Strange writing

[chococomilk.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of LKH's books past Harlequin, as they were so trippy and orgy-tastic by that point that I felt ashamed to be seen reading them even by my family, but curiosity got the better of me and I went to read an excerpt on Amazon of the latest book, "Bullet", to see what it was like. Immediately, this two-sentence gem leapt out at me:

"Monica's son was under five, so he didn't count as male yet. He was just a generic child."

I was under the impression that if he's Monica's son, that means he is a male. You can't be called somebody's son unless you have male genitalia. Since when has biological sex been determined by age? And what is a "generic child"? Does she mean that to Anita, Monica's son is unremarkable from other five year old boys? Is that because Anita isn't a mother, and is blind to the powerful individualism mothers ascribe to their offspring from other people's? Is it because he has very ordinary features - brown hair and brown eyes, the most common of phenotypes?

"I heard my name squealed out, in that high-pitched generic toddler voice."

What is a generic toddler voice? Squeaky? Of course it is - a boy's voice doesn't break until puberty. I think I can see what she means, and from Anita's perspective that all children seem alike is probably understandable since she doesn't have any and doesn't know anyone who has any, but it is a remarkably clumsy bit of writing. There's a lot of commentary on the sheer avalanche of sex scenes in LKH's novels, and on excessive word repetition (e.g. spilled) but has anyone else been turned off by the lack of writing quality?

Comments

[lerouxpapillion.livejournal.com]

She's probably writing that he's not male yet to explain why Anita doesn't want to bone him. After all, it seems that everyone else who is male must submit to the doomcrotch.

See also Edward's 'son' (name escapes me at the moment) and the whole sexualization there.

ETA: I may be a little cranky/jaded here. Plz to be forgiving.

[chococomilk.livejournal.com]

Why does Anita feel the need to comment on that she doesn't find a three year old boy "man enough"?

There's plenty of ways that could have been written to show, rather than tell, Anita's real inner thoughts. She could have used the scene of seeing Monica's son to comment on how she was glad she didn't have children, how she wanted to have children someday, on how she felt unsuited to be a mother and couldn't understand how other women knew what to do...any of those things. But she didn't. Instead, there's this odd comment on not finding a toddler to be "male", as if the idea of acknowledging that the toddler in question was male-gendered was dangerous somehow.

It creeps me out thinking about it.

Do we know Anita's opinions on child-rearing? She never seemed to go into it beyond the pregnancy scare, and then she was focused on berating Richard for wanting to do the right thing for his possible-offspring.

[roguetailkinker.livejournal.com]

Maybe a bit jaded. I think it's just her awkward way of describing how children of that age tend to be somewhat androgynous. She needs a good editor to point out stuff like that.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

"Monica's son was under five, so he didn't count as male yet. He was just a generic child."

Translation: If Anita can't have sex with it yet, it doesn't count.

[lerouxpapillion.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one thinking this.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

We posted essentially the same thing at the same time. Check out the time-stamps.

[kisstheground.livejournal.com]

was thinking the exact same thing, heh.

[calenture.livejournal.com]

...Wait, does that mean Anita would have sex with a five-year-old boy?

[estllechauvelin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, add me to the list of people who interpreted it as meaning that Anita doesn't really consider a person male until he's fuckable. Although I'm going to hope that the reference to his being "under five" doesn't mean that she'd have sex with a five year old, but just that she isn't sure of his exact age but it's definitely under five.

[knowthyself.livejournal.com]

That is exactly the first thing I thought as well.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

The descriptor 'generic' and any kind of human do not belong in the same sentence if your a professional writer. I mean, it's kind of her job to make the characters and the world *not* be generic, yes? It's especially cold when talking about a child. Just read that again and see...

"He was just a generic child."

That's wtf crazy. And please tell me that boy is not squealing in delight because Anita showed up. Do even the Not Chronologically Male children become instantly enchanted with Anita? Ugh.

[chococomilk.livejournal.com]

Yes, he does come running up to her and even glomps her - although it's more describing as a frontal running hug, and Anita picks him up so as not to appear "churlish." She comments on how the boy feels (at three...) that he's too grown up for cheek kisses and kisses her on the mouth instead, getting himself covered in her lipstick in the process. Now, I have younger cousins and younger sisters, and toddlers do kiss on the lips but it's an innocent thing. They don't make quasi-sexual comments about wanting to be like "the big boys who kiss you" and you certainly don't think of it that way.

