[lord of tragedy]

one city was a place of burgeoning brutality and violence riven with distrust and paranoia due to a brutal occupation. a place where ordinary people were preyed upon by sinister forces and a malevolent religion that was obsessed with power and peopled by sadists, paedophiles and psychophants. a place where anything was possible yet everything was incomplete. a place where 14 pints of beer was the least a man could expect in a given day. the other place was darujistan.

Ulysees is regarded as the greatest novel ever written. it details the wanderings of its two central characters around dublin and is relayed to us through their seperate streams of conciousness. it transcribes the events of the odyssee onto the events of a single day in dublin in 1904. it is mad, crude, bawdy and exquisitely beautiful. the real paralell between the books lies in the way both writers allow their seperate cities to be brought to life, captured in words, constructed in print. TTH is the best fantasy book ever written because of the life it gives to darujistan. the book heaves and tumbles round corners, lets us poke into exciting dark places, brings us to meet people we would rather avoid. we wander all its streets and glimpse all its vistas, occasionally steered here and there by the omnipiscent and benevolnet narrator/author Kruppe. we spend time in the mind of an ox.

sometimes a genius does things that are so brilliant they aren't really aware of what it is they are doing. somehow these two novels were reaching out to each other. somehow they have talked together. they inform each other. and TTH is the glorious peak of the MBOTF.

[D'rek]

I disagree here:

lord of tragedy, on 08 December 2009 - 12:06 AM, said:

Ulysees is regarded as the greatest novel ever written.

...and here:

lord of tragedy, on 08 December 2009 - 12:06 AM, said:

TTH is the best fantasy book ever written

...and massively here:

lord of tragedy, on 08 December 2009 - 12:06 AM, said:

and TTH is the glorious peak of the MBOTF.

but we're all entitled to our opinions.

This post has been edited by D'rek: 08 December 2009 - 02:41 AM

[Wry]

Wow, i've never heard a worse description of my home town, or a more inflated view of what is, to me, one of the weakest books in the series.

[amphibian]

lord of tragedy, on 08 December 2009 - 12:06 AM, said:

Ulysees is regarded as the greatest novel ever written.

By whom?

A statement like that is bound to be contentious, especially among the well-read like you'll find here.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Well for me Ulysses is a great book but surely not the best ever written. Just to remain with Joyce, for example, I preferred the Dubliners. And of course I higly disagree on you with TtH, which I regard as the weakest in the series.
As the others have said everyone has their opinions and tastes.

[blackzoid]

Never read Ulysses, co I cannot comment on it.
While I share your support for TTH, it isn't the greatest fantasy book or Malazan book written.
Its about 3rd best on my list of Malazan books.

The comparison to Dublin seems does seem a little forced, and is as Wry says, somewhat insulting to the average Dubliner.

[lord of tragedy]

it wasn't meant as a direct comparison but only the very insecure would be threatened by glib stereotypes. it was meant only as an intimation of similarity. the relationship between both books is in the creation of a city of words. a living breathing space that we journey through. thats what joyce's dublin is and that is what darujistan is. TTH is not about the death of rake its about living and dying in darujistan. its about erikson's ability to create a sense of the aimless banal mundanity that sits side by side litreture of extreme situations. its about healing the schism between the obsessions of the modernist novel and the postmodern return to cambells soup tins. its the ox pov side by side with rakes death, lord jim taking time out to have a dump, or do you not get that?

and yes the dubliners is brilliant. the dead is the best short story ever wriiten. it is perfection from start to finish. but the dubliners does not surpass the beautiful book.

[Wry]

How very disingenuous of you to imply insecurity because people disagree with you.

Anyway, i don't think it is an amazing feat for a writer to make a city feel real when he devotes hundreds of pages to it's description and to vignettes about life there, especially as SE already more than introduced s to Darujistan in GotM (the whole book was based there after all). So yes he did make it into a living breathing city, but i think he did as much with Malaz city and with alot less padding. And i think both other authors, Meiville and Pratchett to name two, have been better city builders the SE.

