@minstrel can correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood his comment about old wounds as saying the matter in this thread was already settled, the OP understood what he did wrong, now knows how to do it next time, and the case was closed until you brought it up again, which, seeing as how the matter was settled, felt a bit like beating a dead horse. It was just plain boring and didn't really provide any incentive to keep reading. What do I care about this guy's health? I have no idea who he is or why I should give a damn especially since the situation described in the paragraph wasn't even unique in any notable way. And the first sentence was quite meandering. I don't have a problem with long sentences, they can be done well, but I don't think Roth did with this one. But different strokes and all that...
We're all entitled to our own opinions, but couldn't we say this for just about any work? Why should we care if Gregor Samsa turns into a bug? We know nothing about him. Why should we care if Colonel Aureliano Buendia is facing the firing squad? We know nothing about him. And so on and so forth. So I don't think that's a valid criticism.
When starting a new book - even when perusing in a bookstore - I generally cut the author some slack in that regard. I assume that there will soon be a reason to care about Colonel Aureliano Buendia facing a firing squad (although I did eventually stop caring and put aside the book for something more rewarding). But in Roth's case, I would not have continued, not because I didn't care about his character's health but because he gave me so little real information with so many words in that first paragraph that I would have sensed that a happy reading experience did not lay in my immediate future.
It might be fun to start a thread with (attributed) first paragraphs from famous authors, and see how they work. There will be some, like this Roth one, that don't work very well, but I suspect most of the openers from good authors will be interesting. Might be an eye-opener, actually. It's funny, but I never judge a book by its opener. If I'm standing in a bookstore, I'll thumb through a book, picking spots at random to get a feel for the author's style. If it doesn't read well for me, I'll put the book down and move on. I get my interest going by reading the blurb on the back, and to some extent looking at the cover. I might read a first paragraph as well, but that's definitely not the first thing I do. Most of the books I like start slowly. I assume (like @EdFromNY) that eventually I will care about the characters and their situation, and I'm willing to let this develop. However, a book that starts with impenetrable sentences or an obvious gimmick will NOT grab me.
First pages are important, but I will always give a book at least a few chapters before even thinking of giving up on it. I always like to read how a book opens when I'm buying one On writingforums, the aspiring writer has an even narrower window. They've got got about two seconds, maybe a sentence long, before a lot of people will say "Tripe..." and go and read something else
I'm the same as you, because if the opener isn't especially good but the later chapters are, then by going to random pages you truly do get a feel of the author's style, use of language, etc.
I think the opening paragraph was dull and badly written. Very long sentences, felt like just a lot of facts, and there was no hook.
what 'mistakes' did minstrel and i make? as for my caps key it's working just fine, thanks... in case you hadn't noticed, or seen any of the several explanations i've given in the past for my idiosyncratic posting style, it's simply how i save time and effort in posting, emailing, and adding notes to material i'm asked to assess and edit... it's clear enought to make sense of without capitals and standard punctuation... you don't have to like it and certainly have the right to ignore all i write this way, if it annoys you...
I'm not seeing the mistake. People broke the rule. They broke it innocently, but that doesn't make it a mistake to point out that they broke the rule. If someone walks out of a restaurant and grabs a mint, because they're used to restaurants handing out free mints at the exit, and the clerk points out the little "Mints: 5 Cents" sign next to the dish, no one has done anything seriously wrong. The patron might say, "Oops, sorry, here's my nickel." Or the clerk might say, "No, have the mint on us, I just wanted to point it out for next time." Things go wrong if the patron says, "ARE YOU ACCUSING ME OF STEALING?!" and gets angry at his error being pointed out. I feel like that's what's going on here. (Edited to add: Except in this case, the mint-taker is offering the nickel and it's his friends getting angry.) There's a rule. It's broken now and then. There's no mistake in pointing it out and asking that it not be broken again.
Chicken...I've read a number of your posts, and I see you are a lover of a good hypothetical analogy haha ...A mint in a restaurant? I think you've out-done yourself with this one
I actually lolled at the mint analogy As for the opening paragraph. As it stands, not my thing, but I tend to read more than just the opening. I read the blurb and several pages from the beginning. Nowadays I tend to read reviews before buying, though, so the beginning doesn't matter that much.
I think the good guys deserve their moment in the spleen; since the OP posts 'what do you think of this crap, ha ha, ha ha ha ha it's by Bruce Springstown , you worms. You know nothing, exactly.' Certainly this deserves some kind of beating, cannibalistic savagery with machetes, pencil sharpener on the nose etcetera...in my oponion.
Ed suggests he'd rather we not get into it in this thread. A discussion in the debate room is more appropriate.
At the risk of everyone piling on Ginger and the thread contributing absolutely nothing positive, I started it anyway. Perhaps if we let people know why the way they say things (I'm not missing the irony that I have this same problem) creates discord, issues can be worked out, we can all get along better.
It turns out that even when you "unwatch" a thread, you still get notified if you get quoted. But since the quote was followed by an incorrect presumption of my intention, I will set Ginger straight - I am not suggesting anything other than that, for me, the discussion no longer holds any interest.
Since I am responsible for this thread I feel I should explain myself further. Firstly, I agree with most of the comments about this paragraph. It has too much jargon..it's meandering...dull etc. I don't like it. But I like a lot of Roth's writing. Thus, on name alone, I will continue to read the book. But if the author was Bob Smith, would I? I'm not sure. That's where confirmation bias sets in. We all fall victim to it. I think confirmation bias also sets in when we read something we think is not from a professional writer. Like many of you suggested in this thread, this paragraph needs this or needs that(some have said it has no hook). It's assumed to be a paragraph written by an amateur. Thus, it is in need of much editing or probably belongs in the bin altogether. But its by Roth, so now, instead of suggesting changes, we can just say "meh..I don't like it". I posted this same experiment on another forum and one person said to me "Sorry, but your writing is just bad. No one will publish this. Take a writing course...learn how to break down sentences." He went on further and then finished by saying "sorry to be so blunt". But once I told him it was Roth he backtracked. No, he didn't say he enjoyed it, but he said "well, it's not my type of writing." Another criticism you hear about people's work on forums such as these is that there was no "hook". But, when it comes to literary fiction narrative hooks are not always present. Some writers do use narrative hooks but many don't. If you're writing science fiction and you haven't hooked the reader early on or if you're writing a detective story and you fail to hook the reader then that is a problem. But if you're writing literary fiction that is character and theme driven, is not using a narrative hook even an issue? Is it a legitimate criticism?
@Bartleby9 In my opinion people don't like to talk down about successful people because they feel that they are not in a position to do so.
