07-03-2011, 06:48 AM
I said Mary Stewart is showing off her language skills, meaning she often places more emphasis on writing beautiful poetic lines than on getting the story across. Readers who prefer reading beautiful poetic lines to getting drawn into a story, will prefer these kind of novels. I'm not one of them; I find it distracting. I read a novel for the story; if I'd wanted poetry I would read poetry.
I never said Mary Stewart's intention was to belittle the reader or make him feel stupid; these are your words alone. It would rather be biting the hand that feeds you, don't you think?
What I mean by "vagueness" is exactly what you think: ambiguity of meaning, innuendo, hinting, implicating, intimating, in other words: not being straightforward. You enjoy it, I don't.
And as I've said several times before: in this particular book the heroine won't be straightforward with her readers because we need to keep guessing who she is. In most books written in first person format, the reader will be able to emphatize with the heroine because she knows what she knows and feels what she feels. Not here. And that's why Mary Stewart resorts to vagueness here more than in her other mystery stories. And that's why I liked this novel less than her other mystery stories.
I never said Mary Stewart's intention was to belittle the reader or make him feel stupid; these are your words alone. It would rather be biting the hand that feeds you, don't you think?
What I mean by "vagueness" is exactly what you think: ambiguity of meaning, innuendo, hinting, implicating, intimating, in other words: not being straightforward. You enjoy it, I don't.
And as I've said several times before: in this particular book the heroine won't be straightforward with her readers because we need to keep guessing who she is. In most books written in first person format, the reader will be able to emphatize with the heroine because she knows what she knows and feels what she feels. Not here. And that's why Mary Stewart resorts to vagueness here more than in her other mystery stories. And that's why I liked this novel less than her other mystery stories.
