Quote Porn
Return of the King
"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep...that have taken hold."
"It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing."
Diary
"What you don't understand, you can make mean anything."
"Peter used to say, 'The only thing an artist can do is describe his own face.' You're doomed to being you. This, he says, leaves us free to draw anything, since we're only drawing ourselves. Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It's all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a dairy."
"Leonardo's Mona Lisa is just a thousand thousand smears of paint. Michelangelo's David is just a million hits with a hammer. We're all of us a million bits put together the right way."
A Few Thoughts
So I won't compare nonfiction, but I'll do new postmodernish pop pseudo-horror vs classic fantasy. Alrighty then!
The characters from RotK get mad style points for inventing and/or popularizing several tropes prevalent in popular culture today. There's the kid from the sleepy town out to save the world, his completely unrealistic and dearest friend, a noble elf, a rugged dwarf, a couple of broads and one broad's knight in shining armor and a slew of badass magical beards in there somewhere, too. Oh, and the powerful all-watching eye of Evil Santa. I jest, but these characters are tired because Tolkien started them, and in some cases, did them best.
Tolkien's writing style is as big a double-edged sword as any blade he writes about. He's not long story short, he's short story long. This is wonderful when he's bringing an epic landscape or frantic melee to life, but grates a little when he's explaining the genaology of six generations of dwarves. What's worse, after the climax and in what should be a neat resolution, a new conflict is introduced and solved on far less epic terms that make the last couple hundred pages crawl.
Diary pulls out a couple of Palahniuk's standards: namely, gut-punch relatable quotes and a gradual, plot-twisty descent from reality into a strange and unmistakably postmodern ending. The characters are almost caricatures, but remain grounded in reality—but then, there are real human beings I'd describe that way, too. I feel as though many/most who enjoy Palahniuk can really feel the pain of being a wannabe artist of some sort, but being browbeaten into menial work like waitressing (or *ahem* selling car parts).
There are a couple tropes that I've seen in some of my favorite books that Diary succeeds with as well; the once-peaceful, but now overrun tourist island sounds like The Prince of Tides (and sometimes iceberg season in dear ol' Newfoundland), and Misty's art definitely shares some traits with Infinite Jest's Samizdat.
An unsurprising thing worth noting: it's written like a diary. Been done before and will be done again, but well executed. The book also succeeds in ending almost exactly where my attention span for its contents started to wane.
The characters from RotK get mad style points for inventing and/or popularizing several tropes prevalent in popular culture today. There's the kid from the sleepy town out to save the world, his completely unrealistic and dearest friend, a noble elf, a rugged dwarf, a couple of broads and one broad's knight in shining armor and a slew of badass magical beards in there somewhere, too. Oh, and the powerful all-watching eye of Evil Santa. I jest, but these characters are tired because Tolkien started them, and in some cases, did them best.
Tolkien's writing style is as big a double-edged sword as any blade he writes about. He's not long story short, he's short story long. This is wonderful when he's bringing an epic landscape or frantic melee to life, but grates a little when he's explaining the genaology of six generations of dwarves. What's worse, after the climax and in what should be a neat resolution, a new conflict is introduced and solved on far less epic terms that make the last couple hundred pages crawl.
Diary pulls out a couple of Palahniuk's standards: namely, gut-punch relatable quotes and a gradual, plot-twisty descent from reality into a strange and unmistakably postmodern ending. The characters are almost caricatures, but remain grounded in reality—but then, there are real human beings I'd describe that way, too. I feel as though many/most who enjoy Palahniuk can really feel the pain of being a wannabe artist of some sort, but being browbeaten into menial work like waitressing (or *ahem* selling car parts).
There are a couple tropes that I've seen in some of my favorite books that Diary succeeds with as well; the once-peaceful, but now overrun tourist island sounds like The Prince of Tides (and sometimes iceberg season in dear ol' Newfoundland), and Misty's art definitely shares some traits with Infinite Jest's Samizdat.
An unsurprising thing worth noting: it's written like a diary. Been done before and will be done again, but well executed. The book also succeeds in ending almost exactly where my attention span for its contents started to wane.
Head-to-Head
Characters: I think the better written characters are in Diary. It's easier given the smaller scope and the modern setting, but the character depth (especially of Misty & Peter) shines. But, I say that as a waste of potential and/or wannabe artist instead of a heroic self-starting go-getter or the most faithful friend ever. Your mileage may vary.
Advantage: Diary.
Plot: If there was a plot-per-capita category, Diary would have a puncher's chance, but seeing as I'm going for the overall effect, RotK's boring passages are redeemed by the parts where stuff actually, ya know, happens.
Advantage: Return of the King.
Ending: While Diary wraps up in a neat little package (especially for Palahniuk), RotK has a much grander scale. It takes a while to find said ending, but it's a pretty sweet feeling when it does.
Advantage: Return of the King, if just for the feeling of accomplishment for conquering those tomes and all their songs and old gods.
Language/Writing: They're too different to gauge, and both have their pitfalls that I'd fix if I had the wherewithal (or talent). Diary's occasionally insightful but can be contrived; RotK's straight up epic but there are times when brevity is sorely lacking.
Advantage: Push.
Philosophy: Neither of the books really made me think. We can all agree that RotK's more about the story than what you take from it... and, while Diary definitely had a few weighty ideas about creativity and art, they didn't stick with me anymore than as a few food-for-thought Kindle clippings.
Advantage: Diary, but only by one of poor Misty Marie Wilmot's hairs.
Plot: If there was a plot-per-capita category, Diary would have a puncher's chance, but seeing as I'm going for the overall effect, RotK's boring passages are redeemed by the parts where stuff actually, ya know, happens.
Advantage: Return of the King.
Ending: While Diary wraps up in a neat little package (especially for Palahniuk), RotK has a much grander scale. It takes a while to find said ending, but it's a pretty sweet feeling when it does.
Advantage: Return of the King, if just for the feeling of accomplishment for conquering those tomes and all their songs and old gods.
Language/Writing: They're too different to gauge, and both have their pitfalls that I'd fix if I had the wherewithal (or talent). Diary's occasionally insightful but can be contrived; RotK's straight up epic but there are times when brevity is sorely lacking.
Advantage: Push.
Philosophy: Neither of the books really made me think. We can all agree that RotK's more about the story than what you take from it... and, while Diary definitely had a few weighty ideas about creativity and art, they didn't stick with me anymore than as a few food-for-thought Kindle clippings.
Advantage: Diary, but only by one of poor Misty Marie Wilmot's hairs.
Winner Winner Turkey Supper
If Diary was my first Palahniuk book, perhaps Id've been wowed and thought him a zeitgeist. I love his writing, but Diary didn't pop for me like some of his other books did, and it doesn't have enough clout to take down one of the greatest stories ever told.
Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King moves on to round two.
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