posted
From where I stand all of King's best books are the non-horror ones. Eyes of the Dragon, the tower books, and a few others are all excellent.
I share in the low opinion that many here seem to hold for the literary elite. For me there are two primary motivations to read: for knowledge and for enjoyment. If a book provides neither of these then I see no reason to read it.
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Pod: i usually like you, but man, after that last post, i must say, you are an ass.
Jacare:
quote:From where I stand all of King's best books are the non-horror ones.
You're clearly an anti-horror elitist.
quote:I share in the low opinion that many here seem to hold for the literary elite. For me there are two primary motivations to read: for knowledge and for enjoyment. If a book provides neither of these then I see no reason to read it.
And of coruse we all know that the literary elite gain neither knowledge nor enjoyment from their reading. Posts: 2443 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I thought that book was brilliant, i -really- enjoyed it.
I also loved that book. I would count it as non-horror because of the general lack of graphic violence and other standard horror tools. It was certainly a tense book, but I don't think it was written to scare the reader.
quote:You're clearly an anti-horror elitist.
And you are clearly being ridiculous. I enjoyed King's non-horror immensely more than his horror. For me the horror aspected masked the laudable attributes of his writing. The same is not the case for other authors.
quote: And of coruse we all know that the literary elite gain neither knowledge nor enjoyment from their reading.
I care not a whit what the literary elite gain from their reading. I was talking about what I gain. Nearly every "critically acclaimed" book I have picked up has seemed to me to be mere intellectual masturbation meant to convey nothing more than the author'sown assumed cleverness.
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Well, in all seriousness, what knowledge or enjoyment can be found in Confederacy of Dunces or Bonfire of the Vanities?
What "truths" about life are revealed here? Did Bonfire teach its readers something new about, say, the business world? Did Confederacy make it easier for its readers to imagine what it must be like to be fat and useless?
How can EITHER of these books, just as examples of their genre, be favorably compared to, say, IT?Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Well, both are allegedly very funny, although, having read both of them, I can't find any evidence for the allegation. My sense of humor must be broke!
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Well, let's look at THAT redeeming quality: even assuming that Bonfire of the Vanities is remarkably funny (an assumption that I'll grant for the purposes of this thought experiment), why is it "better" on some empirical level than Dave Barry Slept Here, another amusing book? Or a collection of Fox Trot strips?
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quote:And you are clearly being ridiculous. I enjoyed King's non-horror immensely more than his horror. For me the horror aspected masked the laudable attributes of his writing. The same is not the case for other authors.
I am being intentionally ridiculous.
quote:I care not a whit what the literary elite gain from their reading. I was talking about what I gain.
Yes, and you used this as a justification for why you "share in the low opinion that many here seem to hold for the literary elite".
quote:Nearly every "critically acclaimed" book I have picked up has seemed to me to be mere intellectual masturbation meant to convey nothing more than the author'sown assumed cleverness.
"What you read sucks."
"No, what you read does!"
Tom:
quote:Well, in all seriousness, what knowledge or enjoyment can be found in Confederacy of Dunces or Bonfire of the Vanities?
What "truths" about life are revealed here? Did Bonfire teach its readers something new about, say, the business world? Did Confederacy make it easier for its readers to imagine what it must be like to be fat and useless?
How can EITHER of these books, just as examples of their genre, be favorably compared to, say, IT?
I hate Tom Wolfe and have nothing to say about either book. Or It.
quote:Well, let's look at THAT redeeming quality: even assuming that Bonfire of the Vanities is remarkably funny (an assumption that I'll grant for the purposes of this thought experiment), why is it "better" on some empirical level than Dave Barry Slept Here, another amusing book? Or a collection of Fox Trot strips?
You're the first I've seen to introduce the idea of some books being better than others "on some empirical level".
quote:Main Entry: em·pir·i·cal Pronunciation: -i-k&l Variant(s): also em·pir·ic /-ik/ Function: adjective Date: 1569 1 : originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical data> 2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory 3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment <empirical laws> 4 : of or relating to empiricism - em·pir·i·cal·ly /-i-k(&-)lE/ adverb
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with literature.
Even assuming you meant "objective" when you said "empirical", I'm still not sure what that has to do with literature.