In fact the focus on daru in TtH really weakens the books, SE has admitted that he based it there simply because he wanted to write about the city, which leaves us with loads of very illogical wandering for the characters to get to the city. The book is truly contrived (to use a phrase of yours), with the characters acting to satisfy the writers wishes, as opposed to according to story's own internal logic. As a stand alone novel it might have passed, but it is in the middle of a series and must be judged by that measure, this book ruined the rhythm of the series, and so is one of the poorest.

As for Ulysses, well i've never been a huge joyce fan, and the people who rave about it just to appear... cool? clever? that just puts me off more, never have i seen a book carried round as a lifestyle accessory than Ulysses.

I will say that i was born and bred in Dublin and this;

Quote

a place of burgeoning brutality and violence riven with distrust and paranoia due to a brutal occupation. a place where ordinary people were preyed upon by sinister forces and a malevolent religion that was obsessed with power and peopled by sadists, paedophiles and psychophants. a place where anything was possible yet everything was incomplete. a place where 14 pints of beer was the least a man could expect in a given day

Is not that city.

[Jusentantaka]

Wry, on 08 December 2009 - 02:23 PM, said:

I will say that i was born and bred in Dublin and this;

Quote

a place of burgeoning brutality and violence riven with distrust and paranoia due to a brutal occupation. a place where ordinary people were preyed upon by sinister forces and a malevolent religion that was obsessed with power and peopled by sadists, paedophiles and psychophants. a place where anything was possible yet everything was incomplete. a place where 14 pints of beer was the least a man could expect in a given day

Is not that city.

You were born in the early 1900s? That is really impressive.

[Wry]

Jusentantaka, on 08 December 2009 - 02:38 PM, said:

Wry, on 08 December 2009 - 02:23 PM, said:

I will say that i was born and bred in Dublin and this;

Quote

a place of burgeoning brutality and violence riven with distrust and paranoia due to a brutal occupation. a place where ordinary people were preyed upon by sinister forces and a malevolent religion that was obsessed with power and peopled by sadists, paedophiles and psychophants. a place where anything was possible yet everything was incomplete. a place where 14 pints of beer was the least a man could expect in a given day

Is not that city.

You were born in the early 1900s? That is really impressive.

Strangely enough no, but believe or not Dublin still exists, and did in '81 when I was born.

[Jusentantaka]

Well then. Amazing though this might be, cities change. The Dublin today is not the Dublin of the beginning of the 20th century, which Joyce wrote about, or at least I hope not, because Joyce's Dublin is a shithole. I've never heard anyone from Paris get all up in arms when that Hugo's city gets referenced, or a Muscovite who bitches when someone talks about Tolstoy's Moscow.



otherwordsly, it is damned near hilarious how if someone started talking about Toll the Hounds in a class on Ulysses, they'd be laughed out of the room for daring to cross the all-powerful divide of Literature and Genre, and the exact same thing happens here, except it is made all the more ludicrous by being fortified by henpeckery and charges of 'how dare yee use literary devices and not worship the all powerful plot'.

[lord of tragedy]

okay so the british were never in dublin and the catholic church wasn't running the magdalene launderies and bringing down people like parnell. i stand corrected. how silly of me to imply those things. and no there was no casual brutality, no abuse of children or spouses despite the documentated murders and assaults, particularly one in 1904 where a husband murdered his wife because she slept in a fairy ring. and in no way did the irish imbib alcohol. so your right that is not dublin. yes joyce is a lifestyle accessory. he's particularly important if you decide not to accept the bullshit views of what is termed official ireland.

