"List of the Lost" physical copy picture posted by @ariel_mcdowall / Twitter

Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

well anyone who read autobiography should expect the alliteration. if youre not a fan of bartleyby you probably wont like his writing style i dont think. as to length well he has been touring for a while so lets see how long the next one is. i mean its about the same length as breatfast at tiffanys. im more concerned about story structure myself
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

Christ all mighty, she does not seems to like his book. It made her want to boak according to the tweets.
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

SPOILER ahead

well anyone who read autobiography should expect the alliteration. if youre not a fan of bartleyby you probably wont like his writing style i dont think. as to length well he has been touring for a while so lets see how long the next one is. i mean its about the same length as breatfast at tiffanys. im more concerned about story structure myself
The sentence she quotes and cites as being "appalling" is problematic for more than just its needless alliteration: 'Our four favoured athletes have the task of relaying in relay and can therefore knock aside bothersome border boundaries as they guard each other's bodies as if all amounted to just the one.'

It's overwritten to the point where it is rendered abstruse, the kind of garbled purple prose that rarely serves the story being told, because the idea conveyed is lost in the swirling maelstrom of excess words. The excerpt of dialogue shared by Penguin last week was concise, poignant, and flowed with ease, unlike the sentence above. Hopefully most of the text is closer to the former.

I agree to an extent that this type of writing should have been expected considering what we got with Autobiography, but I still find it baffling that someone who could understand the potency of economic writing so well as a lyricist would write prose in this way. Of course, I reserve full judgement until after I have the book in my hands and have read it cover to cover.
 
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Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

Well, I guess it's another night of the long knives.
Given the amount of throwaway fluff on the best seller's list weekly; a bit of romantic, florid alliteration won't really hurt anyone.
I hope it isn't savaged too much and Penguin end up with the reverse of Autobiography on their hands as they will probably drop him.
Still, the potential back and forth thereafter would be interesting.
Let's hope he gets to exit smiling ;)
Regards,
FWD
letter.jpg
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

SPOILER ahead


The sentence she quotes and cites as being "appalling" is problematic for more than just its needless alliteration: 'Our four favoured athletes have the task of relaying in relay and can therefore knock aside bothersome border boundaries as they guard each other's bodies as if all amounted to just the one.'

It's overwritten to the point where it is rendered abstruse, the kind of garbled purple prose that rarely serves the story being told, because the idea conveyed is lost in the swirling maelstrom of excess words. The excerpt of dialogue shared by Penguin last week was concise, poignant, and flowed with ease, unlike the sentence above. Hopefully most of the text is closer to the former.

I agree to an extent that this type of writing should have been expected considering what we got with Autobiography, but I still find it baffling that someone who could understand the potency of economic writing so well as a lyricist would write prose in this way. Of course, I reserve full judgement until after I have the book in my hands and have read it cover to cover.

I agree really but I think the Melville comparison still stands as I find most of his stuff extremely overwritten. My point with the comparison being that its a style of writing that does have a tradition and many fans even if im not one. I am a fan of martin amis though who could face the same complaint of ideas being lost but IMO I think amis pulls it off brilliantly. I wait to see if moz can do the same. Its also his first so I expect him to make mistakes as lyrics don't always make you a great writer of fiction. To use amis again the Rachel papers isn't strucired the best but he got better, way better three novels in
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

She says "There are some appalling sentences in the new Morrissey novel. How can this be the man who wrote How Soon Is Now?". The obvious answer is that this is the same man who most recently wrote such awful lines as 'Brazil and Bahrain, Egypt, Ukraine, so many people in pain".

'Our four favoured athletes have the task of relaying in relay and can therefore knock aside bothersome border boundaries" is an absolutely awful line of prose, but it's in the same cheap style as his most recent lyrics, where he has developed a sudden affectation for obvious rhymes and alliteration. "Standing at the STONE of one of our OWN, he took the PLUG and he hit the RUG', 'On the coastal SHORE I'm SURE you'd break down if you SAW", etc. He didn't used to be this naff and obvious. It's like someone gave him a rhyming dictionary for his birthday.

It's overwritten to the point where it is rendered abstruse, the kind of garbled purple prose that rarely serves the story being told, because the idea conveyed is lost in the swirling maelstrom of excess words. The excerpt of dialogue shared by Penguin last week was concise, poignant, and flowed with ease, unlike the sentence above. Hopefully most of the text is closer to the former.

'Autobiography' was a similar mix - some good writing, but clouded by excessive affectation that any decent editor would have smoothed over. All writers - even great ones - need editors. The fulfil a vital role in the process, and would help to weed out what looks to be classic examples of a first-time writer trying too hard to impress, and ending up in a tangled, obfuscating mess as a result. Hopefully this line is as bad as it gets.
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

I'm guessing the plot of this is that the four athletes in the relay team engage in some type of humasexual Human Centipede shenanigans, joined together by relay batons, there bodies operating as one? Or, is that just wishful thinking?
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

She says "There are some appalling sentences in the new Morrissey novel. How can this be the man who wrote How Soon Is Now?". The obvious answer is that this is the same man who most recently wrote such awful lines as 'Brazil and Bahrain, Egypt, Ukraine, so many people in pain".

'Our four favoured athletes have the task of relaying in relay and can therefore knock aside bothersome border boundaries" is an absolutely awful line of prose, but it's in the same cheap style as his most recent lyrics, where he has developed a sudden affectation for obvious rhymes and alliteration. "Standing at the STONE of one of our OWN, he took the PLUG and he hit the RUG', 'On the coastal SHORE I'm SURE you'd break down if you SAW", etc. He didn't used to be this naff and obvious. It's like someone gave him a rhyming dictionary for his birthday.



'Autobiography' was a similar mix - some good writing, but clouded by excessive affectation that any decent editor would have smoothed over. All writers - even great ones - need editors. The fulfil a vital role in the process, and would help to weed out what looks to be classic examples of a first-time writer trying too hard to impress, and ending up in a tangled, obfuscating mess as a result. Hopefully this line is as bad as it gets.

well i think a lot of that lyric works in song with melody and its connection to real life and its obvious truths which make it good. sometimes obvious truths work better when said plainly even when rhymed for song. directness and obvious truths work well but when reading prose im not sure. if the whole book has a lyrical sing song quality this could work well in flow but i just dont know yet. it might also not be a dialogue heavy novel as this could just be internal narration which could also work in sing song flow with the actual sparse dialogue being a contrast to it. i think we could all pull lines of poetry that are beloved by some with critical praise that out of flow would seem just as over wrought. i liked a lot of auto and its style but that already had a structure to it. if the structure is out of whack or a mess then were in trouble of loosing ideas and points with no hope in sight. as to editors i think hed be skeptical of anyone but if he enlisted another writer he already respected then i think that would work but the problem there is that if the book was indeed good people would be skeptical of the success not being down to him. its a tricky situation. i also think that writing novels and stories are different than writing lyrics and one does not always translate to the other. it might take him a while to get into the flow. like i said previously some of my fav writers did not write great debut novels
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

i predicted the awkward paragraph length run on sentences.
after the autobio what else can you expect. but the sentences posted are even worse than i expected as they make little or no sense.
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

it works as gothic comedy.
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

I got my copy early from Amazon as well, and have been racing through it.

*WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD*

The storyline is about four young athletes who are training to run the 100 metre relay in the Los Angeles Olympics, 1984 - their names are Steve (the charismatic hero of the novel), John, Andy and Mike. Their plans for the games start well, but come under threat when Andy gets disqualified for taking illegal performance enhancing drugs, whilst the team is further put under stress by Steve's unrequited and bitterly jealous love for John (who is much more into girls). The final straw comes when Mike finds out about Steve's sexuality, and tries to blackmail him. Needless to say, Steve has the last laugh, as on the day of the final he quits the team, leaving the others looking like idiots, and has the success he always deserved by getting the Gold Medal in the solo 100 metres, whilst his ex-teammates slip into obscurity (Mike, for instance, ends up committing suicide by shooting himself with a starting pistol when he realises he has betrayed his one-time friend).

I really enjoyed it, though some of the paragraphs lasted for several pages, which I found slightly odd.
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

Oh wow! That's terrific you got a copy already. I tried not to read your review to avoid spoilers. So it's not so bad? After those earlier tweets from above I was concerned that the book was going to be a fiasco - though I can't believe Penguin would publish something that didn't have some merit.

What did you think of his Autobiography, just to get a little perspective of where you are coming from? What would you say the style of this novel is like?
 
I like the way Morrissey writes, his novel is just another outlet to criticize him. The amount of criticism he has to deal with would send me to my grave. If you don't care for his music or writing than move on, do something else FFS. Feel free to dm me and explain to me your obsession with hating him. We love you in LA Morrissey
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

I got my copy early from Amazon as well, and have been racing through it.

*WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD*

The storyline is about four young athletes who are training to run the 100 metre relay in the Los Angeles Olympics, 1984 - their names are Steve (the charismatic hero of the novel), John, Andy and Mike. Their plans for the games start well, but come under threat when Andy gets disqualified for taking illegal performance enhancing drugs, whilst the team is further put under stress by Steve's unrequited and bitterly jealous love for John (who is much more into girls). The final straw comes when Mike finds out about Steve's sexuality, and tries to blackmail him. Needless to say, Steve has the last laugh, as on the day of the final he quits the team, leaving the others looking like idiots, and has the success he always deserved by getting the Gold Medal in the solo 100 metres, whilst his ex-teammates slip into obscurity (Mike, for instance, ends up committing suicide by shooting himself with a starting pistol when he realises he has betrayed his one-time friend).

I really enjoyed it, though some of the paragraphs lasted for several pages, which I found slightly odd.

the paragraphs lasted for SEVERAL pages????
out of the blue the gay dude switches to the solo 100 meters on the day of the race???
 
Re: Picture of physical copy of The List of The Lost

Oh wow! That's terrific you got a copy already. I tried not to read your review to avoid spoilers. So it's not so bad? After those earlier tweets from above I was concerned that the book was going to be a fiasco - though I can't believe Penguin would publish something that didn't have some merit.

What did you think of his Autobiography, just to get a little perspective of where you are coming from? What would you say the style of this novel is like?

They are lying just messing about, the post above. You will see it if you read it.
 
I have a feeling that this is gonna be savaged and if that line posted on Twitter is anything to go by, with good reason. God I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I will be.
 

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