Post by rorschalk on Apr 9, 2024 18:54:51 GMT
Dear Mr. VC,
The Terminal sent this up for final yay or nay on its dispensation. I don't know if you were aware, I seem to have forgotten to let you know but now you do, so that's that. Here's my exegesis.
Self Storage has some pretty fly lines about offbeat concepts, like what is the deal with Carhartts? This is truly a mystery. But then there's "like wash through a slot canyon" which makes me think of a multitude of laundry being driven by the wind, which I don't think was your intention...was it? "Fans full of fury" also didn't sit quite right. Invariably it made me think of Charlie and Grandpa Joe about to get sucked into the fan in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory after clandestinely drinking too many fizzy lifting drinks. Also instances of overwriting that could have been much cleaner ie "whispered [delete: a commentary] in her neighbor's ear once in a while."
Loved this image, spot on and unique way of putting this common occurrence, but still made clunky by too many options of what the subject was/could be. "knocked a pan [delete: tin or sheeting] over and it rang forever in concentric circles until it found its way flat."
And while I'm on the topic of over writing, there's this: She stood there staring at me with arms crossed [delete: in expectation].since the image of arms crossed already shows us her feeling of "expectation."
Love the line "Palmist's morbid draw" !!!!!! Also "42" s homage to Douglass Adams.
Cutting to the chase, too many cons to publish, even though some of the pros truly sing. And to tell you the truth I could have overlooked the cons, worked with you to edit them out, if it wasn't for a deeper fault within the mainframe, a flaw that's in the marrow of its bones, so to speak.
One word: Sophistry.
I guess I'm in Trent's camp. The work smacks of pompous, self importance. Our narrator Chuck early on says something about Meagan "setting up a metaphor" ? Do people really talk like this? Not in my circles. It's very Ivory Tower Theoretical. And the funny thing is I think you know I know that you know it's a fuck off, a larp, a merry dance we're being led. There are illusions to poker which are a tell (if I can steal your nomenclature) of how this whole piece of capital is a bluff. I mean, Phrenology of Hand and Eye? Just typing it in is making me laugh. In a way, this is a fantastic accomplishment of writing. It's Andy Kaufman-esque in its way. But keeping with the concept of tells, twisting it into another perspective in regards to your capital that strikes me as why it's not making the grade...it's telling a metaphor instead of showing it. Like the line "A mystery is a thing that can only be felt, never explained." ... C'mon man. What does that mean? It sounds really cool, but when you break it down...I think Agatha Christie and Detective Columbo would beg to differ.
It's so much style without enough substance. The allusions fly fast and furious but there's nothing for them to congeal around, nothing they are building toward. Like a joke without a punchline, a song without a coda, a dog without a bone. Sorry. I am getting carried away. There is something definitely compelling about this work, there's so much there there still waiting to be mined and vomited forth and sussed out, otherwise I wouldn't be practically writing you a novel about why I'm rejecting it as a capital gain. There is so much in here that you just gloss over that it's a crying shame, but it's still there for you to go back over. This could be a novel if you chased it all down and sweated it out of your pores instead of just making shallow jokes about it.In fact, Self Storage is a palimpsest in the making over which a heftier, dense and fulfilling piece of writing will, I hope, someday be borne.
Take my notes, please!
Like I sort of said before, you seem to be telling, reciting a metaphor instead of painting in fine, broad strokes for the world to see.
In its current form it reminded me of the film Zardoz: ie building a mystery too clever and shallow for anybody's good, least of all its own.
My least favorite part of Self Storage is Meagan's interminable telling of her story. It was the least compelling thing and what told me it wasn't really sincere was the fact the whole new science that she'd concocted was titled two different things early on and later in the telling ie The Phrenology of Hand and Eye as opposed to The Phrenology of Mind and Eye. If this discrepancy was able to get by you in the editing process, the new science the whole tale is based on, then its proper exigesis as told by Meagan couldn't have really been all that important.
Then Chuck's revelation about his sister and brother's presence in his room: "when the strangest feeling of solipsism came over me..." I'd definitely have defined solipsism in the sentence instead of just plop that word for what he was feeling in there as if it reads natural, which it doesn't. Tell you the truth, I had to look it up. So like I suggested something along the lines of what you already have further down in the paragraph about feeling alone in the world, wondering if others are just empty-headed automatons. The term should come later when Chuck discovered there was a word for what he'd been feeling. It just reads better, people won't stop at the first sentence wondering what the hell is "solipsism"? You'll have already sussed it out and spelled it out so they'll already know when you drop it on them.
And finally the line about his not knowing as being one of the great burdens of his life, as well as being a pretty good definition of neurosis, isn't all that endearing because it's a fairly universal complaint that We've all got problems of our own. Like I said, it speaks more to Chuck's neurotic tendencies than something that's going to resonate with readers.
I think this is too brilliant. It's a self aware exegesis that's also an eisigesis and a palimpsest about two solopsists who may or may not be about to solve their lonely mysteries together. It's sofa king good, but sophistry kills it. Make it a blueprint for something much deeper, because it's already quite broad. There's a river here if you really get in there and dredge up the bones.
