Due to the way literature was treated in my high school, I never directly realized literature studies is supposed to be about form. Everything was always about summarizing what the text meant, not uncovering HOW it delivered this meaning.
Yeah, typically high school literature will be more focused on deciphering meaning from a text because that's a foundational skill that leads to examining form later on in university. Personally, I think that they ought to teach at least some basic form analysis in high school anyway simply because you can't expect most people to continue with it in university. Unfortunately, since form analysis is mostly only introduced in tertiary-level literary studies, most people never even learn that it's a thing let alone how it's done. I only took a sub-major in literature, but it was enough to graduate to that next level of literary analysis. I'm by no means an expert though. Thanks for the title card btw. You were actually the first person I thought of when I asked myself, "Who do I know who would be really good at emulating other cartoonists' styles?"
CloudCuckooCountry Speaking from experience, I only really learned about form in AP classes (mainly AP English language) and the college courses I took.
@@CloudCuckooCountry My brain always failed at that... cuz I just kept going 'well it is what the story just told us.... what do you MEAN it's about the jews during WWII!? It's about Horse Stable and males being studded out for BREEDING. what in the hell does that have to do with the Holocaust!?'
MANY APOLOGIES for the audio issues. I and Alayna had some trouble with both of our setups and after many many subpar outputs, I just decided to go with as good as we could get it. I did hire Sir Meow to help mitigate the issues in the audio of my voice and he did a fabulous job. I also realised way too late into the project that the intro lasts 7-and-a-half minutes, which I admit is way too long and I blame myself for having my nose buried in my video editor and not pulling back to really assess the video structurally. Unfortunately, I'm way too exhausted and this video has already put me far into the red, and the thought of pulling it apart to re-structure the intro was just too much that late into production. Feel free to skip the intro if you haven't already. I welcome all negative criticism. I hope you enjoy the video despite its many problems.
I can on some level relate to you about the Green brothers and Vlogging in general. I grew up watching Magic School bus as a kid but I stopped watching it when I was getting a bit older because I was getting into cartoons that were less educational like Kids next door and Ben 10 as well as other shows. I, at one point, decided to rewatch it and I still enjoyed it mostly because of the character interactions and me wishing I had a teacher similar to Miss Frizzle after slogging through the horrors of the American public education system (trust me, it's as bad as the TV shows and movies portray it) despite not needing to learn these things anymore. I already know my planets, I already know how stars are formed and I can tell you that the dinosaurs in the show were more accurate to Jurassic park than real life dinosaurs and their lack of feathers. So while I really didn't need to watch an educational cartoon anymore since I'm an adult, I still enjoyed the show as a lifelong fan of animation. I haven't rewatched a lot of the shows I grew up on like Sesame street, Arthur or Between the lions but I assume if I did rewatch these shows I'd probably enjoy them for different reasons like the puppet work of Sesame street and Between the lions or the maturity of Arthur introducing kids in the best way possible to hard aspects of life like cancer, the death of a pet or the episode that was an allegory for 9/11.
Dude... I think a lot of us are just happy that you're back to be honest. Just like other stories, flaws can be everywhere, but if the audience are hooked despite that, there might be some charm underneath that they find appealing... which incidentally is also your main feature in Green's writing... Holy shit I made it fit the topic - I be su brillant!
I found you because of one other owl that reviews games (but not recently). At the time I wasn't writing, so I kinda forgotten about you. But now I feel this channel is a treasure cove of useful advice for an aspiring author. Thank you for existing.
Being a sufferer of OCD and Schizotypal Disorder _and_ in a relationship with someone with OCD, and knowing that Green himself says he has it as well, I honestly think that the reason Aza's invasive thoughts are segmented from herself was a way to better convey the sickness to people who are both young and unfamiliar with how it works. It's readability and conveyance of meaning over accuracy. The realistic way to represent obsessive thinking would be to make invasives subject-less as simple, anxious statements, and/or as being Ava's brain talking about an anxiety in first-person. While the way Green wrote it better illustrates OCD's aspect of suffering and the aspect of compulsion, making a voice literally compel Aza to do something she doesn't want to, it leaves its actual inner workings unclear, and - accidentally - implies that OCD is more akin to a schizoaffective disorder (where thoughts *do* seem to come from someone or something seperate to you, being classified as hallucinations). I do agree, however, that the italicisation does a good job of making her thoughts feel, well - unwanted, and overpowering.
Thanks very much for this comment. I was certainly concerned about whether the voice-in-italics seemed to suggest a schitzoaffective disorder more than OCD, but I cut the section discussing that because I figured that the entire notion could be countered with the argument that it’s not a literal voice in Aza’s head, but a metaphorical representation of the visceral emotional conflicts that go on in her mind. I also talked to a psychiatrist specialising in OCD can she told me that severe forms of the disorder can sometimes have co-morbidity with disorders such as psychosis, which do involve hearing voices. I understand Greens’ need for clarity, however I kept my criticism to how this execution of the representation gels with the themes of the novel and I still believe that it contradicts the self-authorship theme in the way I illustrated in the video.
I think it might have been approached better if the intrusive italicized thoughts used “I” or “we” pronouns instead of “you”. OCD js, I think at it’s heart a deep distrust of self recall and self knowledge- *did I do that?* or *am I actually a decent person?* often drive the compulsive checking or confessing behaviors. Schizotypal & schizophrenia hallucinations are often “heard” (experienced as auditory stimuli) and distinctive from internal “self” thoughts. Auditory hallucinations would be best conveyed stylistically as quotations and use of “you” pronouns; while intrusive thoughts like in OCD or other cognitive distortions are experienced as internalized narratives. So I like the use of italics tracks but using either I or we pronouns would have better gotten at closeness of the perspective- and the difficulty most have with picking OCD thoughts out from the normal though steam.
I just now realized I've been with this channel since I was 16. Happily 21 now, and it's always a pleasure to have your analysis appear in my feed!! Keep doing you at the timeframe that works best!
I’ve tried to get into writing multiple times over the past few years, though I consistently have self-doubts and a weird perfectionist stance on my work, causing no progress to be made. Watching your videos help give me confidence that, above all else, I should at least try to write because, even if they’re highly critical of my story, someone out there will be willing to read it for the sake of wanting something new to consume. (I’m not sure if this makes any sense or not, but it’s how I feel about this).
If you want my advice, go try and explain what you're writing to somebody else, record that somehow in text or in audio and use that as a guide. That will get your writing out of your head and onto somewhere you can look at it, work towards it and improve it.
