Why? Could you please explain?

Those are good questions!! Thanks!

Ehh I don’t think that’s fair to say. The way we think today is different than the way we thought 100 years ago - this is quantifiable in the case of things like attention span. So it’s reasonable to try and adapt the form of the novel to reflect what the author feels are new patterns of contemporary thought.

That said, I don’t think Ellmann necessarily achieved her goal. But you can point to authors like Gass or Morrison or even Faulkner and see how they use stream of consciousness in a way that’s unique and innovative vs the European modernists.

[deleted]

You know it's okay to not like a book? It's okay for others to not like a book you like, that doesn't make it good.

loved all those stories when i was a kid.

I mean, Ducks is actually very straightforward (imo that’s it’s problem) and readable if you meet it on its own terms on the structure. It’s sort of stream of consciousness in the sense that:

1. Our thoughts are cyclical. We build connections between ideas or memories by repeatedly revisiting those ideas or memories with context from new ideas, memories or experiences. So the book flows in a big circle of retreading old ground with new context.
2. The dominating feeling of contemporary America is anxiety. The news and the internet and the economy and the culture make us anxious. And our big anxieties (ie gun culture) interface with our small anxieties (ie how many pies can I sell today). The book is trying to assign form to that feeling.

You gotta commit to understanding how the prose supports these central ideas to get the benefit of the effect Ellmann is creating. Ultimately I think it’s a little too long but it’s very easy to read if you get that rhythm.

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04WJEEb33CY

True artists like Proust, Joyce and Woolf perfected stream-of-consciousness a century ago. This book is boring and unimaginative (which naturally reflects the mind of its writer).

A good palate cleanser for me was “The White Darkness” by David Grann. It’s a small book, more like a novella, you can read it in a day. It's a true story about the author’s passion to walk across Antarctica. Quite a story! Also beautiful photos to give you the sense of starkness and beauty of that part of the world.

I have read a few, I used to get them on my kindle paperwhite, but I also love having physical copies of books.

Well, I wouldn’t recommend James Joyce’s Ulysses or Finnegans Wake

I'm guessing you never really got into the rhythm/mantra state of the book. It's an incredible accomplishment the way it crafts that meditative sensation. I'm guessing you would not like the film Jeanne Dielman ahaha, I think they both kinda tackle the same thing and in a similar way

YA is a learning genre. The growth and competition in the YA space should be concerning to lit culture minded folk because this is on the back of adult readers not young readers. Adults should be reading better literature.

You know that it's okay if you don't like a book? That doesn't make it garbage. It's okay for other people to like a thing that you don't.

Lois Lowry did an AMA here in /r/books you might want to check it out :) . Here's a full list of our upcoming AMAs

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

I read the book twice and watched the movie. The movie was pretty but the book had a lot more depth/ complexity to it. The sense of a community's survival was such a big piece of the book.

Amphy is correct. Some vegans who have chickens (often chickens originally intended for commercial egg production) cook and feed the eggs back to their chickens. Hormonal prevention of egg laying hapoens in the form of a device implanted under the skin (like Suprelorin). This is an expensive ($90-$600 a pop), hard to source, and a temporary measure (effectiveness varies from hen to hen and can last from 2 weeks to two years) and is mostly used for hens who are ill and have a higher chance of dying or who have reproductive system issues. Neither the effects of pain involved in laying, nor the effects of hormone use, have been extensively studied. I would love to see more research about this. It is true that there are many species of chickens. In my area, leghorns are used most for egg production because they can begin laying after only a few months and lay up to 300 eggs a year. I'm glad I don't have to lay 300 eggs a year 😅

I used to love his children’s stories!

I loved that trilogy! Lisbeth Salander was my favorite character.

I did try to get into the sequel “The Girl In The Spider’s Web” by David Lagercrantz but in my opinion it wasn’t that good. Something was missing.

Problem is there's too much of that today, people taking over franchises that have no respect for it.

I like it that way. But I wouldn’t call it necessarily episodic… I feel as if the author had a lot of creative ideas that might have no flowed correctly if he just made super long chapters. This way he was able to give us his true story in it fullest without leaving out parts, like chapters that lasted only 4 pages.

I hated it so much I rage finished it and made my husband read it just so I could have someone to rant to about it. The bare bones of the story are great and the language is great but it reads like a giant soup of quotes. You can pick out great one liners and descriptive paragraphs but it feels to me like it needed pruning. People accuse you of not understanding it for not liking it though.

I thought it was a cheesey Deus ex machina

Well, now I'm glad that I AM not the only one who doesn't love it.