From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   On Friday, August 1, 2014 7:00:54 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:   
   > In article <6b0dad4e-2640-4616-bbb1-91bdc1f1f2f7@googlegroups.com>,   
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   > William Vetter   wrote:   
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   > >On Friday, August 1, 2014 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:   
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   > >> In article ,   
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   > >> William Vetter   wrote:   
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   > >> >Because there isn't much activity here, except ugly activity, I'm gonna   
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   > >> >post something that isn't so important....   
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   > >> >I finished reading this book.  The plot structure was a buildup to a   
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   > >> >revelation.  There were two women, the title character, Virginia, and a   
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   > >> >cousin of hers that she was close to as a child, and about 4 older women   
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   > >> >who were their female relatives, 2 of which were elderly and confused.   
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   > >> >This structure was very obscured by the whole thing being written in   
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   > >> >stream of consciousness and shifting viewpoints between all of these   
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   > >> >characters.  Unfortunately, the author chose to name two secondary   
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   > >> >characters that were involved in the 2 confused viewpoint characters Roy   
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   > >> >and Ray, which made parts of the narrative awful to sort out.   
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   > >> >Virginia visits her home town while she's pregnant, develops toxemia,   
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   > >> >and collapses in her second aunt's house, who is the mother of her   
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   > >> >childhood friend.    She is out of it, and is advised not to be moved   
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   > >> >much, so all of the female characters come there to tend to her, and   
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   > >> >eventually there is the revelation that one of the grandfathers,   
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   > >> >Raymond, developed a mental illness during the last decade of his life.   
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   > >> >He was fascinated by King Tut and the Pyramids, and saw himself as a   
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   > >> >Pharaoh, and had himself buried in a concrete vault with his television   
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   > >> >and books about Egypt.  When he was alone with the girls, he terrorized   
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   > >> >them, told them he'd kill them unless they worshiped him.  When his   
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   > >> >burial arrangements were complete, he became abusive toward his wife,   
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   > >> >who eventually killed him and made it look like a suicide.  Each of   
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   > >> >these women has kept their aspect of the situation secret from the world   
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   > >> >and each other, and in the climactic scene, they tell one another their   
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   > >> >individual experiences, and how Raymond screwed up their lives.   
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   > >> >So that was the plot.   
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   > >> Thank you for telling us about this.  I, for one, would probably   
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   > >> have rejected it based on the back cover blurb, but it's always   
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   > >> good to have more (but not too much) information.   
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   > >The single excerpt about yellow interested me in the book.  I am glad   
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   > >that I read a book of this type.  I do not heavily endorse it and   
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   > >recommend you all read it.  It had some problems, which I mentioned or   
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   > >suggested above; the denouement was weak, all the women being instantly   
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   > >and completely healed by confessing to each other.  On the plus side, it   
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   > >was a women's novel where the characters' secrets involved no sexual   
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   > >abuse, which startled me.   
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   > >I respect an author who tries something difficult and partially   
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   > >succeeds; maybe more than some name author who somewhat bores me with a   
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   > >uniform product.  I don't mean that as career advise for anybody.   
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   > >> But your point, I think, is that it's lousy plotting.   
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   > >I don't have a position on the plot.  One of you ladies asked me what   
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   > >kind of plot it had.  It's not a complex plot, was what I meant to   
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   > >convey.  As a raw plot diagram, it could have been a short fiction plot.   
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   > >Maybe a complex plot would have made the book unreadable, given the   
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   > >complexity of the style.   
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   > I see.  So Patricia Wrede, if she were still posting on these   
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   > forums, might call it the work of a natural short story writer   
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   > trying to write a novel?   
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   I dunno.  The writing wasn't pale.  All the characters had their backgrounds,   
   own complete characterizations, and their perceptions of this Raymond   
   conflict.  This author sold a novel.  A lot of famous names sell worse.  Who   
   am I to say it's wrong?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)