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Ah, Slash, you make the standard lowest-common-denominator mistake.
Being a literary elitist does indeed limit my world. It limits me to classifying works according to how much they are actually well-written and insightful. I call this process "being selective." And guess what! You do it, too! We all do.
I think it's interesting that you assume that, because I think there is a standard for what "great" literature is, I don't "sample from both platters." I often read and enjoy things I wouldn't consider great literature; I just don't make the mistake of concluding that, because it had some enjoyable aspects and because I liked it, it's great.
Your comment about not having to follow rules says a lot about you, though. I hope you understand that, whatever you claim to be trying to do, you're always following somebody's.
saxon, I'm sorry; I'd missed your question. It's tricky because it's a genre that has existed for such a short period of time. Actually, although I love Alexander and my favorite book of all time is The High King, I don't think he's a great writer. As far as children's fiction goes, I don't think it can be great by definition; YA lit is a different matter. I think LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, for example, might one day be up there.
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Dante, I'd actually be interested in hearing what books have been released in the last ten years that you would consider "great."
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Tom, there are a couple of pitfalls with that question. One, I'm far from an expert on current "literary" fiction, which I do not, in fact, find be of great merit (generally speaking). Two, I think part of "greatness" involves a book's literary "patina:" how well does it wear over time?
Given those caveats, I would throw out Eco's Baudolino as an example.
In short, I suspect there is relatively little "great" literature being written right now--the "literary fiction" writers are trying too hard to be great, and everyone else isn't trying hard enough.
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I honestly think this whole thing is pretty ridiculous. De gustibus est non effing disputandum. I don't like King and I don't like Wolfe, but for people who like that kind of thing, that is the kind of thing they like.
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Y'see, i'm just really skeptical of people who even try and categorize "great" works of literature. By what rubric would one classify such a peice of work? Criticism of art is so nebulous and diffuse that i don't think that there is a adequate set of necessary or sufficient constraints for a peice of work qualifying as "great". That's really my issue with the "Literary Establishment", or whatever one would like to refer to it as.
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Just to throw out there, The Red and The Black was the most tiresome piece of crud I've ever tried to read, and I was coming off of Hugo when I tried to read it. There's a book with an undeserved reputation.
Hugo, on the other hand, is screamingly hysterical.
quote: Sopwith: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- King writes in the language of his audience, never above or below them. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trick question: name one writer who does not write at exactly the level of his audience.
Hmm, H.P. Lovecraft could send a tenured English lit prof scrambling for his dictionary. Hemingway struggled to write below the level of his audience in word choice and sentence structure. Faulkner did the same, writing low to achieve lofty goals. Even the Bard himself, Shakespeare wrote for the groundlings while speaking to scholars of his day and ours.
The difference is a level of pretension. Some sneer for lack of academic credentials, forgetting that if something is academic, it has little bearing on real life. So often, for the literati, it is about buying the most expensive bottle of wine, not for its quality but for the price and perceived cache.
The thing about any form of snobbery, thankfully, is that usually, the only ones offended truly are the snobs, but they like it that way. In the end, everyone wins.
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I thought the Bonfire of the Vanities was a thoroughly intriguing and penetrating book. I wish that the few pages where Kramer is showing his disdain for the pimp-stroll, and the idiotic mannerisms of the kid trying to get off, Lockwood?, were taken out and read at my local high school. I thought it did well in the showing.
I just used the metaphor of "steam control" rather astutely a few days ago when describing my management's efforts to thwart our store unionizing.
I thought the book both entertaining and enlightening. A Man in Full on the other hand, I thought was so so, unfocused, unwieldy, and not a little boring.
As to Pulitzer winners, I've only had good luck, and Tom, I think you are talking out of your backside.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon won it two years ago, and I adore that book.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham won it a few years back, and while I haven't read it, I have on good authority, including your wife's, that it's not a bad read.
I'm pretty sure that To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee won it back in the 60s, and Dr. Zhivago, which may be one of the best books I've ever read, won it back in the 50s.
I haven't read too many Pulitzer winners, but the ones I have read were awesome. I think one could do worse that reading off of strictly that list.
__________
quote:Some sneer for lack of academic credentials, forgetting that if something is academic, it has little bearing on real life.
