. But he's the president, and he's not exactly a party-line Democrat, so I don't think he's a very good example of Democratic extremism.) |
How is it I read this and know you're from Massachusetts? 
(Too sleepy right now for a full response, but to start you realize both parties voted for the Patriot Act right?)
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Gullible Jones
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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Yes I do.  |
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Gullible Jones
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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| [Damn it, double post] |
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mike alexander
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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By agreeing there are two sides to every story and that everyone shares the blame, much of the fun is taken out of human existence. 
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mike alexander
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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But I won't be reading Beck's book because a) I'm writing/revising about five stories of my own at present; b) I've been reading/critiquing 18 stories a week for the past five weeks while writing aforementioned five stories; c) I don't read thrillers in the first place; d) Beck is a dick.
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Gullible Jones
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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| mike alexander wrote: | | By agreeing there are two sides to every story and that everyone shares the blame, much of the fun is taken out of human existence. |
Also, there's the little issue that some sides have simply been wrong. Nazis come to mind. |
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SciFiFisher
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:43 pm Post subject: |
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Quick! what is Godwins Law!
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