SE deliberately wrote about darujistan your right about that much at least. however the criticism of the character movement as illogical is a bit questionable. i do use the word contrived to criticise plot lines but i mean it in the sense where the motivations do not feel consistent for a certain behaviour. germane is probably the correct term. and in the sense that the MBOTF is a window into wu then TTH is a glimpse into the sprawling heaving microcosm that is darujistan. a chance to explore life in a city that is ages old. a space where people have lived and died for aeons. SE controls and manipulates the stream with which we experience it, he epeaks to us directly as kruppe. he layers pov unto pov, moving from the high to the low. from rake to the ox. it is a symphonic rendering of the ridiculous and sublime. The MBTOF was a series that seeks to break the conventions of traditional fantasy. it refuses to be bound to the notion that plot is everything. that we must wrap all the pieces up and make them fit together. we must have a nice neat symbolic closure. so i'm glad karsa was there to watch. he deserved to be there. he added gravitas. but the goal wasn't to move the plot towards rakes death. the goal was to celebrate darujistan and life and death in the city. harlo's survival was bound to lead to rakes death. there was an operatic sense of cosmic balance at the books heart. we were allowed to glimpse the internal life of an ox for fucksake. how many fantasy writers would have the balls to do that?

[Wry]

Jusentantaka, on 08 December 2009 - 03:07 PM, said:

Well then. Amazing though this might be, cities change. The Dublin today is not the Dublin of the beginning of the 20th century, which Joyce wrote about, or at least I hope not, because Joyce's Dublin is a shithole. I've never heard anyone from Paris get all up in arms when that Hugo's city gets referenced, or a Muscovite who bitches when someone talks about Tolstoy's Moscow.



otherwordsly, it is damned near hilarious how if someone started talking about Toll the Hounds in a class on Ulysses, they'd be laughed out of the room for daring to cross the all-powerful divide of Literature and Genre, and the exact same thing happens here, except it is made all the more ludicrous by being fortified by henpeckery and charges of 'how dare yee use literary devices and not worship the all powerful plot'.

Ive no problem with Joyce's description of dublin, characture that it is, i merely pointed out that the above does not describe my city which correct me if i'm wrong if LoT's words not Joyce's.

Simillarly, i'm perfectly happy with writers using literary devices as you call them but the claim was that this made TtH "and TTH is the glorious peak of the MBOTF." whereas i believe it did the opposite, and certainly didn't make it "the best fantasy book ever written". In fact i pointed out two fantasy writers who used such a device successfully.

SE books are plot driven, so it's a valid criticism when he takes one book out of the series to play with literary devices at the expense of the plot

This post has been edited by Wry: 08 December 2009 - 03:26 PM

[Wry]

lord of tragedy, on 08 December 2009 - 03:21 PM, said:

okay so the british were never in dublin and the catholic church wasn't running the magdalene launderies and bringing down people like parnell. i stand corrected. how silly of me to imply those things. and no there was no casual brutality, no abuse of children or spouses despite the documentated murders and assaults, particularly one in 1904 where a husband murdered his wife because she slept in a fairy ring. and in no way did the irish imbib alcohol. so your right that is not dublin. yes joyce is a lifestyle accessory. he's particularly important if you decide not to accept the bullshit views of what is termed official ireland.

Of course the british were there, as they had been for centuries before hand, but in no way was it "a place of burgeoning brutality and violence riven with distrust and paranoia due to a brutal occupation". In point of fact most Dubliners were reasonably happy under british rule (yes this contradicts the popular rebel view of us as the poor underdogs), hence the reason why the 1916 uprising had almost zero popular support. Also It's a very big leap from saying "the Irish imbibe alchol" to "14 pints of beer was the least a man could expect in a given day". Also the rare violence does not make the place as sinister as you paint it.

But that aside, i don't deny that SE did very well bring Darujistan to life, but that in no way improved the book. Viewing it as one in a series, as you must, it actually detracted from it.

[blackzoid]

"As a stand alone novel it might have passed, but it is in the middle of a series and must be judged by that measure, this book ruined the rhythm of the series, and so is one of the poorest."


"SE books are plot driven, so it's a valid criticism when he takes one book out of the series to play with literary devices at the expense of the plot"

Getting off the comparison to Dublin thing, but SE can do whatever the hell he wants with his own series. If he wants to do an "interlude" book what is the problem? Plus some of the plot was indeed serviced, Rake, Dragnipur,Hood, Mother Dark etc etc. Threads which have been there since the 1st/3rd book were now put to bed, freeing the last 2 books to concentrate totally on the Crippled God storyline.