That the word academic has been burdened with that connotation is sad.
posted
Thank you, Irami, for providing an island of sanity (though I still don't like Wolfe).
Really, must the reaction to snobbery always be reverse snobbery? I don't see how it's an improvement.
Sopwith:
quote:Hmm, H.P. Lovecraft could send a tenured English lit prof scrambling for his dictionary. Hemingway struggled to write below the level of his audience in word choice and sentence structure. Faulkner did the same, writing low to achieve lofty goals. Even the Bard himself, Shakespeare wrote for the groundlings while speaking to scholars of his day and ours.
I say it's a trick question because if a work appeals to someone, it is by definition written at that person's level, and as for the people who the work does not appeal to, well, they aren't the writer's audience.
Just a bit of silly circularity there; don't mind me.
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quote:H.P. Lovecraft could send a tenured English lit prof scrambling for his dictionary.
Within reason, I don't know if that's such a bad thing. I could see how throwing around jargon is distasteful, but I like being spoken up to as opposed to dumbed down to. Language serves a powerful and decisive function in story-telling, why dull the tools we use?
Edit:
Right now, I'm reading a book of Raymond Carver short stories. I don't know. He does make me uneasy in all of the right ways, but his writing lacks the energetic lilt and stirring imagery in the name of brevity and economy. His stories are powerfully plotted, but I like a little asthetic beauty in my prose. Simplicity percipates shallowness or blandness in cases like his.
quote:I, as many others, -really- wish he would finish the Dark Tower Series
Well, he DID finish it. Book 5 will be out this November, Book 6 will be out in the Spring, and Book 7 will be out November of 2004
As for my ascertation of writers afraid to kill off important and well-loved characters - asking for examples of authors who don't kill them off is like asking to point out in a room of a million people every single person who is NOT dying of Brain Cancer. It's much easier and quicker to point out the ones who are the exception to the rule than those who follow it.
So I once again turn the question to ask you - when was the last time (apart from King and Rowling )you read a story where a major, well loved character was in peril, and you actually fretted, and believed that in fact there was a possibility the character might actually die? And, if you have read a death scene of a major character you liked, how did it resonate?
And trust me - I'm not saying that killing off a major character is a sign of greatness. What is more effective for me is actually being able to worry about the outcome when a perilous situation comes up. I have read MANY good works in which the main character is in trouble, and the suspense relies solely on HOW that character will get out of it - not IF. King makes you ask both - "How will they get out? Or will they just not get out at all this time?" - and I care about BOTH. THAT is what I see as great. Not only that I can actually worry about the outcome, but the fact that I'm involved enough with characters to worry about anything at all.
quote:So I once again turn the question to ask you - when was the last time (apart from King and Rowling )you read a story where a major, well loved character was in peril, and you actually fretted, and believed that in fact there was a possibility the character might actually die?
Today. I read it in a story in M. John Harrison's collection Things That Never Happen. Before that, I read it in his Viriconium sequence, Perdido Street Station, The Scar and The Tain by China Mieville, Heroes Die by Matt Stover, A Year in the Linear City by Paul diFilippo, Michael Swanwick's collections Gravity's Angels, Tales of Old Earth and his novels Stations of the Tide and The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, Salman Rushdie's Grimus and Fury, Jonathan Carroll's The Land of Laughs and Kissing the Beehive, Dan Simmon's Hyperion Cantos, John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, Paul Auster's Leviathan, Walter M. Miller, Jr's A Canticle for Liebowtiz and do you really want me to go on, because I could? And that's just examples from the stuff I think is good.
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I apologise for the snarkiness of that post. My irritation at certain other people is spilling over to my replies to you. Sorry.
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quote:I honestly think this whole thing is pretty ridiculous. De gustibus est non effing disputandum. I don't like King and I don't like Wolfe, but for people who like that kind of thing, that is the kind of thing they like.
But see, that is exactly the point. Go back to the first post and see it. King was recognized for being a great writer, and a couple of critics said "No, that's WRONG. He's a HACK." The whole tangent of whether or not academic literature is pretentious garbage is simply a matter of putting the shoe on the other foot. Sadly, though, we're letting this turn into a literary turf war, and we can't possibly make any progress under those terms.
Let's not argue about what is good and what is garbage, because there is no point. It might be interesting to compare notes (you actually liked that piece of garbage?) but it is absolutely fruitless to argue the point. Ultimately, such a debate must resort to each of us concluding that the other is either poorly educated or an idiot. After all, how can you fail to see the Truth of my literary views? You must be a sucker and a poseur. How can I fail to see the truth of yours? I must have failed to understand the greatness of the works you love, or I must not have been exposed to enough true quality, if I could possibly mistake King for it.
The real question here is where do these people get off stating that King is a lousy writer as if it's a fact? You could say that they are entitled to their opinion that King is, in fact, a hack, and they're simply expressing it. But their expressing of their subjective opinions as fact is just as ridiculous to those of us who think King is a modern day great as the disparagement in this thread of academic-style literature is to you.
Here are some opinions and some personal experiences. Opinions are not facts and they are not valid arguments. They are incapable of showing you are wrong, and so you need feel no obligation to refute them: I was a lit major as well as a math major in college, and before I decided to teach math, I planned to pursue literature. I went to grad school for lit, not for math. After four years of college literature classes and two years of the same in grad school, I came to the realization that I had stopped reading for enjoyment and reading had stopped being a hobby for me, that my writing was stilted by my attempts to be "literary" (or rather, pretentious), and that I had enjoyed very little that I had read for the past couple of years. I decided to exit that world rather than try for a Ph.D. But for years I played the game and I was good at it. I could snob with the best of snobs. Boy howdy could I ferret out hidden symbolism. And I became convinced that everyone else was playing the game as well, because they enjoyed appearing to be intellectual.
So I have what appears to me to be fact: fiction intended to be literary rather than entertaining is masturbatory and empty. Your view of things contradicts that reality. Who am I to say whether you truly do get enjoyment from literary fiction or are just pretending? Who knows? As you say, it's absurd to argue this point.
Can we simply agree, then, that this is a difference of opinion as to what's good, that neither of us is wrong when we say somebody is a very talented writer (because obviously we found evidence for that statement), and that neither of us is right when we say someone is a hack (because obviously somebody else found value in his or her work)? On the basis of that, then, could we agree that Bloom is wrong when he calls the people who granted this award idiots and says there is no merit in King's work?
-o-
Your point on writers writing above or below their audience is a good one and cleverly put.
Sopwith, it seemed to me that you responded with unnecessary vehemence to that point.
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It is clear to me that we differ in how we judge the merit of a book, though. For instance, I don't think time is any kind of meaningful litmus test. I think all that matters is my own opinion, and I don't need a great deal of time to tell me what my opinion was, or whether it was right or wrong.
Maybe that would make an interesting topic for discussion, but I'm afraid I don't have the energy right now.
quote:Don't you understand that all good young American writers should slavishly imitate Carver?
I fully believe that prose can be charming without falling headlong into ostentation. Simplicity is important to getting the story across, but I'm of the camp who thinks there is a place for beauty, too, even if it takes a few more words and a good forced rhyme.
See, we are going to miss out on the irony, due to short life spans. You like old literature. You poo on the modern stuff.
Sadly, we won't be here a hundred years from now when King is the only 20th/21st century author anyone remembers. Posts: 5383 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:The real question here is where do these people get off stating that King is a lousy writer as if it's a fact? You could say that they are entitled to their opinion that King is, in fact, a hack, and they're simply expressing it. But their expressing of their subjective opinions as fact is just as ridiculous to those of us who think King is a modern day great as the disparagement in this thread of academic-style literature is to you.
The crux of it is that they're both ridiculous to me, and where you see "putting the boot on the other foot", I see hypocrisy and double standards.
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So why do you find it ridiculous to call King a "modern-day great?" Whom WOULD you call a "modern-day great?"
-------
Consider Michael Chabon, who I find tiresome -- or To Kill a Mockinbird, which I found rather pedestrian.
Michael Cunningham's The Hours -- another Pulitzer winner that's been well-regarded (unlike a NUMBER of Pulitzer winners, mind you) -- wears its agenda on its sleeve and consists of just one single narrative trick, strung together with shameless pandering to its female audience.
What objective standard makes THESE "great" books -- or was Cunningham's Pulitzer just as "ridiculous?"
posted
Great literature means only one thing to me: it must take my breath away. I don't care what genre or what lists it fits into. If it makes me care, if I weep or laugh aloud, or if I put down the book thoughtful, then it is great literature.
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I, personally, don't like King. I don't have anything against his writing, it's just not for me. Do I think he should have won that award? Sure! Why not? There are a lot of people who get a lot of enjoyment out of his books. Just because there are some people may think that entertainment "simple" does not deny that it is entertainment. The real achievement is that he's getting people to read for pleasure, which appears to be a dying pastime in this country (there was a thread some weeks back about it that made me wish didn't live in America).
There are plenty of books that other people turn their nose up at that I think are really, really great. Empire Falls, the author of which I cannot remember, was a really great book, IMO, but a lot of the people I know didn't like it. They felt it didn't have a beginning or an end or a real story. I didn't care, I thought it was stylistically near-perfect, it made me laugh, and every character seemed very real.
We all seem to be here because we like Orson Scott Card, and yet, as far as I know, he isn't considered "great" literature. Are we wasting our time hanging out in the forum of a 'mediocre' writer? Hell no! I don't care what anyone else thinks, I think that many of OSC's books are great literature.
Read what you want to read. If King gets an award for lifelong achievement, more power to him. It's not your place to decide, and it's certainly not your place to bash on him because you think he's a lousy writer. Would any of you abide by someone bashing on OSC for getting a similar award?
Oh yeah, props to Icarus for trying to defuse the "my book is better than your book" posturing that's been going on.
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quote:The real achievement is that he's getting people to read for pleasure, which appears to be a dying pastime in this country (there was a thread some weeks back about it that made me wish didn't live in America).
Does anyone have any statistics comparing the reading habits of Americans vs the rest of the world?
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There was a thread about reading habits of Americans some weeks ago. I don't remember what it was titled. I don't think it compared America to the rest of the world, but it doesn't need to. If I remember correctly, 40% of households in America have not bought a new book for pleasure reading in the last three years.
Anything to help that number increase is a good thing. Even if the books they're reading are, in some people's eyes, completly expendible.
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quote:So why do you find it ridiculous to call King a "modern-day great?"
What the hell, Tom. Where're you getting this from? Where have I said anything of the kind?
quote:Whom WOULD you call a "modern-day great?"
M. John Harrison, for one, but it's subjective.
quote:What objective standard makes THESE "great" books
NONE! There is NO objective standard! NOTHING makes them objectively "great" books! When on this thread have I EVER said there was?!?
quote:or was Cunningham's Pulitzer just as "ridiculous?"
Do you want to go back and re-read my post, paying more attention to context this time? Maybe then you'll realise what I was actually describing as "ridiculous".
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quote:You like old literature. You poo on the modern stuff.
First of all, Slash, I never said that no current writing is good; I just said it seems a little silly to coronate "instant classicists" of our times. Unlike the wilfully and proudly vulgar, I don't "poo" on anything.
quote:Great literature means only one thing to me: it must take my breath away. I don't care what genre or what lists it fits into. If it makes me care, if I weep or laugh aloud, or if I put down the book thoughtful, then it is great literature.
quote:See, Jenny. You're just another member of the lowest common denominator.
And yet again Slash, not surprisingly, misses the whole point. If our own reaction is the only standard we use to judge a work's merit, then there is no merit. I just don't believe that. I think that there are things that actually make a literary work good or bad: style, diction, pacing, authenticity, dialogue, profundity of thought, understanding of literary tradition, novelty, etc.
By the "if I like it, it must be good" standard, Hustler, with millions of copies bought, must be sheer genius. Right, Slash? After all, if all those men like it...
Actually, wait. I don't think I want your answer to that.
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Um, no Dante, if the rubric is as Jenny has stated it, it would be a relativistic rubric, however, it would indeed still be a viable constraint as to what is "good".
You may not like relative, but that doesn't mean its not a criteria for good
And besides, i think you've missed the point of slash's point. The fact that he's dubbed Jenny Gardner as part of the lowest common denominator has nothing to do with his opinion of what classifies works as good, he's simply stating that Jenny, with her criteria for good, is part of the driving force behind lowest common denominator creatorship.
