286 - Cool it with the Keates!!! Seriously.
I was totally down with Hyperion in the beginning. When the characters started telling their stories & it became very obvious that the author was trying to make it Canterbury Tales in space, I thought that it was a neat concept. When there were bunches and bunches of literary allusions, I thought that that was fun and yay me that I get those allusions. But, at some point, probably after the 5th or 6th thing that all tied back to John Keates I got kind of sick of what ended up being what ended up feeling very disingenuous pandering to literary types and condescending to everyone else: kind of like a movie that just screams GIVE ME AN OSCAR, I DESERVE AN OSCAR... BECAUSE ART!! I didn’t particularly appreciate either side of that coin.
Despite that fact, I’m currently reading the second book in the series. Primarily I’m doing so because the first book didn’t really end. It got to the end of all of the traveller’s tales & then pretty much just stops. Honestly, the second book feels a lot better... but I’m not super far in just yet. The funny thing is that there’s even a chapter that is JUST RETELLING EVERYONE’S STORIES FROM THE FIRST BOOK! If anyone were to decide to read this, my recommendation would be to skip the first book entirely and end up with the abridged version of the first book in that one chapter. Granted, the second book has certainly continued the author’s apparent obsession with Keates... but I have decided that that’s not a hill I want to die on.
In other news- I didn’t have power for 30 hours this weekend. It was certainly an experience. I don’t recommend it, though. There are better ways to enjoy a weekend.
-Tom 6.6.2016
