{"id":2533,"date":"2009-10-28T16:25:14","date_gmt":"2009-10-28T21:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=2533"},"modified":"2015-03-30T00:42:14","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T00:42:14","slug":"more-on-some-reading-and-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=2533","title":{"rendered":"More on Some Reading and Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week ago<\/a>, I read Nick Hornby’s screenplay for An Education<\/a><\/i>, the new film starring Carey Mulligan and Peter Saarsgard.<\/p>\n

I liked it, I was entertained by the screenplay, and I’m looking forward to seeing the film at some nebulous point in the future, and… Well, there’s a but<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The “but” is that it suffers from the typical Hornby third act problems.<\/p>\n

I went back and read through the screenplay last night. As I mentioned, it’s short, and I breezed through it in about half an hour this time. I wanted to see if my hunch was correct. And it was.<\/p>\n

I like Hornby’s work, though I confess that I’ve not read his three most recent novels — A Long Way Down<\/i>, Slam<\/i>, and Juliet, Naked<\/i>. (The first two I have, the third I do not.) High Fidelty<\/i> was very good, About a Boy<\/i> was near excellent, and How to Be Good<\/i> was a bit muddled and underwhelming. I think I prefer his essays to his fiction; I love Fever Pitch<\/i>, and I’ve enjoyed Songbook<\/i> and The Polysyllabic Spree<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I’ve noticed in Hornby’s work that his endings are generally soft. Either the book just stops (High Fidelity<\/i>) or the final act feels like a different story entirely (About a Boy<\/i>). Either way, Hornby seems to have some difficulty in bringing his stories to an effective close.<\/p>\n

That’s what was nagging at me about An Education<\/i>. No, Hornby hasn’t solved his typical third act problems here. Rather, this is a prime example of the problem.<\/p>\n

The first two thirds of the story is a generally light, comedic affair. The final act is dramatic, even tragic. The point where everything changes? It involves a banana.<\/p>\n

There’s a major element, one that explains everything<\/i>, that’s introduced with about fifteen pages left. It’s not something you know is there. It’s not even something you suspect<\/i>. There’s no foreshadowing that this event will happen, that this character will appear on the stage. Yet, without that element, the story doesn’t work.<\/p>\n

And that’s what bugs me. I’d be more satisfied if that element were at least hinted<\/i> at, much earlier. We don’t even get the impression that a character is being evasive<\/i>. Just that he’s shady<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

\n

At times, I wish I could write like a normal person. From first word to last, straight through.<\/p>\n

I can. Sometimes.<\/p>\n

But this short story is more like…<\/p>\n

Well, it’s like I’m building something with LEGO. I have the idea<\/i>, I can see a vague shape<\/i>, and I keep trying out different pieces, seeing if they fit.<\/p>\n

What I have now is a mass of scribbles that I need to sort out into something coherent.<\/p>\n

I may tackle that tonight. Or I may watch Merlin<\/i>. I haven’t decided yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week ago, I read Nick Hornby’s screenplay for An Education, the new film starring Carey Mulligan and Peter Saarsgard. I liked it, I was entertained by the screenplay, and I’m looking forward to seeing the film at some nebulous point in the future, and… Well, there’s a but. The “but” is that it suffersContinue reading “More on Some Reading and Writing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[699,649,4102],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-an-education","tag-nick-hornby","tag-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}