And i'd agree with him (and that's not a criticism for Jenny, whatever makes her happy, makes her happy), if people don't have other standards, then you do end up with rather... substanceless pandering.
[ September 20, 2003, 10:27 PM: Message edited by: Pod ]
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Does it really matter? You enjoy a certain type of book. I enjoy another. We can call eachother morons, and elitists, and all sorts of names until we turn blue in the face...but it's not going to change anything. What's the point, really?
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And you guys are missing the point. Great literature, by my definition, literature that affects a reader, must share certain characteristics. How does the author make one care? If an author does not apply the techniques that make literature powerful, how can it be great literature? Playing with language alone does not guarantee greatness. Writing an interesting story does not guarantee greatness. But a story that shines in both the tale and the telling is great literature. Why does it have to be on a particular list to be classified as such?
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Has anyone here read An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis? He does a really interesting job of turning around the debate over whether there are objective standards for literary greatness. I find it non-judgmental and closely aligned to the process by which books survive over the centuries and are deemed great by history. Here's the Amazon.com description:
Book Description Why do we read literature and how do we judge it? C. S. Lewis's classic An Experiment in Criticism springs from the conviction that literature exists for the joy of the reader and that books should be judged by the kind of reading they invite. He argues that 'good reading', like moral action or religious experience, involves surrender to the work in hand and a process of entering fully into the opinions of others: 'in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself'. Crucial to his notion of judging literature is a commitment to laying aside expectations and values extraneous to the work, in order to approach it with an open mind. Amid the complex welter of current critical theories, C. S. Lewis's wisdom is valuably down-to-earth, refreshing and stimulating in the questions it raises about the experience of reading.
Oh, and just to throw my own two cents in on the original debate - I think Stephen King has written some great works (esp. some of his short stories, as someone else has mentioned) and he's also written a lot of unmitigated crap, sometimes under the influence of drugs. He's admitted this himself. But I think he has the ability and the potential to be a great writer, which puts him ahead of a lot of others.
As for JK Rowling, another maligned popular writer, I personally love her work and admire her craftsmanship. I think it's too early to tell if she's a great one, though. For me, much will depend on how she wraps up the Harry Potter series. But I wouldn't be surprised if she pulls it off.
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I second Slash's prediction that King's work will, like his finance- and audience-geared popular predecessors Shakespeare and Dickens, endure beyond that of his more pretentious contemporaries.
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I clearly touched a nerve with my dating problems jab, as you are attempting to jab back long after I have stopped.
I'm not going to engage in this sort of thing with you, Dante. It was a mistake to start, and I refuse to continue. You lack any ability to hurt my feelings, and clearly I have hurt yours. I do not wish to hurt them further. So, feel free to leave my name out of any future attempts to be witty and biting. You are a nice guy, you are not good at being mean, and it screams through in every attempt you make. I'm sorry that I made you feel like you needed to try.
However, on the original topic, I do think you are missing an important point.
People like myself, David Bowles, Tom Davidson, and others who are commenting on liking King are very well read. We've read the 'classics' as well as the modern stuff. I can even quote Dante, if pushed to it, though I dislike his work.
If you honestly believe that we like an author like King because he has sold a lot of books, then you are truly mistaken. I don't think you actually believe that, and are just repeating it because you think it is an effective attack. The truth is, we like his work because we think he is an excellent author, who writes stories with feeling, meaning, and true character to them. The second highest selling author is Jackie Collins, and I can honestly say that 8 words into one of her books, I am ready to vomit. I also am not a Harry Potter fan, so clearly volume of sales is not the issue here.
And here is where the elitist blinders come in. See, by not being elitist, I can read King and Shakespear, and have both sitting on my shelf next to each other. None of my friends will care. In the rarified air of the literati, how many of the (surely) many fans that King has there will openly admit to it? Come on, admit it. The 'highest common denominator' puts much more peer pressure regarding likes and dislikes than any 'lowest common denominator' does.
And that was my point.
[ September 21, 2003, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: Slash the Berzerker ]
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![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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)you read a story where a major, well loved character was in peril, and you actually fretted, and believed that in fact there was a possibility the character might actually die? And, if you have read a death scene of a major character you liked, how did it resonate?![[Smile]](smile.gif)