I can't recall her interacting with children before - now they find her enchanting? I think a three year old would find a scarred woman with a serious expression and a big gun on her hip (which she says she brought as a little girl saw it before she sees Monica's son) quite terrifying!

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I don't know how close together the sentences are, either, but using "generic" TWICE to describe said kid is A BUCKETFUL OF FAIL.

[bleedtoblue.livejournal.com]

"but has anyone else been turned off by the lack of writing quality?"

Hasn't everyone?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

To me, it's ten kinds of creepy and wrong that Matthew is described as "generic child/didn't count as male yet" while little girls are "estrogen rich."

Boys aren't really boys when they're under five, but girls will always be girls so keep your unrelated adult males away from them!

EUGH.

[chococomilk.livejournal.com]

It also seems unfortunate coming from Anita, who as a woman (though who knows, really? Beyond loud proclamations?) also has a lot of estrogen. In fact, if she were alone in the room, it would still be "estrogen rich."

On the pragmatic side, until they hit puberty girls have a minimal amount of estrogen in their systems. It doesn't make sense in that respect for boys to "not count as male" but for girls to count as "female" if the deciding gender factor is age. Little girls are just as "generic" at that age.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Ew, wait, for real? She says that? That's....wtf ugh D:

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this post. I had been wondering if I should pick up Bullet to see if there has been an improvement in LKH's writing, and now I won't have to.

[chococomilk.livejournal.com]

The sad part is that she does know how to write, but the decline in her finished product is due to not just a) too much sex and b) inability to harm characters because she believes that loving them justifies coddling them, but also because c) she rushes to finish the novels and thus sacrifices the time necessary to self-edit and to pace and plot, and d) she won't allow an editor to tackle the clumsy passages where she rambles and extends scenes far beyond the length they need to be with unnecessary words. There's also e) she hasn't been able to separate out the story she wants to tell and the story that she ought to tell. Even though she loves her characters, they can't always get what they want and never get hurt, otherwise it isn't a story, is it?

Bullet's first chapter is an excellent example of d). It took her seven or eight paragraphs to get to actually seeing Monica's child, including bits about scaring a small girl with her gun and commenting unnecessarily on all the children present that are irrelevant to the story.

It takes the entire first chapter to see Monica, except despite explaining she was looking for her to return a costume that got left behind, I didn't see her actually hand it over. Since I haven't heard of Monica (Robert's girlfriend) for several books, it seems strange that after she betrayed Anita that Anita would be running errands for her. The second chapter seems to be composed of Anita coming downstairs and looking for Micah in the crowd - and being unable to spot him as they are the same height. There is then oodles of unnecessary description of Micah.

[loupgaros.livejournal.com]

Huh? My mind boggles. How could her editor miss that?

[chococomilk.livejournal.com]

The answer may be that she doesn't use an editor anymore. She is the SOLE arbiter of what passes for good work from her pen these days.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

“Funny how it’s never your fault when you have to have sex with all
these men, Anita,” and with that she walked away. She walked away with
the proverbial knife stuck deep and hard right through my heart. Nothing
cuts deeper than when another person says exactly what you’re afraid to
say out loud. Hell, Matthew had said it, too, in his way. All the big boys kiss you, ’Nita.

Sort of on-topic, but do you ever get the feeling that the characters are pleading for help? There were a couple places in the mess that was Blood Noir where it was like the old Anita was trying to peek out of the character.

Also, LKH, not everything has to be broken down into "women's sphere" and "men's sphere". Just a thought...

[miss-bot.livejournal.com]

I like how Anita makes point of saying that Monica has a boyfriend like its a bad thing, yet can't take any one pointing out how many she has. She never seems to make the connection that being rude and unpleasent to people makes them rude and unpleasent back to her.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I started reading the excerpt and got tripped up by this:

In my navy blue skirt suit I looked
like a dozen other mothers who had had to come straight from work to
the dance recital. Righto. She looks like a mother. My hair was a little curly and a little too black for all the
blond mothers, but no one gave me a second glance. so, your hair was too dark and curly *screams* for them, presumably causing them to hate you, BUT despite your speshulness nobody gave you a second glance? Did you mean your hair was too dark and curly for you to BE one of the blondE mothers?
The one saving grace as I threaded my way through the crowd of parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and siblings was that I wasn’t one of the parents. Thank GOD! Not a parent, which is just as well as your hair is too dark for you to be... oh, GOD.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha WUT. Her hair was too dark and curly for the blonde mothers? What...I don't...her blonde-issues just start getting crazier and crazier.