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jasminenoack's review
5.0
over thanksgiving break I did almost nothing. well that isn't exactly true I learned 2 way strumming on the guitar in rock band, I learned to play pro keys in rock band, and I played a song on the expert drums in rock band. Basically, I played rock band for 3 days. Then I read this booklet.
It's great, I mean it's really great.
Saunders wrote the introduction which is a beautiful piece about how what truly makes a great author is a great person. And yeah we spend a lot of time talking about the use of nouns and verbs and stuff, but that isn't it, what you really respect when you read a book is the person behind the book. This is also the thing that makes some books so disappointing, when you know an author and you have come o expect a level of beauty and personal responsibility from that author it is seriously upsetting not to get it. This has nothing to do with etgar keret himself, but it has to do with how we actually approach fiction which is more important. When we read we establish a relationship with an author. This is important both for us as a reader to understand and for the author as a writer to understand. There is a lot of talk around about the death of the author, but all you really get out of that is blandness, the author is what makes the book worth reading, worth experiencing. The reason people love milan kundera is because just the idea of being in his presence is overwhelming.
On that note. The lecture by mr. keret follows from this. It's about how his writing is informed by who he is as a person and his childhood. If you haven't read him this is a little bit hard to understand so lets take some examples from other authors. Lord byron found a skull accidentally while digging in a grave yard and had it turned into a mug. He wrote a poem about how having wine where your brain use to be was better than having worms. The guy who wrote legend of a suicide (vann, I believe) was trying to cope with he death of his father, my friend Mike can't write a female character to save his life and he can't talk about women like they are real people. Our writing is a reflection of ourselves, the great authors know that, the authors that try to hide that lose something. This is not to say that everyone likes each reflection of self, I believe that same lipstye writes a reflection of himself and I find it fundamentally boring, and the fact is I probably wouldn't like him as a person either. But there are books like less than zero where it feels like the author is trying to defend his perception of self against outer criticism and it hurts the book, it makes it less fun. Writing is about telling truths that you don't actually want people to know, and revealing in those truth. Etgar Keret knows that, and that is why his stories are as good as they are.
It's great, I mean it's really great.
Saunders wrote the introduction which is a beautiful piece about how what truly makes a great author is a great person. And yeah we spend a lot of time talking about the use of nouns and verbs and stuff, but that isn't it, what you really respect when you read a book is the person behind the book. This is also the thing that makes some books so disappointing, when you know an author and you have come o expect a level of beauty and personal responsibility from that author it is seriously upsetting not to get it. This has nothing to do with etgar keret himself, but it has to do with how we actually approach fiction which is more important. When we read we establish a relationship with an author. This is important both for us as a reader to understand and for the author as a writer to understand. There is a lot of talk around about the death of the author, but all you really get out of that is blandness, the author is what makes the book worth reading, worth experiencing. The reason people love milan kundera is because just the idea of being in his presence is overwhelming.
On that note. The lecture by mr. keret follows from this. It's about how his writing is informed by who he is as a person and his childhood. If you haven't read him this is a little bit hard to understand so lets take some examples from other authors. Lord byron found a skull accidentally while digging in a grave yard and had it turned into a mug. He wrote a poem about how having wine where your brain use to be was better than having worms. The guy who wrote legend of a suicide (vann, I believe) was trying to cope with he death of his father, my friend Mike can't write a female character to save his life and he can't talk about women like they are real people. Our writing is a reflection of ourselves, the great authors know that, the authors that try to hide that lose something. This is not to say that everyone likes each reflection of self, I believe that same lipstye writes a reflection of himself and I find it fundamentally boring, and the fact is I probably wouldn't like him as a person either. But there are books like less than zero where it feels like the author is trying to defend his perception of self against outer criticism and it hurts the book, it makes it less fun. Writing is about telling truths that you don't actually want people to know, and revealing in those truth. Etgar Keret knows that, and that is why his stories are as good as they are.
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