Um, okaaaaay... firstly, fiction is a huge genre. Can your coworker narrow it down a little? Secondly, what's there to "get"? Just pick a book you think you'll like and enjoy yourself. It's not rocket science.
[I may have posted this before, but listening to the speeches at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos suggests it might be time to revisit it.] Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C. S. Lewis
Indeed. Thank goodness that western civilization is not, for the most part, ruled by the cultural descendants of Mary Whitehouse. (If you don't know who that is, please feel free to wikipedia her and be ready for her onslaught on "permissiveness" etc.)
"It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind." (Algernon, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde)
I like that. I first noticed that effect in the early works of Cat Stevens, who was not afraid to leave spaces in his songs. When there was no need to fill that space, he left it blank, and let the preceding notes resonate a bit.
Roger Waters talked a lot about that, too. The spaces between notes. And if you're ever playing Shine on you Crazy Diamond and have to rest three measures of 6/8 and then come in on the 4 beat, you'll get what he means in a hurry. The cues in that song are a bitch to keep track of. There's an orphaned 16th in the intro solo that always screws me up. And everything before the drums gets hard to count if you're not paying attention.
This is also true of singing. A lot of modern singers (not all of course) want to sing constantly, and not let the music be heard. If you go back a couple of decades to around the classic rock era (it applies to all forms of music with vocals though), the singers would sing a bit and then stop for a while to let the music come through.
Of course it's true of singing. I've been performing music (classical, baroque, jazz, renaissance etc.) for 20 years, mostly as a chorister. There are always breaks or pauses, which is a good time for the singer or instrumentalist to take a breather, settle down, and come back in. It's also to let someone else be heard. People who want to sing constantly are entitled so-and-sos. They're also deluded: if you sing constantly, it's impossible to sing well. Sooner or later, you'd sound like a fish gasping for breath. Take a breath, put some air in the tank, and then come storming in again.
Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of modern music I love. There are still musicians on the scene, but does anyone care what one synthesized instrument or another is doing behind the majority of pop singers? I say go ahead, drown that shit out if you can, lol.
Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in the blue glow of his computer some 20 years ago, chatting with a friend about his new website, TheFacebook: zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard zuckerberg: Just ask. zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS friend: What? How’d you manage that one? zuckerberg: People just submitted it. zuckerberg: I don’t know why. zuckerberg: They “trust me” zuckerberg: Dumb fucks. THE RISE OF TECHNO-AUTHORITARIANISM
Here's one from Brendan Behan (1923-64), the Irish playwright. Behan was asked what he thought of drama critics. "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem," he replied. "They're there every night, they see it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves."
Here's another one from Brendan. Just before he died, Behan looked up at the nursing nun who was taking his pulse. "Bless you, Sister," he said with a weak smile. "May all your sons be bishops!"
For some reason this one had me picturing a nun with a baby at the breast, with the final line confirming the image.
"People are eating their hearts out with fury and self-hate, just when they have all the money and all the leisure and all the opportunity, apparently, to really live. They find that the kind of life everyone dreams of is in fact impossible. They cannot face leisure. They cannot handle prosperity." Thomas Merton. A recollection triggered by the rantings of the American political maelstrom.
Futurama - Incomprehensible dead language Spoiler Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth: "And this is my universal translator. Unfortunately so far it only translates into an incomprehensible dead language." Boy: "Hello." Universal translator: "Bonjour!"
Here's one from Lewis Carroll (original name Charles L. Dodgson, 1832-98), British mathematician and author of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass". Queen Victoria was so delighted with Alice in Wonderland that she had a letter sent to the author, stating that Her Majesty would be graciously pleased to accept any other works by the same pen. She was somewhat disconcerted to receive in due course a copy of Dodgson's Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry.
Here's one from Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85), US military commander and 18th US President (1869-77). Someone remarked in Grant's hearing that Charles Sumner did not believe in the Bible. "Why should he?" inquired Grant. "He didn't write it."
I presume you've heard of Sumner? If not (from wikipedia): America during the Civil War, and for a long time after, was - generally speaking, of course - very religious. There were very few atheists. Being at church on Sundays was a way to show you belonged to your community. In short, not believing in the Bible was a Big Deal(TM). Clearly that "someone" wanted to impress or outrage President Grant, so Grant's reply let the wind out of that person's sails. That's all.