The Terminal sent this up for final yay or nay on its dispensation. I don't know if you were aware, I seem to have forgotten to let you know but now you do, so that's that. Here's my exegesis.
Self Storage has some pretty fly lines about offbeat concepts, like what is the deal with Carhartts? This is truly a mystery. But then there's "like wash through a slot canyon" which makes me think of a multitude of laundry being driven by the wind, which I don't think was your intention...was it? "Fans full of fury" also didn't sit quite right. Invariably it made me think of Charlie and Grandpa Joe about to get sucked into the fan in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory after clandestinely drinking too many fizzy lifting drinks. Also instances of overwriting that could have been much cleaner ie "whispered [delete: a commentary] in her neighbor's ear once in a while."
Loved this image, spot on and unique way of putting this common occurrence, but still made clunky by too many options of what the subject was/could be. "knocked a pan [delete: tin or sheeting] over and it rang forever in concentric circles until it found its way flat."
And while I'm on the topic of over writing, there's this: She stood there staring at me with arms crossed [delete: in expectation].since the image of arms crossed already shows us her feeling of "expectation."
Love the line "Palmist's morbid draw" !!!!!! Also "42" s homage to Douglass Adams.
Cutting to the chase, too many cons to publish, even though some of the pros truly sing. And to tell you the truth I could have overlooked the cons, worked with you to edit them out, if it wasn't for a deeper fault within the mainframe, a flaw that's in the marrow of its bones, so to speak.
One word: Sophistry.
I guess I'm in Trent's camp. The work smacks of pompous, self importance. Our narrator Chuck early on says something about Meagan "setting up a metaphor" ? Do people really talk like this? Not in my circles. It's very Ivory Tower Theoretical. And the funny thing is I think you know I know that you know it's a fuck off, a larp, a merry dance we're being led. There are illusions to poker which are a tell (if I can steal your nomenclature) of how this whole piece of capital is a bluff. I mean, Phrenology of Hand and Eye? Just typing it in is making me laugh. In a way, this is a fantastic accomplishment of writing. It's Andy Kaufman-esque in its way. But keeping with the concept of tells, twisting it into another perspective in regards to your capital that strikes me as why it's not making the grade...it's telling a metaphor instead of showing it. Like the line "A mystery is a thing that can only be felt, never explained." ... C'mon man. What does that mean? It sounds really cool, but when you break it down...I think Agatha Christie and Detective Columbo would beg to differ.
It's so much style without enough substance. The allusions fly fast and furious but there's nothing for them to congeal around, nothing they are building toward. Like a joke without a punchline, a song without a coda, a dog without a bone. Sorry. I am getting carried away. There is something definitely compelling about this work, there's so much there there still waiting to be mined and vomited forth and sussed out, otherwise I wouldn't be practically writing you a novel about why I'm rejecting it as a capital gain. There is so much in here that you just gloss over that it's a crying shame, but it's still there for you to go back over. This could be a novel if you chased it all down and sweated it out of your pores instead of just making shallow jokes about it.In fact, Self Storage is a palimpsest in the making over which a heftier, dense and fulfilling piece of writing will, I hope, someday be borne.
Take my notes, please!
Like I sort of said before, you seem to be telling, reciting a metaphor instead of painting in fine, broad strokes for the world to see.
In its current form it reminded me of the film Zardoz: ie building a mystery too clever and shallow for anybody's good, least of all its own.
My least favorite part of Self Storage is Meagan's interminable telling of her story. It was the least compelling thing and what told me it wasn't really sincere was the fact the whole new science that she'd concocted was titled two different things early on and later in the telling ie The Phrenology of Hand and Eye as opposed to The Phrenology of Mind and Eye. If this discrepancy was able to get by you in the editing process, the new science the whole tale is based on, then its proper exigesis as told by Meagan couldn't have really been all that important.
Then Chuck's revelation about his sister and brother's presence in his room: "when the strangest feeling of solipsism came over me..." I'd definitely have defined solipsism in the sentence instead of just plop that word for what he was feeling in there as if it reads natural, which it doesn't. Tell you the truth, I had to look it up. So like I suggested something along the lines of what you already have further down in the paragraph about feeling alone in the world, wondering if others are just empty-headed automatons. The term should come later when Chuck discovered there was a word for what he'd been feeling. It just reads better, people won't stop at the first sentence wondering what the hell is "solipsism"? You'll have already sussed it out and spelled it out so they'll already know when you drop it on them.
And finally the line about his not knowing as being one of the great burdens of his life, as well as being a pretty good definition of neurosis, isn't all that endearing because it's a fairly universal complaint that We've all got problems of our own. Like I said, it speaks more to Chuck's neurotic tendencies than something that's going to resonate with readers.
I think this is too brilliant. It's a self aware exegesis that's also an eisigesis and a palimpsest about two solopsists who may or may not be about to solve their lonely mysteries together. It's sofa king good, but sophistry kills it. Make it a blueprint for something much deeper, because it's already quite broad. There's a river here if you really get in there and dredge up the bones.