(no subject)

[winterbadger]

Reading a SciF/Fantasy book review, I came across this passage.

I think what gets me so about moments like this is how they involve self-realization. A paradigm shift, however slight (or major), where the characters are forced to confront something scary/extraordinary/beyond the normal, not about the world around them but about themselves.

It’s a literary trope that does exist outside the sf genre, but it’s much harder to find, and in my mind at least is rarely as viscerally satisfying.

Is it just me, or do others feel this betrays the reviewer's astounding lack of familiarity with much of mainstream literature? It seems as if just this sort of self-realisation is a terrifically common part of modern fiction, from Charles Dickens to JD Salinger to Jhumpa Lahiri.

 

Comments

[dativesingular.livejournal.com]

but it’s much harder to find, and in my mind at least is rarely as viscerally satisfying

Having read that, I can't help but wonder if it's the reviewer's own bias making it *appear* to be harder to find.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, and I believe it is easily found in every genre

[josh-cru.livejournal.com]

In my experience, people who read fantasy usually don't read much else, so her idea of genre is high fantasy versus sword and sorcery. _shrug_ I'm not judging anybody though.
I got through 4 or 5 of the wheel of time before I just had to put it down, the length vs enjoyment ratio was way off (kind of like some wargame rules I know).