Ranting against a novel.
Mar. 27th, 2005 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runespoorThe book I'm currently reading made me wince at least five or six times in the fifty first pages, not counting the god-awful translation.
- female characters are bloody Mary Sues. No other name for fifteen years-old who are thought to be the most beautiful women a lady-killer saw, and who also happen to conveniently be related to real, historical characters.
- BUTCHERING OF HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, WTF!!1!one1! Ahem. Making Stus out of them. (you're making my Talleyrand devilishly handsoms, you biatch. *sporks* You'd better make him the political-minded, opportunist traitor that he is, or I'm going to be mad. Charismatic was what he was. Looking-27-when-he's-really-37-and-the-devil's-gift-to-women? So, so not on.)
- butchering of History. I don't care what you say, the French Revolution was never supposed to get rid of Louis XVI in bloody 1790. Nobody even thought that France could mean "kingless". That means revolutionary fanatics too, and a fortiori nuns. He was executed in 1793, you stupid person you. France became a Republic in 1792. In 1790, Louis XVI was still, alas, very much present. Besides, there were no such things as big anti-religious trouble in spring 1790 - that happened six months later. I hate you and wish you would leave history alone.
- I'm holding my reservations about your present-time heroine. She's too young to have such an important position (and she's, OMG! the first woman to have it ever!) and too important to refuse to do slightly illegal financial things. Also, I can't have much respect for a woman who, though well-educated, never heard of Algiers and in fact didn't even know Algery existed, as a country.
- Algery? A socialist country? Third world? Even thirty years ago, I don't care. Watch me laugh.
- "Merde" was Not Said in 1792, especially by bourgeois, may they be artists or not. And you're generally making a mess of it.
Alexandre Dumas said one day that it was okay to rape history, so long as you made her have beautiful children. That's not the case with what you're doing and I wish you had never darkened my shelves with that thing. And in case it wasn't clear enough, let me repeat: I hate you.
Now I've got that out of my chest, perhaps I'll be able to save what's left of my evening.
- female characters are bloody Mary Sues. No other name for fifteen years-old who are thought to be the most beautiful women a lady-killer saw, and who also happen to conveniently be related to real, historical characters.
- BUTCHERING OF HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, WTF!!1!one1! Ahem. Making Stus out of them. (you're making my Talleyrand devilishly handsoms, you biatch. *sporks* You'd better make him the political-minded, opportunist traitor that he is, or I'm going to be mad. Charismatic was what he was. Looking-27-when-he's-really-37-and-the-devil's-gift-to-women? So, so not on.)
- butchering of History. I don't care what you say, the French Revolution was never supposed to get rid of Louis XVI in bloody 1790. Nobody even thought that France could mean "kingless". That means revolutionary fanatics too, and a fortiori nuns. He was executed in 1793, you stupid person you. France became a Republic in 1792. In 1790, Louis XVI was still, alas, very much present. Besides, there were no such things as big anti-religious trouble in spring 1790 - that happened six months later. I hate you and wish you would leave history alone.
- I'm holding my reservations about your present-time heroine. She's too young to have such an important position (and she's, OMG! the first woman to have it ever!) and too important to refuse to do slightly illegal financial things. Also, I can't have much respect for a woman who, though well-educated, never heard of Algiers and in fact didn't even know Algery existed, as a country.
- Algery? A socialist country? Third world? Even thirty years ago, I don't care. Watch me laugh.
- "Merde" was Not Said in 1792, especially by bourgeois, may they be artists or not. And you're generally making a mess of it.
Alexandre Dumas said one day that it was okay to rape history, so long as you made her have beautiful children. That's not the case with what you're doing and I wish you had never darkened my shelves with that thing. And in case it wasn't clear enough, let me repeat: I hate you.
Now I've got that out of my chest, perhaps I'll be able to save what's left of my evening.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-27 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 09:47 am (UTC)