06-07-10 - Cortazar

Playing with form is not really interesting in and of itself. If you do it well, it can enhance the story, but if you do it badly it can be a distraction, or just cheezy. I'm sure they think they're very clever when they come up with it - tell the story backwards in time, or tell it from the point of view of the protagonist's hat, or whatever, but no it's really not very clever, anybody can come up with that shit. The question I always ask myself, is "if this was told as just a straightforward narrative, would it be interesting?". The answer with Cortazar is no.

I'm always amazed that novelists actually finish their novels. Especially conceptual works. If it's a page-flipper story novel, then the story actually cares you (the writer) along with it, you're excited to see what happens next just like the reader is. But when it's just a dry game in form, I would get bored of writing it after 5 pages.