Posted by guillermo maynez
on 16/8/2011, 13:58:46, in reply to "Re: The History of the Siege of Lisbon"
189.178.249.48
What did you guys think of the love story? At first, of course, it looked like a posh babe like Maria Sara would never pay any attention to the older, shy, and possibly not attractive Raimundo (Saramago is not very explicit about his looks, but I was led to infere he was no Brad Pitt in his fifties). But afterwards, it was all too easy for him. He was corresponded immediately and without further ado. There were absolutely no convolutions, misgivings, misunderstandings, or initial rejections, nothing like a "true" love story, where conflict and delay are necessary. Think about Jane Austen's "Persuasion", or Seth's "A Suitable Boy", or any of tons of love stories we have read here in ReadLit. Do you think this "easy" love affair detracts from the story, or is it simply that life sometimes is like that? Did you like it?
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: --Previous Message--
: But at least half of the time I was not able to
: identify who was saying what. Does anyone have any
: intentions of converting the first chapter into a
: dialogue written with a more standard system, using
: quotation marks and line breaks?
:
: The whole book is this way, so you'll just have to get
: used to it.
:
: Coincidentally I've read two other books in the last
: month that have no quotations marks. One of them was
: The Recognitions by William Gaddis--over 900 pages.
: Fortunately the author did use a dash to indicate the
: beginning of dialogue, even though there was nothing
: to say when it ended.
:
: I suppose the doing without quotations marks is a form
: of stream of consciousness, but it seems to me that
: confusing the reader as to who is saying what is a
: different matter entirely. Perhaps the running of
: dialogue together is to simulate the way conversations
: actually happen, with speech overlapping, but in the
: real world you can always tell who's saying what by
: the voice.
:
: One comment I once read that does, however, make a lot
: of sense is that the conventional pattern of starting
: a new paragraph with each change of speaker often
: gives undue weight to short expressions.
:
: "Oh?"
:
: "Yes," he replies. "That little 'Oh?'
: standing by itself looks much more important than it
: really is."
: