Child Song Lyric
Jung and fiction
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2003 04:09:40Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
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FamilyNet Newsgate Nikolaus Maack wrote in a message to All: NM> From: Nikolaus Maack <email-address-deleted> NM> Stephen Hayes wrote: > I enjoyed Hoban's children's books, but found the adult ones a bit > disappointing. NM> How so? NM> The one thing that drives me crazy about his adult stuff (I never NM> read his kids' stuff) is that he keeps making cultural refences, NM> like he can't get them out of himself fast enough. NM> "And I like this artist, and this musician, and it was like this NM> piece of literature and it all reminds me of this particular song NM> lyric, and..." NM> I think if he had a little more faith in his story, he might be NM> less prone to doing things like quoting songs by "Garbage" -- "I'm NM> only happy when it rains..." Why this bugs me so much, I'm not NM> sure. It seems pretentious and distracting. NM> I mention all this, because I think his kids' books would come NM> across as less pretentious, and would have less of these NM> references. Yes, they certainly do. One of my favourites was "Bedtime for Frances", about a child who makes up all sorts of excuses for not going to bed. In the illustrations the child is a little furry animal, I'm not sure what species. There were several others in the series, and we used to read them to our kids when they were younger. Because we enjoyed them, and the kids did too, we got some of his ault books - "Turtle diary" was one. It was OK, but not one that I would eagerly recommend to others. Another was, I think, "The lion of Jachin Boaz and Boaz Jachin". It may have been filled with important symbolism and cultural references, but I didn't get most of them. Keep well Steve Hayes WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm E-mail: email-address-deleted FamilyNet <> Internet Gated Mail http://www.fmlynet.org