I discovered your channel yesterday and I'm already a fan. This video is quite educational and the your critique is like no other I've seen on youtube (booktube). It feels like I've been searching for a channel like yours and I'm so happy to have finally found one. Instantly subscribed. Please keep doing what you are doing
37:30 There is actually a very simple way to overcome the disconnect of these bits with the theme of self-authorship. You can leave the text italicized, you could even put it in quotes, whatever - it's completely okay for the two voices to be distinct from each other. The only issue is that one voice is in first-person while the other is in second. All you have to do to fix this is have both voices say "we" instead of "you", "me" and "I". Then, neither is actually in control - they would refer to themselves as a collective rather than two, distinct and unequal individuals. Perhaps, though, it would be better for the character to slowly transition from using "you", "me" and "I" to "we" - the second voice should probably be the first to do this, in this case, and not all at once. It would get confusing to read, but it would hammer the point home, and really help point out a part of why, I imagine, OCD is impossible to overcome - it's not something separate from who you are, as the author tries to point out according to your reading, but they are something that are an integral part of who you are (I'm referring here to 29:45). My mind is a cloud, at the moment, a very fluffy and soft one, and as such I have no idea if I'm actually responding to an issue you actually raised, or if I completely misinterpreted something, anymore. All I know is that I responded to something you said, but probably not to what you meant by it.
55:33 As someone who tends to write the way they think I can actually provide an easy reason for the sentence to be written that way. It's a form of writing designed to simulate the effect of an after thought. In other words it reads in that order because that's the order in which the thoughts entered the narrators mind. An effect that perhaps becomes more pronounced were one to add a "come to think of it" at the end, however I can understand why such an addition would be cut for the sake of being a tad more concise.
If that's what Green intended with that syntax, I don't think he was successful. Literature has a method for simulating thought patterns called Stream of Consciousness, where the narrator rattles off the beat-by-beat exact thoughts and experiences of the perspective character as they continuously bleed into one another. I can say for certain that Green doesn't use that anywhere in his novel and this sentence in-particular doesn't read like a thought otherwise. Thoughts as they occur in the mind are not well articulated by words in a straightforward writing or speech style even if you contort the syntax a little bit, which is why the technique of Stream of Consciousness exists. Granted, if he *did* aim to write a stream of thoughts from the character, then my standards for conciseness and elegance wouldn't be useful in that case. However, if an author is writing in a prose style, I think valuing conciseness and elegance is sound.
Firstly, I'm honored by your response. Love your videos, keep up the great work! Secondly, those were thoughts that had occured to me after writing my comment. Namely that the majority of the information required to delineate between whether the choice was or wasn't intentional was outside of my grasp due to having not read the book myself. Thank you for the clarification.
Thanks very much. Glad you enjoy my videos. No need to explain anything. You had a legitimate contention against a point in the video. Always feel free to push back on my points if they don't make sense to you.
This would be a good way of going about it. The thoughts ARE wrong. Your most genuine, real-feeling thoughts and instincts are deadly wrong. That's what makes the condition so terrifying. The horrible thoughts feel so true.
Another great video!!! I really did enjoy it, and its great to see more from you. Your breakdowns always get my thinking of ways to improve my own writing, and like always they're enjoyable to watch. Seeing that the video is just short of an hour long was great news, only made better by the fact that we'll be getting a part two soon enough.
Great discussion. Even if its an author I've never ready anything from or know much about your commentary always gives interesting perspectives. Awesome video as always ^v^!
I'm an engineer. Why do I like this so much? I know squat about college level literary analysis. I know calculus and crystal chemistry. Well done Bird man.
This is great! I've been waiting forever for a new video from you. Keep up the great job, and I hope your next project has less audio trouble and such so that it doesn't take quite as long before we get to see it.
I really like Johns novels but it is hard to read them all because of that story similarity, but I very much love his characters and that’s why I read his books more then for the stories.
FYI The voice in italics is fairly accurate, especially how you "bargain" and "reason" with the thoughts. Not fun. But also impressive if the author genuinely hasn't experienced something like OCD.
Your channel is criminally under-viewed and it’s a tragedy. The worst part is that I can at least partly understand why; I can’t really share your channel with anyone and expect them to enjoy it. Hopefully my love and (eventual) patronage will be enough for you. Thanks for creating these!
Thanks for the kind comment. I'm aware that my videos aren't particularly sharable, but I did at some point try to make more sharable videos and found that I not only hated them but they still didn't get the traffic that I wanted. So, I'm sticking with content that I want to make. If you do share the videos around, I would still appreciate that enormously.
Do you know how hard it is to watch this video of you saying you don't like his books when these books practically rescued me from a spiral of depression and not get mad cause I consider myself a nice person that respects other people's opinions. I'm crying from frustration. These books mean the world to me. Anyway I'm not watching the second part cause my therapist says I need to stop actively pursuing things that make me sad unintentionally on purpose.
Sorry to hear that. My aims first and foremost are to entertain and educate, but these days I try to do that without being as negative because I recognise that it introduces some problems. I tried to be reasonably balanced and give positive phrase to these books whenever I taught it was appropriate in this video and, like I said at the beginning, my aim isn’t to try to get people to not enjoy them. Art is subjective, and if you found value in Green’s books that I didn’t, I think that’s great and please don’t let my opinions devalue your experience.
"I need to stop actively pursuing things that make me sad unintentionally on purpose." Honestly, same. I think a lot of people do that without even realizing it. I'm glad you're trying to alleviate that, and I hope it's going well.
Almost closed the video after you called film and video games a lesser storytelling format /s Seriously though, this analysis was really well done. It covered almost every base in entertaining and interesting detail. I'm really self-conscious about the structure of this comment because of it, so good job I guess :P
I'll perform a close reading to explain why your comment is lackluster only after it becomes a bestseller and makes you trillions of the dollars. /s Thanks very much. I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
Four years late, mostly because I was worried if I was exposed to these things when I was younger I'd imitate them and I knew I didn't need that. As someone with OCD there are a couple of things I want to say, especially because Aza's is very similar to my own (my obsessive thoughts are about germs and illness; before therapy I would use a tub of clorox wipes in a day and wash my hands raw). This is more about the accuracy of OCD as a subject matter over the quality of Green's actual writing. 15:16 is an incredibly accurate depiction of how you want to do certain things but your thoughts fight you, and will win out if you don't have a good coping mechanism or exposure to the situation in a controlled setting (exposure therapy in other words). I haven't had a significant other yet but I know this will definitely be an issue that comes up for me. 19:26 while gratuitous, does hold true when discussing "being in" the thought spiral. It really does feel like you're in your own head and being trapped by your thoughts, at least from my own limited experience. 32:33 I've had thoughts exactly like this. It's not exactly as much of a back and forth but the general idea is still there. For example, "Did I clean this already? I think I did, I should just leave it be. But then if I didn't...I'll clean it just to be safe." I agree that it was also likely done for getting general audiences on board. It's hard to explain why I cleaned something I didn't need to besides just saying I couldn't stop thinking about it otherwise and I think to some readers that would seem contrived when it's perfectly accurate.
