tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586859.post4355388902407169577..comments2023-10-08T05:10:34.219-05:00Comments on Who am I? Why am I here?: Writing dialogue is hardElainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573358506904053791noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586859.post-59017088515860073782007-05-11T13:46:00.000-05:002007-05-11T13:46:00.000-05:00See, I could see someone thinking that but not say...See, I could see someone thinking that but not saying it. Even the most pretentious people I knew in college didn't brag about their intellect.Elainehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04573358506904053791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586859.post-62888147681326302642007-05-10T16:22:00.000-05:002007-05-10T16:22:00.000-05:00Pardon: I meant to type "bad combination of charac...Pardon: I meant to type "bad combination of character types," quoting Chris above.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586859.post-41380723465788755152007-05-10T16:21:00.000-05:002007-05-10T16:21:00.000-05:00It's ok, I'm sure Mr Wolfe just wants us to believ...It's ok, I'm sure Mr Wolfe just wants us to believe that Adam Gellin read it on <I>Salon</I> or something...<BR/><BR/><BR/>Really though, I haven't seen a fully representative sample of the dialogue in IACS, but I don't find this speech so hard to believe or a combination of character types. Gellin is clearly a bullshitter, full of himself and aspiring to his own "aristo-meritocracy." Someone like him could have easily pulled his dialectic from some article that he liked and worked it into a rant that he's rehearsed in front of many a helpless bystander like Charlotte. That's not to say I don't have any beef with the book though...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586859.post-40653295582557401232007-05-10T14:02:00.000-05:002007-05-10T14:02:00.000-05:00I have yet to crack open I am Charlotte Simmons, b...I have yet to crack open <I>I am Charlotte Simmons</I>, but I've been thinking about dialogue lately, too. I've been re-reading Waugh's <I>Brideshead Revisited</I>, and I've been struck by how the narrator Charles Ryder actually says, I've had to whittle down this hour-long conversation, but here are its most important bits. When there is actual dialogue, it's pretty sparse but loaded with meaning, which I pretty much missed when I read the novel 8 years ago.<BR/><BR/>As for the excerpt you provide, I heard a lot of that type of really bad muddled-thinking, pseudo-intellectual crap, but it usually came (filled with malapropisms) from aspirants to the "aristo-meritocracy." Here I think Wolfe has made a bad combination of character types - but such is what happens when one does research for his writing rather than writing about what one knows about.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17292460539114226605noreply@blogger.com