No, not contributing anything directly to the main storyline is not an indication that a book is poor. If its well written and entertains me, I don't care about it not advancing the "main" storyline. (The Crippled God storyline is debatable as being the main storyline of the series)

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 08 December 2009 - 03:48 PM

[Wry]

blackzoid, on 08 December 2009 - 03:46 PM, said:

"As a stand alone novel it might have passed, but it is in the middle of a series and must be judged by that measure, this book ruined the rhythm of the series, and so is one of the poorest."


"SE books are plot driven, so it's a valid criticism when he takes one book out of the series to play with literary devices at the expense of the plot"

Getting off the comparison to Dublin thing, but SE can do whatever the hell he wants with his own series. If he wants to do an "interlude" book what is the problem? Plus some of the plot was indeed serviced, Rake, Dragnipur,Hood, Mother Dark etc etc. Threads which have been there since the 1st/3rd book were now put to bed, freeing the last 2 books to concentrate totally on the Crippled God storyline.

No, not contributing anything directly to the main storyline is not an indication that a book is poor. If its well written and entertains me, I don't care about it not advancing the "main" storyline. (The Crippled God storyline is debatable as being the main storyline of the series)

Agreed, SE can write whatever he wishes he can take a book out to write about a city. In a series of books however a book which warps the plot to get characters to a city just so the author can write sbout it is a poor book. in my opinion. The OP states that this is makes it the best of the series and the genre, a claim that goes way too far, and is very different the points you make.

[Jusentantaka]

Wry, on 08 December 2009 - 03:25 PM, said:

Ive no problem with Joyce's description of dublin, characture that it is, i merely pointed out that the above does not describe my city which correct me if i'm wrong if LoT's words not Joyce's.

Well, maybe I'm wrong. I had to take some liberal (possibly very liberal) interpretations due to the utter lack of proper grammar to make sense of what was there, buttttt... only time Dublin is named is " single day in dublin in 1904"

and otherwise, see blackzoid's post.

Though its amusing that I enjoyed this book very much, yet all of its big plot threads were the ones I could care less about, really, or ones whose principle actors are bleh, like Elflord. Leaving the only thing(s) to enjoy being 'how it was written', which was superior to the preceding books.

[blackzoid]

"Agreed, SE can write whatever he wishes he can take a book out to write about a city. In a series of books however a book which warps the plot to get characters to a city just so the author can write sbout it is a poor book. in my opinion. The OP states that this is makes it the best of the series and the genre, a claim that goes way too far, and is very different the points you make."

Not to be too petty, but only about half of the chapters are involved with the Darujistan storyline. The Nimander/Dying God storyline doesn't intersect with it at all. Gruntle/Mappo etc leave pretty soon afterwards etc.
Plus we had the Dragnipur scenes.

I can see you're point, but perhaps you are too focused on the series aspect. SE's goal I think was to startout with describing typical life in Darujistan before eventually working in the aytpical destruction at the end. I liked it and I liked the "throw-away" single book city characters a lot. It worked for me.

Now, its not the be-all and end-all of fantasy books, nor of the MBotF as a whole as the OP claims, but it isn't a failure as a book. I think SE has mentioned somewhere that one of his goals was also to write stand-alone fantasy within a series. TTH was the last throw of that dice before the end duology. (Although its obviously not completely stand-alone)

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Ok so I've read through this thread, and this is what I got out of it. The OP thinks Ulysses is the best book ever, and TtH is the best fantasy book ever. Following this, he was struck by the fact that each of the books takes a city and describes it thoroughly, thereby connecting them in his mind. Other than disagreements on how he ranks the books, and the occasional use of platitude, what is this argument about?

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Probably because he espressed himself wrongly, seeing how it seemed he was stating his ideas as universally true and not as his opinions from which others could differ.