Believe it or not, during the editing of the script I deleted a bunch of lines about how "Is this actually a depiction of OCD? I get thoughts like this and I'm totally normal." and about a month after the video's release I booked myself into a therapist. Turns out I don't have OCD but I did have some other baggage that needed sorting out, so I would probably be more positive about this novel if I assessed it today, although I'd probably still stand by a lot of what I said about the quality of Green's writing
I was wondering about that myself - I’m glad you had the courage to sort out whatever got such a bee in your bonnet. It’s always interesting to notice what captures our attention- and to discover why. I’m super glad to have found this channel- this review & others scratch an itch for deep dives and help me develop language to describe an appreciation beyond simply plot & characters in fiction. Just lovely.
Not to argue, just to present a contrasting experience from the "other side of the isle"... but John Green single-handedly showed me that stories don't have to be extraordinary sci-fi or fantasy worlds to be good. Sad to say, my views of what made a "good story" was woefully narrow back then. After reading Paper Towns for the first time, I suddenly learned that compelling characters and heart-felt stories are just as important as interesting world building and cool stuff blowing up. I CERTAINLY wasn't interested in modern day American teenagers and their generally ordinary lives before then, as their stories weren't strange and outlandish enough to be """cool""". I don't want to be too hard on Me From The Past, and maybe I'm exaggerating just a little, but suffice it to say that I am extremely grateful that I learned how to broaden my horizons. Don't get me wrong though: fantasy and science fiction (and stories with creative world building in general) are still pretty much my favorite kinds of stories, but I've learned that there are many, many kinds of good stories out there. And it was John Green who taught me that. I've read all of his books despite being "not the target audience", because in my opinion, a well-written book intended for younger readers is still better than a less interesting book written for my exact demographic. I dunno... does that make any sense to you?
I guess I must be weird because I loved both Looking For Alaska and Paper Towns when I was in high school and I'd be lying if I said some elements of that book weren't weirdly influential on some of my horror writing...I don't know exactly why.
Will you be reviewing Hank Greens first book release “ An Absolutely Remarkable Thing “ ? Im interested in comparing the two brothers writing styles etc. Great video by the way, glad Shammy recommended you.
I never plan on reviewing novels that I read. I'll definitely be picking up An Absolutely Remarkable Thing out of interest, but whether or not I make a video will depend on if I have anything interesting to say about it. I might resurrect my old consumer review format for it if not though.
I wonder if it means anything that I never noticed that any of these books were written by the same author, let alone that any of them were written by John Green.
35:40 Yeah, that framing is a problem. What would make more sense would be for the OCD-related thoughts to be written in the same voice as the narrator. Even if she's aware that it's more likely those anxious, obsessive thoughts leading to compulsions, it should still be in her voice. And if the anxiety is bad enough during a given instance, which can happen, there shouldn't even any kind of mental debate about it. Only upon reflection should she go "oh, yeah, that was probably the OCD."
I kinda like the "and hotter" at the end of the passage, as a sort of aside to an aside, a thought from a thought. It doesn't add much, but it's a kind of informality that suggests more of a headspace than a directly narrative one. Maybe it's attempting to communicate a sense of extreme heat via recency bias and the comma (and arguably hotter having a more extreme connotation than drier), though I don't know if the rest of the scene really conveys that well. If I got a stab at fixing it, I might honestly remove "drier" from the equation since people can understand the shorthand of extreme heat evaporating water without understanding the exact mechanics of it.
Without having read the book: in Green's version of the paragraph with the boat landing on the shore I imagine the river and beach clouded in fog and the characters observed from a distance, in your's it's closer and more... material. I think that the difference between the two could partly be explained by, in Green's version, the river is given agency over the characters while in your's their behavior comes from siting in a canoe with each other for a while, indicating some sort of distance between the characters. Having not read the book I don't know which one would fit best, and from your explanation it sounds like your's fits better with the circumstance and tone, but in Green's the reduced agency seems like it would fit with the themes. I don't know. It seemed to be an interesting difference. And you are right in saying that the initial paragraph's style done through a whole book would make reading a bit of a task.
I would argue that giving the river a more ethereal quality goes against the realist style of Green's story. I like a more material visualisation in realist stories, although I admit I'm kinda uptight about my realism. Also, Aza and Daisy actually clash and have a fight later in the novel after tensions have been boiling for a while, so having them be distant in this moment is appropriate imo. Thanks for pointing that out.
I tried to read _The Fault in Our Stars_ , but I was having enough problems with it that I stopped reading only a few chapters in. (Maybe even the first chapter.) I'm not even sure why. There were some problems, sure, but nothing earth-shattering. If I had to say, I think that it reminded me of books that followed the pattern you describe at 4:39 - books that I loved at first, but later on, looking back, I realized they're actually kind of bad, or at least started having serious doubts as to whether they're good. And honestly, that's one of my least favourite feelings. So I think when this book started throwing up red flags, I bailed so as to avoid that feeling.
This is kind of tangential to the vid, but when I browse Goodreads, I generally find myself gravitating towards 2-3 star reviews for kind of the reasons you drummed up in your point about unabashed reviewers. I tend to find 2-3 reviewers more honest and open to pointing out the good and the bad instead of slavishly tongue-bathing the author or unashamedly slagging off everything they do. On another note, four months since the last one? What happened? Just took that long to read and make the vid? Curious is all.
Yeah, but god :)) forgive me, he got you. Either intentional or not, the subject of this novel is a perfect alibi for the ideas interrupting the story... just like Aza's OCD interrupts her life constantly. If he realized his problem with integrating ideas more subtly and decided: fuck it, I'll make this problem into the theme of my next book! - that would be pretty fucking brilliant... if he didn't, still, fate is on his side :) It's a meta-level bs I am eating now, I know... but I could not help but have that "ayyyy lmao" moment
I agree. My schtick with deriding academics and "great literature" is mostly a character thing for CCC. I'm trying to present this information in a way that a non-academic audience can connect with easily and finding advanced literature to be inaccessible is something a lot of people can relate to. That being said, the bit about "... nobody actually expects you to enjoy reading them." was probably a little too derisive of those works.
I loved Metamorphosis. I never saw the theme of the book as too abstract; I took a different reading having to do with living as a disabled person instead of just a straight critique of capitalism. The intense feelings that the narrator felt are things that I have also felt. the way the family treats the narrator resonated with me because of the inherent and patronizing disgust that many able bodied people have towards disabled people. Just my thoughts.
That is certainly a defensible reading, however the various interpretations that were taught to me through university tended towards incorporating themes surrounding absurdism, existentialism, and a sociological critique of a capitalist society literally stripping away a person's humanity. There are many other interpretations as well, especially of the character relationships. The book has been discussed and dissected so much over the years that you can probably just interpret it however you want if you have a reasonable justification for it. My example of Metamorphosis wasn't meant to be a degradation of the novel itself. I actually think it's a pretty good story. (Although in retrospect, I probably should've made that clearer in the video.) I was giving an example of a text that deals with some highly abstract topics that I thought the audience would have a good chance of being familiar with because I first encountered it in entry-level literature studies. This was actually added in the second-to-last draft, so if I probably could've come up with a better example.
Of course Shammy recommends me a channel that criticises books and that piques my interest because I haven't really found any book-based channels on youtube and the first video I see is a John Green Book Burning that's two hours long. God damnit, there's my night gone
No, and I doubt I will unless I find something interesting to talk about in his writing style and storytelling. I tend to only make videos on things I can talk about in an interesting way, regardless of how much I personally enjoyed them.
I similarly used to watch Crash Course a few years back. That changed, however, as I entered my 12th year and into AP Euro. My teacher despised Crash Course (and John Green in general) for making factually inaccurate videos. So much so, as an assignment, he told us to watch a specific Crash Course video, then read pages such and such through so and so in our books (sorry the specific video and pages escape me). Compare them, contrast them, find as many inaccuracies as possible for the next day. We had...alot to talk about and criticizes on that day, and my view of John Green's work has been tainted, past present and future. Anyway, the point to this is that I'm quite happy you're burning this book because after that day in AP Euro I saw John Green as profiting off misinformation and lazy research because he could, because he was "to big to topple". But seeing this makes me realize that it's not just our class, but many others that also have varying levels of disdain for him. TL;DR: john green stinks of rotten eggs and his book stinks too
Interesting though this video was, I must confess that my only experience with John Green has been looking through Sci-Fi books on Amazon and being recommended Will Grayson Will Grayson. Which was confusing, to say the least.
32:32 The voice-in-italics thing, to me, doesn't read as OCD, it reads like Schizophrenia. The voice speaks as a seperate entity, as you said. It throws me off when reading the passage because it feels like it conflicts with the self-authoring theme you talked about, as it isn't an unexplainable glitch in her head that causes her to feel like she has no control, but a nagging voice that convinces her she's wrong.
That's definitely a valid concern regarding how the invasive thoughts are represented by the literature. There was actually a discussion regarding this in early drafts of my video script, but they got cut because I didn't want to waste time diagnosing a fictional character. Considering I (and many readers familiar with John Green) knew going into the novel that it was about OCD, I think it's more appropriate to just accept that the character has OCD and ask whether or not the novel's representation of it is an empathetic or otherwise *useful* depiction, rather than trying to pinpoint exactly what's happening inside the protagonist's brain and what it would be medically classified as in reality - especially since severe OCD can have co-morbidity with other mental disorders anyway. That being said, it's probably still worth asking whether or not your average reader, who doesn't know what the novel is about in advance, would recognise it as a representation of OCD simply by reading it. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to this.
I didn't know how much I needed to hear someone rip into The Metamorphosis until I heard it at 34:23. I must say, it's rather hard to sympathize with the protagonist's plight when he never makes any attempt to correct or improve his situation over the course of the story. If anything, that book only made me more opposed to the author's existentialist viewpoint.
I actually still like Metamorphosis. My jibe is entirely because the shear abstract-ness of the theme makes it kinda inaccessible for casual reading, which can be said for most literature they make you read in literature classes.
I don't think I ever said that Green's messages or themes were "muddled". In fact, I said multiple times that they were clear and robust. Poor and uninteresting writing is bad just by definition. If you read a novel and the writing is bad, then that's a problem. Everything else can still be perfectly fine, but since you spend 100% of your time with a novel *reading*, it's more pleasurable and entertaining if the writing is of a high quality.
I'm sorry, what I meant by "muddled" was that lackluster writing can cause the reader to misunderstand or entirely miss the intended messages or themes. For example, I should have chosen better wording in my previous comment.
This guy feels like a really chill English teacher
Due to the way literature was treated in my high school, I never directly realized literature studies is supposed to be about form. Everything was always about summarizing what the text meant, not uncovering HOW it delivered this meaning.
Yeah, typically high school literature will be more focused on deciphering meaning from a text because that's a foundational skill that leads to examining form later on in university. Personally, I think that they ought to teach at least some basic form analysis in high school anyway simply because you can't expect most people to continue with it in university. Unfortunately, since form analysis is mostly only introduced in tertiary-level literary studies, most people never even learn that it's a thing let alone how it's done.
I only took a sub-major in literature, but it was enough to graduate to that next level of literary analysis. I'm by no means an expert though.
Thanks for the title card btw. You were actually the first person I thought of when I asked myself, "Who do I know who would be really good at emulating other cartoonists' styles?"
CloudCuckooCountry Speaking from experience, I only really learned about form in AP classes (mainly AP English language) and the college courses I took.
@@CloudCuckooCountry My brain always failed at that... cuz I just kept going 'well it is what the story just told us.... what do you MEAN it's about the jews during WWII!? It's about Horse Stable and males being studded out for BREEDING. what in the hell does that have to do with the Holocaust!?'
MANY APOLOGIES for the audio issues. I and Alayna had some trouble with both of our setups and after many many subpar outputs, I just decided to go with as good as we could get it. I did hire Sir Meow to help mitigate the issues in the audio of my voice and he did a fabulous job.
I also realised way too late into the project that the intro lasts 7-and-a-half minutes, which I admit is way too long and I blame myself for having my nose buried in my video editor and not pulling back to really assess the video structurally. Unfortunately, I'm way too exhausted and this video has already put me far into the red, and the thought of pulling it apart to re-structure the intro was just too much that late into production.
Feel free to skip the intro if you haven't already. I welcome all negative criticism. I hope you enjoy the video despite its many problems.
I can on some level relate to you about the Green brothers and Vlogging in general. I grew up watching Magic School bus as a kid but I stopped watching it when I was getting a bit older because I was getting into cartoons that were less educational like Kids next door and Ben 10 as well as other shows. I, at one point, decided to rewatch it and I still enjoyed it mostly because of the character interactions and me wishing I had a teacher similar to Miss Frizzle after slogging through the horrors of the American public education system (trust me, it's as bad as the TV shows and movies portray it) despite not needing to learn these things anymore. I already know my planets, I already know how stars are formed and I can tell you that the dinosaurs in the show were more accurate to Jurassic park than real life dinosaurs and their lack of feathers. So while I really didn't need to watch an educational cartoon anymore since I'm an adult, I still enjoyed the show as a lifelong fan of animation. I haven't rewatched a lot of the shows I grew up on like Sesame street, Arthur or Between the lions but I assume if I did rewatch these shows I'd probably enjoy them for different reasons like the puppet work of Sesame street and Between the lions or the maturity of Arthur introducing kids in the best way possible to hard aspects of life like cancer, the death of a pet or the episode that was an allegory for 9/11.
How long are we waiting for part 2?
It's already completely scripted and voiced. The editing is about 60% done, so my estimation is for the end of August.
Dude... I think a lot of us are just happy that you're back to be honest. Just like other stories, flaws can be everywhere, but if the audience are hooked despite that, there might be some charm underneath that they find appealing... which incidentally is also your main feature in Green's writing... Holy shit I made it fit the topic - I be su brillant!
I personally don't see a long introduction being an issue.
Book burnings are the best time of the season.
Oof, you better not say that outside of these videos.
It’s sad he does not burn an actual book smh
-Guy Montag
Top ten sentences that will be somehow found when you try to start a political career.
This is a good movie.
I found you because of one other owl that reviews games (but not recently). At the time I wasn't writing, so I kinda forgotten about you. But now I feel this channel is a treasure cove of useful advice for an aspiring author. Thank you for existing.
Being a sufferer of OCD and Schizotypal Disorder _and_ in a relationship with someone with OCD, and knowing that Green himself says he has it as well, I honestly think that the reason Aza's invasive thoughts are segmented from herself was a way to better convey the sickness to people who are both young and unfamiliar with how it works. It's readability and conveyance of meaning over accuracy. The realistic way to represent obsessive thinking would be to make invasives subject-less as simple, anxious statements, and/or as being Ava's brain talking about an anxiety in first-person.
While the way Green wrote it better illustrates OCD's aspect of suffering and the aspect of compulsion, making a voice literally compel Aza to do something she doesn't want to, it leaves its actual inner workings unclear, and - accidentally - implies that OCD is more akin to a schizoaffective disorder (where thoughts *do* seem to come from someone or something seperate to you, being classified as hallucinations).
I do agree, however, that the italicisation does a good job of making her thoughts feel, well - unwanted, and overpowering.
Thanks very much for this comment.
I was certainly concerned about whether the voice-in-italics seemed to suggest a schitzoaffective disorder more than OCD, but I cut the section discussing that because I figured that the entire notion could be countered with the argument that it’s not a literal voice in Aza’s head, but a metaphorical representation of the visceral emotional conflicts that go on in her mind. I also talked to a psychiatrist specialising in OCD can she told me that severe forms of the disorder can sometimes have co-morbidity with disorders such as psychosis, which do involve hearing voices.
I understand Greens’ need for clarity, however I kept my criticism to how this execution of the representation gels with the themes of the novel and I still believe that it contradicts the self-authorship theme in the way I illustrated in the video.
I think it might have been approached better if the intrusive italicized thoughts used “I” or “we” pronouns instead of “you”. OCD js, I think at it’s heart a deep distrust of self recall and self knowledge- *did I do that?* or *am I actually a decent person?* often drive the compulsive checking or confessing behaviors.
Schizotypal & schizophrenia hallucinations are often “heard” (experienced as auditory stimuli) and distinctive from internal “self” thoughts. Auditory hallucinations would be best conveyed stylistically as quotations and use of “you” pronouns; while intrusive thoughts like in OCD or other cognitive distortions are experienced as internalized narratives. So I like the use of italics tracks but using either I or we pronouns would have better gotten at closeness of the perspective- and the difficulty most have with picking OCD thoughts out from the normal though steam.
I just now realized I've been with this channel since I was 16. Happily 21 now, and it's always a pleasure to have your analysis appear in my feed!! Keep doing you at the timeframe that works best!
That's pretty amazing. My channel is just over 5 years old, so it sounds like you've been watching from very early on. Thanks for sticking with me.
I’ve tried to get into writing multiple times over the past few years, though I consistently have self-doubts and a weird perfectionist stance on my work, causing no progress to be made.
Watching your videos help give me confidence that, above all else, I should at least try to write because, even if they’re highly critical of my story, someone out there will be willing to read it for the sake of wanting something new to consume.
(I’m not sure if this makes any sense or not, but it’s how I feel about this).
If you want my advice, go try and explain what you're writing to somebody else, record that somehow in text or in audio and use that as a guide. That will get your writing out of your head and onto somewhere you can look at it, work towards it and improve it.
Octothorpe thank you, I appreciate the advice. I’ll try to do that when I have the chance.
I love this birb.
-I love the fact that he reviews BOOKS and not movies like Everyone else-
HE'S FINALLY BACK! AND HE'S ALIVE!
I discovered your channel yesterday and I'm already a fan. This video is quite educational and the your critique is like no other I've seen on youtube (booktube). It feels like I've been searching for a channel like yours and I'm so happy to have finally found one. Instantly subscribed. Please keep doing what you are doing
37:30 There is actually a very simple way to overcome the disconnect of these bits with the theme of self-authorship. You can leave the text italicized, you could even put it in quotes, whatever - it's completely okay for the two voices to be distinct from each other. The only issue is that one voice is in first-person while the other is in second.
All you have to do to fix this is have both voices say "we" instead of "you", "me" and "I". Then, neither is actually in control - they would refer to themselves as a collective rather than two, distinct and unequal individuals. Perhaps, though, it would be better for the character to slowly transition from using "you", "me" and "I" to "we" - the second voice should probably be the first to do this, in this case, and not all at once. It would get confusing to read, but it would hammer the point home, and really help point out a part of why, I imagine, OCD is impossible to overcome - it's not something separate from who you are, as the author tries to point out according to your reading, but they are something that are an integral part of who you are (I'm referring here to 29:45).
My mind is a cloud, at the moment, a very fluffy and soft one, and as such I have no idea if I'm actually responding to an issue you actually raised, or if I completely misinterpreted something, anymore. All I know is that I responded to something you said, but probably not to what you meant by it.
Honestly that sounds a bit closer to some kind psychosis than OCD.
Loved that close read section and the sections in general!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.
55:33 As someone who tends to write the way they think I can actually provide an easy reason for the sentence to be written that way. It's a form of writing designed to simulate the effect of an after thought. In other words it reads in that order because that's the order in which the thoughts entered the narrators mind. An effect that perhaps becomes more pronounced were one to add a "come to think of it" at the end, however I can understand why such an addition would be cut for the sake of being a tad more concise.
If that's what Green intended with that syntax, I don't think he was successful. Literature has a method for simulating thought patterns called Stream of Consciousness, where the narrator rattles off the beat-by-beat exact thoughts and experiences of the perspective character as they continuously bleed into one another. I can say for certain that Green doesn't use that anywhere in his novel and this sentence in-particular doesn't read like a thought otherwise. Thoughts as they occur in the mind are not well articulated by words in a straightforward writing or speech style even if you contort the syntax a little bit, which is why the technique of Stream of Consciousness exists.
Granted, if he *did* aim to write a stream of thoughts from the character, then my standards for conciseness and elegance wouldn't be useful in that case. However, if an author is writing in a prose style, I think valuing conciseness and elegance is sound.
Firstly, I'm honored by your response. Love your videos, keep up the great work!
Secondly, those were thoughts that had occured to me after writing my comment. Namely that the majority of the information required to delineate between whether the choice was or wasn't intentional was outside of my grasp due to having not read the book myself. Thank you for the clarification.
Thanks very much. Glad you enjoy my videos.
No need to explain anything. You had a legitimate contention against a point in the video. Always feel free to push back on my points if they don't make sense to you.
"Hey, we all gotta make a living somehow fam."
What about if the invasive thought didn't use you but I instead like
"I changed the band aid"
"Did I though?"
Just a thought could be wrong
This would be a good way of going about it. The thoughts ARE wrong. Your most genuine, real-feeling thoughts and instincts are deadly wrong. That's what makes the condition so terrifying. The horrible thoughts feel so true.
Hurrah for the return of CloudCuckooCountry, and random musings!
HEY the new format looks way nice in this video! Glad to see you back and around.
Another great video!!! I really did enjoy it, and its great to see more from you. Your breakdowns always get my thinking of ways to improve my own writing, and like always they're enjoyable to watch. Seeing that the video is just short of an hour long was great news, only made better by the fact that we'll be getting a part two soon enough.
Great discussion. Even if its an author I've never ready anything from or know much about your commentary always gives interesting perspectives. Awesome video as always ^v^!
Thanks very much, man.
No problem ^v^!
yay book burning
well shit it's not book burning
In my defense, it's still mostly negative.
Fair enough
😂 classic case of premature-immolation. better luck next time, in a year or two.
I'd put my money on two
I have lived in Australia for more than 10 years and you still have the best accent I’ve heard
This was absolutely fantastic, really helpful for constructive criticism.
A video? I have been waiting for this!
I've never read any of his books but I love John Green from his videos
I'm an engineer. Why do I like this so much? I know squat about college level literary analysis. I know calculus and crystal chemistry.
Well done Bird man.
You know, I want to be pissed at the clickbait, but the unashamed nature of it as well as the hour of content made up for it.
After... Months.... Finally, a new Book burning video
Thank God! 😀
You guys are back holy shit!
This is great! I've been waiting forever for a new video from you. Keep up the great job, and I hope your next project has less audio trouble and such so that it doesn't take quite as long before we get to see it.
I really like Johns novels but it is hard to read them all because of that story similarity, but I very much love his characters and that’s why I read his books more then for the stories.
FYI The voice in italics is fairly accurate, especially how you "bargain" and "reason" with the thoughts. Not fun. But also impressive if the author genuinely hasn't experienced something like OCD.
The author does have OCD
This is the stuff I subscribe for. Keep up the good work!
Moral of the story, if we ever write something, hire Cuckoo as our proof reader as well as a general literary assistant xD
Your channel is criminally under-viewed and it’s a tragedy.
The worst part is that I can at least partly understand why; I can’t really share your channel with anyone and expect them to enjoy it.
Hopefully my love and (eventual) patronage will be enough for you.
Thanks for creating these!
Thanks for the kind comment.
I'm aware that my videos aren't particularly sharable, but I did at some point try to make more sharable videos and found that I not only hated them but they still didn't get the traffic that I wanted. So, I'm sticking with content that I want to make. If you do share the videos around, I would still appreciate that enormously.
John green is the maroon 5 of novels
Do you know how hard it is to watch this video of you saying you don't like his books when these books practically rescued me from a spiral of depression and not get mad cause I consider myself a nice person that respects other people's opinions. I'm crying from frustration. These books mean the world to me. Anyway I'm not watching the second part cause my therapist says I need to stop actively pursuing things that make me sad unintentionally on purpose.
Sorry to hear that. My aims first and foremost are to entertain and educate, but these days I try to do that without being as negative because I recognise that it introduces some problems.
I tried to be reasonably balanced and give positive phrase to these books whenever I taught it was appropriate in this video and, like I said at the beginning, my aim isn’t to try to get people to not enjoy them. Art is subjective, and if you found value in Green’s books that I didn’t, I think that’s great and please don’t let my opinions devalue your experience.
🖤
"I need to stop actively pursuing things that make me sad unintentionally on purpose."
Honestly, same. I think a lot of people do that without even realizing it. I'm glad you're trying to alleviate that, and I hope it's going well.
I've been looking forward to this.
Almost closed the video after you called film and video games a lesser storytelling format /s
Seriously though, this analysis was really well done. It covered almost every base in entertaining and interesting detail.
I'm really self-conscious about the structure of this comment because of it, so good job I guess :P
I'll perform a close reading to explain why your comment is lackluster only after it becomes a bestseller and makes you trillions of the dollars. /s
Thanks very much. I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
An interesting interpretation of OCD for me was in Children Of Mind. It took it to a grander societal level.
Eyyyyyyy another great in depth book burning. I would leave a more substantial comment, but it is nearly 3 am here.
Four years late, mostly because I was worried if I was exposed to these things when I was younger I'd imitate them and I knew I didn't need that. As someone with OCD there are a couple of things I want to say, especially because Aza's is very similar to my own (my obsessive thoughts are about germs and illness; before therapy I would use a tub of clorox wipes in a day and wash my hands raw). This is more about the accuracy of OCD as a subject matter over the quality of Green's actual writing.
15:16 is an incredibly accurate depiction of how you want to do certain things but your thoughts fight you, and will win out if you don't have a good coping mechanism or exposure to the situation in a controlled setting (exposure therapy in other words). I haven't had a significant other yet but I know this will definitely be an issue that comes up for me.
19:26 while gratuitous, does hold true when discussing "being in" the thought spiral. It really does feel like you're in your own head and being trapped by your thoughts, at least from my own limited experience.
32:33 I've had thoughts exactly like this. It's not exactly as much of a back and forth but the general idea is still there. For example, "Did I clean this already? I think I did, I should just leave it be. But then if I didn't...I'll clean it just to be safe." I agree that it was also likely done for getting general audiences on board. It's hard to explain why I cleaned something I didn't need to besides just saying I couldn't stop thinking about it otherwise and I think to some readers that would seem contrived when it's perfectly accurate.
Believe it or not, during the editing of the script I deleted a bunch of lines about how "Is this actually a depiction of OCD? I get thoughts like this and I'm totally normal." and about a month after the video's release I booked myself into a therapist. Turns out I don't have OCD but I did have some other baggage that needed sorting out, so I would probably be more positive about this novel if I assessed it today, although I'd probably still stand by a lot of what I said about the quality of Green's writing
I was wondering about that myself - I’m glad you had the courage to sort out whatever got such a bee in your bonnet. It’s always interesting to notice what captures our attention- and to discover why. I’m super glad to have found this channel- this review & others scratch an itch for deep dives and help me develop language to describe an appreciation beyond simply plot & characters in fiction. Just lovely.
Not to argue, just to present a contrasting experience from the "other side of the isle"... but John Green single-handedly showed me that stories don't have to be extraordinary sci-fi or fantasy worlds to be good. Sad to say, my views of what made a "good story" was woefully narrow back then. After reading Paper Towns for the first time, I suddenly learned that compelling characters and heart-felt stories are just as important as interesting world building and cool stuff blowing up. I CERTAINLY wasn't interested in modern day American teenagers and their generally ordinary lives before then, as their stories weren't strange and outlandish enough to be """cool""". I don't want to be too hard on Me From The Past, and maybe I'm exaggerating just a little, but suffice it to say that I am extremely grateful that I learned how to broaden my horizons.
Don't get me wrong though: fantasy and science fiction (and stories with creative world building in general) are still pretty much my favorite kinds of stories, but I've learned that there are many, many kinds of good stories out there. And it was John Green who taught me that. I've read all of his books despite being "not the target audience", because in my opinion, a well-written book intended for younger readers is still better than a less interesting book written for my exact demographic.
I dunno... does that make any sense to you?
I don't know if you take book requests, but i was wondering if you would do a review, or share your thoughts on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins.
I guess I must be weird because I loved both Looking For Alaska and Paper Towns when I was in high school and I'd be lying if I said some elements of that book weren't weirdly influential on some of my horror writing...I don't know exactly why.
Will you be reviewing Hank Greens first book release “ An Absolutely Remarkable Thing “ ? Im interested in comparing the two brothers writing styles etc. Great video by the way, glad Shammy recommended you.
I never plan on reviewing novels that I read. I'll definitely be picking up An Absolutely Remarkable Thing out of interest, but whether or not I make a video will depend on if I have anything interesting to say about it. I might resurrect my old consumer review format for it if not though.
CloudCuckooCountry Thanks for replying.
I wonder if it means anything that I never noticed that any of these books were written by the same author, let alone that any of them were written by John Green.
53:35 If typos validate you, try the elysian prophecy. I just finished it and it's good but I spotted about 10 mistakes
This is going to help me edit my own work. Thanks!
Thank you! I love your content!
@55:55 Remove the “and”, nothing more, is one way to achieve better flow and punch in my opinion.
I don't read his books but watch his youtube videos and can I see some of the stuff in his books in talks about in the videos.
35:40 Yeah, that framing is a problem. What would make more sense would be for the OCD-related thoughts to be written in the same voice as the narrator. Even if she's aware that it's more likely those anxious, obsessive thoughts leading to compulsions, it should still be in her voice.
And if the anxiety is bad enough during a given instance, which can happen, there shouldn't even any kind of mental debate about it. Only upon reflection should she go "oh, yeah, that was probably the OCD."
I kinda like the "and hotter" at the end of the passage, as a sort of aside to an aside, a thought from a thought. It doesn't add much, but it's a kind of informality that suggests more of a headspace than a directly narrative one. Maybe it's attempting to communicate a sense of extreme heat via recency bias and the comma (and arguably hotter having a more extreme connotation than drier), though I don't know if the rest of the scene really conveys that well. If I got a stab at fixing it, I might honestly remove "drier" from the equation since people can understand the shorthand of extreme heat evaporating water without understanding the exact mechanics of it.
As a stupid teen that can not read a book most of the time and I like you videos and I would like to say I can't wait to see part to.
Just saying, this is one of my favorite channels. Book burnings only sweeten the pot.
Hey, i want to know your opinion on the book five nights at freddy's the silver eyes! Want to know if it's worth reading!
Without having read the book: in Green's version of the paragraph with the boat landing on the shore I imagine the river and beach clouded in fog and the characters observed from a distance, in your's it's closer and more... material. I think that the difference between the two could partly be explained by, in Green's version, the river is given agency over the characters while in your's their behavior comes from siting in a canoe with each other for a while, indicating some sort of distance between the characters.
Having not read the book I don't know which one would fit best, and from your explanation it sounds like your's fits better with the circumstance and tone, but in Green's the reduced agency seems like it would fit with the themes. I don't know. It seemed to be an interesting difference. And you are right in saying that the initial paragraph's style done through a whole book would make reading a bit of a task.
I would argue that giving the river a more ethereal quality goes against the realist style of Green's story. I like a more material visualisation in realist stories, although I admit I'm kinda uptight about my realism. Also, Aza and Daisy actually clash and have a fight later in the novel after tensions have been boiling for a while, so having them be distant in this moment is appropriate imo. Thanks for pointing that out.
Great video. Just curious, but do you have any intentions to read Hank’s novel?
I'm definitely going to read it. Whether or not I make a video will depend on if I find it interesting enough to talk about.
You're back :D
I tried to read _The Fault in Our Stars_ , but I was having enough problems with it that I stopped reading only a few chapters in. (Maybe even the first chapter.) I'm not even sure why. There were some problems, sure, but nothing earth-shattering. If I had to say, I think that it reminded me of books that followed the pattern you describe at 4:39 - books that I loved at first, but later on, looking back, I realized they're actually kind of bad, or at least started having serious doubts as to whether they're good. And honestly, that's one of my least favourite feelings. So I think when this book started throwing up red flags, I bailed so as to avoid that feeling.
That's not a turtle on your thumbnail, that's a gosh darn Tuatara.
New Video :D !!!! and just as good, as always.
This is kind of tangential to the vid, but when I browse Goodreads, I generally find myself gravitating towards 2-3 star reviews for kind of the reasons you drummed up in your point about unabashed reviewers. I tend to find 2-3 reviewers more honest and open to pointing out the good and the bad instead of slavishly tongue-bathing the author or unashamedly slagging off everything they do.
On another note, four months since the last one? What happened? Just took that long to read and make the vid?
Curious is all.
Lol I don't read but I still love your channel!
burger man Me to. Guess we're just a bunch of weirdos...
48:50 OOOF that double and
Since you mentioned that you liked well-characterised narrators, have you read Worm by any chance, and have you any thoughts on it?
Yeah, but god :)) forgive me, he got you.
