tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post3108052076372323594..comments2024-03-12T12:38:23.542-04:00Comments on The Kind of Face You Hate: The Cronenberg Series Part 13: Under the Fountains and Under the Gravesbill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-42495006665977902972014-08-12T15:28:55.081-04:002014-08-12T15:28:55.081-04:00Hmm. Lest my statement be misconstrued as a dispar...Hmm. Lest my statement be misconstrued as a disparagement of Mr. McCarthy's literary gifts, let me clarify by saying that couldn't be further from the truth. Nope. Nuh-uh. No way, no how.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05364322006357208797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-34699420827852208362014-08-10T19:15:53.098-04:002014-08-10T19:15:53.098-04:00Probably it's just that reading too much Corma...Probably it's just that reading too much Cormac McCarthy has ruined me for that kind of thing.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05364322006357208797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-31966656124138081592014-08-10T18:39:06.685-04:002014-08-10T18:39:06.685-04:00Typically, the kind of twist being used in EXISTEN...Typically, the kind of twist being used in EXISTENZ doesn't appeal to me at all, and in fact I dislike THE GAME quite a bit, but the difference in this case, I think, is that by the end of EXISTENZ there is no obvious dividing line between real and unreal, and there is some genuine question about ANY of it being real. Where THE GAME comes apart is by showing us what is real and allowing us to notice how ridiculous this whole thing has been.<br /><br />I've read most of McGrath's books. "Underfelt" is fair enough, though I don't think it's a criticism. A psychologically clinical approach is part of the idea, and it distinguishes him from others writing similar fiction in a more overheated (not a complaint) style.bill r.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-6698365375834982062014-08-10T18:27:20.320-04:002014-08-10T18:27:20.320-04:00For me "eXistenZ" brings to mind a movie...For me "eXistenZ" brings to mind a movie like David Fincher's "The Game", which came out a few years earlier, more than it does Videodrome, though there are a few obvious similarities there, too, of course. In those movies what appears to be reality is time and again revealed to be just another facet of a ridiculously (supernaturally, even) elaborate & omnipresent game structure, apparently designed to guide its players to a certain outcome. In one case this succeeds, in the other we're simply left to wonder. Both were entertaining enough, but admittedly neither has left much of an impression with me.<br /><br />There is something, I think, a little too drily intellectual, a little bit overthought and underfelt, about McGrath's writing, at least what I've read of it, like the tone of an amateur scientist detailing some esoteric bit of experimentation, that may go some way to explaining why little of it has resonated with me. I can only figure that also explains why Spider left me fairly unmoved at the time.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05364322006357208797noreply@blogger.com