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>"This may be a particular peeve of mine and no one else’s, but I note it, because it’s my book: Name-dropping, for no better reason than to show off, under-app
by ddxxdd 7y ago
>"This may be a particular peeve of mine and no one else’s, but I note it, because it’s my book: Name-dropping, for no better reason than to show off, under-appreciated novels, obscure foreign films, or cherished indie bands by having one’s characters irrelevantly reading or watching or listening to them is massively sore-thumbish. A novel is not a blog post about Your Favorite Things.[5] If you must do this sort of thing—and, seriously, must you?—contextualize heavily."
Laughs in Ready Player One: https://i.imgur.com/oJXgNRQ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/oJXgNRQ.jpg
- crooked-v 7y agoEven worse is the dissonance that comes when you consider that the author is treating this like a celebration of pop-culture that he loves, while in-universe this is the result of incredibly poor and culturally oppressed people desperately memorizing a dead guy's favorite stuff to try and get all the wealth he stumbled into and then hoarded until his death.
- tnecniv 7y agoI think this goes either way. In referencing these things, you alienate an audience that hasn't seen them, but I can think of a lot of artists with small but dedicated followings that do this. If a demographic identifies with your taste in e.g. movies, they will keep reading because they feel like they identify more with you by proxy.
- projektfu 7y agoReading Humboldt's Gift, by Saul Bellow, I could have made a gigantic list of things I had never read or often even heard of, and still left out about half the references I didn't see because I didn't know they were references.
- AgentME 7y agoThe book is basically an elaborate setup for "nostalgia and trivia save the world", so I'm pretty sure this is an example of an author deliberately flaunting a rule and trying to make it work rather than stumbling into it accidentally. As someone that loves nerding out about various media, I liked reading a book for once about characters that did too. (I'd like to see that more, but hopefully as less of a center-stage beating-the-reader-over-the-head-with-it sort of way in the future.)
- stordoff 7y agoI think this can go both ways. If it's a constant stream of references, it can be obnoxious and feel like showing off. On the other hand, an occasional reference can give life to character without going out of your way to do it.