CRITICAL PERSPICACITY: SIX THINGS
Many thanks to Barbara of Scandinavian Crime Fiction [2008's Best New Blog and a wonderful resource] for giving me an award for 'Critical Perspicacity'. The idea coming from a meme via the prolific Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise.
Perspicacious is defined as 'having a ready insight into and understanding of things.'
Therefore 'Critical Perspicacity' means not wasting time watching a modern day Haman give an alternative Christmas message on Channel Four. If we really want to learn about the views of a strange society, with an alternative world view from a completely different perspective the Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special is still on the BBC iPlayer. Website here.
What six things do I want in my crime fiction reading:
A decent plot and some interesting sub-plots
Entertainment with a bit of humour alongside the horror
Memorable characters that I want to follow through a series of books
To be educated and learn something
To be made to think about society and the world
Photographs of attractive female authors
What I particularly dislike in the world of crime fiction are:
Books with very long sentences [193 is the record so far]
Authors using words that shout pretentious, 'prolix' for example
Poor research for example a 300 gram handgun does not weigh 3 kilograms
Blurbs that bear no relation to the plot of the book
Reviewers who skim books and have no idea what happened in the story
Violence against women and children described in detail
I am only giving one Award and it goes to the entire Crime Fiction Blogging Community who have made this such a very pleasurable year.
posted by Uriah Robinson at 1:53 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks for playing, Norm - I agree with all except perhaps your last positive. Photographs of attractive male authors are superior, but that just confirms reader response theory - it depends on what you bring to the text. (Or the book jacket, which is a heretofore unexplored avenue for a whole slew of reader response theory research. Which fortunately will never be carried out.)
Interesting about the subplots - I like them too, but there are some books - more thriller than mystery - that stick with a single conflict and milk it for everything it's worth. Books in series tend to involve more subplot and to be less obsessively focused.
good response Norm. Part of the joy of blogging is the contact with other bloggers, and learning form them.
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