[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 10 KB, 179x281, the-rehearsal.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4942880 No.4942880[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Anyone read this?

Eleanor Catton wrote it when she was 22 and won a bunch of awards for it.

Seems interesting from what I've read

>> No.4942883

No I haven't personally, though thanks for making this thread because I am interested in learning more about it, then again I am the OP

>> No.4942885

Is it post-apocalyptic? Because otherwise I won't read it.

>> No.4942887

>>4942880
I read it. It's all right. Luminaries is better.
She did win a bunch of awards for them, but just a bunch of rewards no one generally cares about.
The book itself reads very writerly. Like you can tell this is her first book, and she wants to make your very conscious of the ideas she wants to transmit to the reader.

>> No.4942894

>>4942885
No, but it is post-modern (in the academic sense, not the buzzword sense)

>> No.4942896

>>4942880
I started it but it was too try hard edge, too young.

She's a type of 'I want to be a career writer', head girl nerd approach, researching and studiously writing all day.

There's something too try hard and 'if I study hard enough, I'll get there' about her.

>> No.4942899

>>4942887
What kind of ideas are those?

I read the excerpt available on amazon, as well as her reviews/interviews about it and it seems pretty pointy-headed for someone that young. Reminded me of DFW to be honest, the way she seems to enjoy best having two characters sit down and talk about low-brow stuff using high-brow vocabularies

>> No.4942903

>>4942896
Do you think that type of book has no merit?

I feel DFW's first novel is desperate for praise in the same sense you seem to be describing, yet I thought that book was amazing, debut or not

>> No.4942913
File: 150 KB, 1086x726, Selena-Gomez-Come-and-Get-it-Filming-Pics-12.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4942913

>>4942903
I'm not a good judge of it since I didn't read it, but the flashiness and lack of experience jarred as far as I got.

Still, she's not chick lit, so she's pretty good, y'know, for a woman.

>> No.4942916

>>4942913
Yeah, nah, I'm just gonna go ahead and discount your opinion

>> No.4942921

Here's the synopsis:

A high-school sex scandal jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own potency and power. The sudden and total publicity seems to turn every act into a performance and every platform into a stage. But when the local drama school decides to turn the scandal into a show, the real world and the world of the theatre are forced to meet, and soon the boundaries between private and public begin to dissolve. "The Rehearsal" is an exhilarating and provocative novel about the unsimple mess of human desire, at once a tender evocation of its young protagonists and a shrewd expose of emotional compromise.

>> No.4942924
File: 58 KB, 600x444, 82660_600.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4942924

>>4942916
I'm a girl btw

>> No.4942928

>>4942924
Uh, yeah, I am actually. Got a problem with that?

>> No.4942940

>>4942928
No, but you can't pretend this isn't a place for guys, and going undercover is a little cute in the pejorative sense.

Like most women writers, no one here will be into one you mention out of the blue, certainly not her.

>> No.4942945

>>4942940
Maybe if you weren't such a troglodyte you'd realize Catton is one of the greatest authors of the 21st century

>> No.4942952

>>4942899
Catton is very intelligent, sure. I think she's just a better writer in The Luminaries.
As for her ideas, in my opinion she is mostly concerned with:
- exploring the idea of how much of our life is a "performance"
- coming of age (both for a boy and a girl) through the idea of "performance" and music playing
- the role of teachers in shaping individuals

The Rehearsal is entirely centred around the idea of the theatre of real life, I'd say.

>> No.4942954

>>4942945
Sorry to burst your bubble but she aint got it.

>> No.4942955

>>4942952
But is this idea expressed in a clear and interesting way, or is it padding with a few "profound" tell-don't-show quotes stuffed in?

>> No.4942961

>>4942954
And by "it" you mean a penis of course, subconsciously or otherwise

God why are men so pathetic? It makes me laugh, it really does.

>> No.4942964
File: 288 KB, 912x1333, 10868848644_f71d47c591_k.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4942964

>>4942940
>No, but you can't pretend this isn't a place for guys, and going undercover is a little cute in the pejorative sense.
The fuck?

>> No.4942967

it's got a cute girl on the cover so it makes me want to read it or skim it for dirty bits and then I just feel ashamed unless it happens to also be a good book

>> No.4942970

>>4942955
The ideas are definitely clear and present in the most transparent sense, whether it's interesting depends to the reader I suppose - personally, I thought it had its interesting moments but a few times it did feel a bit too much. Thankfully, there aren't much "quotables" in the novel, in the good sense. It's pretty well-rounded and it feels complete, there aren't many of those "quote" moments or cheesy lines

>> No.4942976

>>4942970
And how did you feel about the present tense?

>> No.4942980

>>4942967
I meant to include the part where I'd hopefully masturbate to it, otherwise what was the point of my post, right?

>> No.4942985

>>4942964
yeah, what?

>> No.4942986

>>4942976
The present tense didn't bother me. A lot of modern novels tend to do that, so I'm used to it

>> No.4942989

>>4942961
>God why are men so pathetic?

>generalising the whole sex on the basis of a few probably facetious teens on an image board infamous for its dysfunctional user base

yeah you're no better than him

>> No.4943000

>>4942961
Ok I'll articulate why I say that. Her prose style isn't efficient or smooth enough. There's superfluity, and use of big words unnecessarily.

I wanted to like the Rehearsal but her prose was repellant. Same with Luminaries.

Jane Austen's way better, Dorothy Parker too.. hell, Janet Frame is better.

MAYBE Catton will improve, there's time right. Dostoyevsky wrote his best stuff around 60.

>> No.4943015

>>4942964
>>4942985
I didn't mean cute as in attractive, I meant affectedly clever. Now that I write that, the word doesn't have the silly righteousness in 'it doesn't matter I'm a girl here' slant I was trying to convey. I'm sure your confusion is all cleared up for you now.

>> No.4944143

Objectively, I'm sure she's fine, but I hate her prose.