“Many of the great 19th-century novels have plots so outrageously implausible that a freshman in a creative writing class would be flunked out for suggesting anything like them. Dickens was one of the worst offenders. Genius though he was, he reveled in cases of mistaken identity, farfetched coincidences, look-alikes, hidden documents. In Bleak House, one of the plot points involves a character bursting into flames by spontaneous combustion. Even Dickens must have felt uneasy about that one, since he felt obliged to defend it, in his preface with supposedly scientific data.”
Lloyd Alexander in “The Grammar of the Story,” one of 22 essays in Celebrating Children’s Books: Essays on Children’s Literature in Honor of Zena Sutherland (New York: Lothrop Lee & Shepard, 1981), edited by Betsy Hearne and Marilyn Kaye. Alexander won a Newbery Medal for The High King.
One-Minute Book Reviews 
I some times like the outrageous stroies lines that you can only read in the classics. I have just finished The Picture of Dorian Grey, eternal youth, and aging canvas, dead bodies vanishing and a coincidental fatal shooting. Not very likely to happen but gives it a whimisical romanitc idea, maybe life was different, magical back then.
Comment by thepocket — January 16, 2007 @ 3:01 pm |
I like some of the outrageous ones, too. That’s actually why I put up this quote. You can’t always judge books by whether or not their characters behave in “realistic” ways. What counts is whether or not it succeeds as a work of art.
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — January 16, 2007 @ 11:22 pm |