fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POSt #2600 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2600 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

08. [WARNING for rape]

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09. [WARNING for rape]

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10. [WARNING for RL death]

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11. [WARNING for underage?]

[Lilo and Stitch]

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12. [WARNING for rape, non-con]

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13. [WARNING for rape]

[Panic! at the Disco]

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14. [WARNING for child molestation?]

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15. [WARNING for rape]

[Silent Hill]

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16. [tb]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #371.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The problem with Dracula is that it sags in the middle like goddamn. I mean, I think it's a good book to have read, if only to have fun comparing and contrasting (and despairing) over some of the adaptations, and to examine the birth of a legend, but the book itself is kind of a slog in places. You'd want to get the right age group to have the patience for it.

Monte Cristo probably has some of the same problems, but I care so much less in that case, because everyone should read Dumas so much more. Also, he's good for discussions on 'historical accuracy' vs 'helluva story', since he had a tendency to cheerfully dump the former if it better served the latter.

That's kinda the reason I love Dumas. Who wants to write a text book when you write this awesome epic fight scene between characters A and B set five years after B died?

I loved him originally because he was pretty much the definition of a swashbuckler writer, what with the sword fights and the divided loyalties and the spectacular and tragic vengeances. Baby!me was aaaalllll over that.

Later on, though, when I started looking up the histories involved, he became all the more fascinating for his cheerful tendency to do, well, as you said. "I could write you a history book, or I could write a devilishly good murder-and-betrayal plot involving possibly somewhat slanderous versions of historical figures, one of which was dead around this time, and one of which wouldn't reach this rank for about another decade. Which would y'all prefer?"

He's so much fun, that man.

He's a blast. He's a classic writer that people want to read, and he shows people that reading is fun.

Another one who was a good read is Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island is a great adventure story.

Dumas always reminds me of the film The Princess Bride. Where the granddad starts out reading the book, and the kid is so not enthused about it ("Is this a kissing book?"), but then by the time we've had kidnappings and pirates and swordfights and political murder plots and torture and true love winning at the end, that kid is suddenly a lot more alright with this whole book concept. Even if it does happen to involve romance.

Reading Dumas, I think, is a bit like that. That experience. You start out with, look, it happened four hundred years ago, I really don't think I care, and then by the time you've hit the treasonous plots or the first time you realise the 'hero' is not right in the head, and you're kind of too caught up to care about whatever it was you thought the book was about. And then you go back later, and you do look up the history, if only to see if they were really like that, and you just ... You have to admire the nerve and the cheerful abandon of the man. You really do.

And Stevenson too, yes. My granddad gave me a boxset of 'children's classics' when I was a kid, with Treasure Island and Secret Garden and Little Princess and Jungle Book and I can't remember what else in it. Did wonders for me. Of course, then you wander away from Treasure Island and hit Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde instead, and that takes you down all sorts of fascinating roads ;)

But that's the awesome thing about books. You start off reading one, then you get interested in the topic or a theme, and then you want to learn more about it. Some kid probably read The Secret Garden and then checked out a book about plants and flowers. I read Treasure Island and then started looking for more stuff about pirates.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is on my reading list. I work near the library, so on Tuesday I'll go check it out. :)

Jekyll and Hyde linked me obliquely into Edgar Allen Poe, which looped me back around to Sherlock Holmes (I'd already met him due to my dad), which combined to lead me down some strange paths in turn of the century crime fiction and their descendant genres, which landed me variously in noir, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, French crime literature, some horror and the odd anime or two. Some of which linked me back in turn to the likes of Les Miserables, Dumas again, and Fantomas, which bounced me back out into comics and pulp crime, which tripped me into crime thrillers, which bounced me back around into cyberpunk again. Meanwhile I'm also maintaining a semi-steady interest in certain branches of historical fiction, steampunk and early science fiction, because if you meet Poe sooner or later you end up in Shelly and Wells, and if you meet Dumas and Stevenson there's a decent change you'll meet Verne sooner or later.

I've been bounced around other genres due to other early encounters (mostly high fantasy, I've spend a bunch of time there due to Brooks and Tolkien), but I think there's a whole tree of my genre interests that I can basically blame on having met Conan Doyle, Stevenson, Dumas, Poe and Verne early on.

I regret pretty much nothing.

You have nothing to regret. That's an awesome journey.

I pretty just read anything I could find in my parents' bookcases. They both majored in history, so we had a lot of biographies and history text books around. My Daddy and I can debate the War Between The States all day, and Mom and I share a love of ancient and medieval history. She introduced me to Verne. My uncle introduced me to Tolkien, German myths, and Poe. A lot of stuff I found just by looking in the bookcases though.

[ SECRET POSt #2600 ]

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