Either intentional or not, the subject of this novel is a perfect alibi for the ideas interrupting the story... just like Aza's OCD interrupts her life constantly.
If he realized his problem with integrating ideas more subtly and decided: fuck it, I'll make this problem into the theme of my next book! - that would be pretty fucking brilliant... if he didn't, still, fate is on his side :)
It's a meta-level bs I am eating now, I know... but I could not help but have that "ayyyy lmao" moment
Came to see why a lizard was in the thumbnail. Returned to correct that the 'lizard' appears to be a tuatara
shammy sent me! dove through ur older videos and enjoyed a lot of them. whens that new content coming fam?
Hi. Glad you like my videos.
Next video is planned to be out before Christmas.
CloudCuckooCountry You really should put it up on Christmas, if only because you’ll make up for Santa, and give my life meaning.
well i will pull out the pitchforks and the the torches
Weird how a title like book burning is totally changed in 5 years!
dunkin' on Night in the Woods. RIP one of my favorite recent games.
Much book, such burning, wow
I watched 8 minutes, liked, subscribed. Good bye
Night in the woods, nice
Want a much better book that deals with themes of mental illness much more subtly and effectively? Try reading House of Leaves.
24:00 well clearly James Joyce is pretty good, but I wouldn't go calling it the best literature ever, you know.
I agree. My schtick with deriding academics and "great literature" is mostly a character thing for CCC. I'm trying to present this information in a way that a non-academic audience can connect with easily and finding advanced literature to be inaccessible is something a lot of people can relate to. That being said, the bit about "... nobody actually expects you to enjoy reading them." was probably a little too derisive of those works.
I was just quoting Mecha ;) th-cam.com/video/Rr3nVu2Lz2g/w-d-xo.html
Oops
New video? Fuck yeah! ✊😤✊
I loved Metamorphosis. I never saw the theme of the book as too abstract; I took a different reading having to do with living as a disabled person instead of just a straight critique of capitalism. The intense feelings that the narrator felt are things that I have also felt. the way the family treats the narrator resonated with me because of the inherent and patronizing disgust that many able bodied people have towards disabled people. Just my thoughts.
That is certainly a defensible reading, however the various interpretations that were taught to me through university tended towards incorporating themes surrounding absurdism, existentialism, and a sociological critique of a capitalist society literally stripping away a person's humanity. There are many other interpretations as well, especially of the character relationships. The book has been discussed and dissected so much over the years that you can probably just interpret it however you want if you have a reasonable justification for it.
My example of Metamorphosis wasn't meant to be a degradation of the novel itself. I actually think it's a pretty good story. (Although in retrospect, I probably should've made that clearer in the video.) I was giving an example of a text that deals with some highly abstract topics that I thought the audience would have a good chance of being familiar with because I first encountered it in entry-level literature studies. This was actually added in the second-to-last draft, so if I probably could've come up with a better example.
Of course Shammy recommends me a channel that criticises books and that piques my interest because I haven't really found any book-based channels on youtube and the first video I see is a John Green Book Burning that's two hours long. God damnit, there's my night gone
Have you done a vid on stephen king?
No, and I doubt I will unless I find something interesting to talk about in his writing style and storytelling. I tend to only make videos on things I can talk about in an interesting way, regardless of how much I personally enjoyed them.
@@CloudCuckooCountry okay
Fucking finally! I'v missed this.
"Artzi Wankers" 10/10 IGN 💜
I similarly used to watch Crash Course a few years back. That changed, however, as I entered my 12th year and into AP Euro. My teacher despised Crash Course (and John Green in general) for making factually inaccurate videos. So much so, as an assignment, he told us to watch a specific Crash Course video, then read pages such and such through so and so in our books (sorry the specific video and pages escape me). Compare them, contrast them, find as many inaccuracies as possible for the next day. We had...alot to talk about and criticizes on that day, and my view of John Green's work has been tainted, past present and future. Anyway, the point to this is that I'm quite happy you're burning this book because after that day in AP Euro I saw John Green as profiting off misinformation and lazy research because he could, because he was "to big to topple". But seeing this makes me realize that it's not just our class, but many others that also have varying levels of disdain for him.
TL;DR: john green stinks of rotten eggs and his book stinks too
Take a shot every time he says tuatara
Didn't Hank also write a book or 2?
2:45 Your Shammy is showing.
I was here first fyi.
Interesting though this video was, I must confess that my only experience with John Green has been looking through Sci-Fi books on Amazon and being recommended Will Grayson Will Grayson. Which was confusing, to say the least.
2:49 so you’re not wearing pants
I thought the book you were talking about looked like a dr seuss book...idk why, just the picture in the thumbnail i guess lol
The Living Flame That's the gag
32:32 The voice-in-italics thing, to me, doesn't read as OCD, it reads like Schizophrenia. The voice speaks as a seperate entity, as you said. It throws me off when reading the passage because it feels like it conflicts with the self-authoring theme you talked about, as it isn't an unexplainable glitch in her head that causes her to feel like she has no control, but a nagging voice that convinces her she's wrong.
That's definitely a valid concern regarding how the invasive thoughts are represented by the literature. There was actually a discussion regarding this in early drafts of my video script, but they got cut because I didn't want to waste time diagnosing a fictional character. Considering I (and many readers familiar with John Green) knew going into the novel that it was about OCD, I think it's more appropriate to just accept that the character has OCD and ask whether or not the novel's representation of it is an empathetic or otherwise *useful* depiction, rather than trying to pinpoint exactly what's happening inside the protagonist's brain and what it would be medically classified as in reality - especially since severe OCD can have co-morbidity with other mental disorders anyway.
That being said, it's probably still worth asking whether or not your average reader, who doesn't know what the novel is about in advance, would recognise it as a representation of OCD simply by reading it. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to this.
I’ve been baited. I was expecting some
Libraries to catch fire C.C. >:(
Come again?
It’s THAT John Greene? WTF!?
me to
Yeah, won't be reading before review since the book's topic hits too close to home.
It might not be your thing, but will you ever review The Hunger Games Trilogy?
Probably not. I don’t have the creatively energy to intentionally read books to hate on them.
I didn't know how much I needed to hear someone rip into The Metamorphosis until I heard it at 34:23. I must say, it's rather hard to sympathize with the protagonist's plight when he never makes any attempt to correct or improve his situation over the course of the story. If anything, that book only made me more opposed to the author's existentialist viewpoint.
I actually still like Metamorphosis. My jibe is entirely because the shear abstract-ness of the theme makes it kinda inaccessible for casual reading, which can be said for most literature they make you read in literature classes.
I understand. Still, doesn't that reinforce your point that poor or uninteresting writing can muddle an author's intended message or themes?
I don't think I ever said that Green's messages or themes were "muddled". In fact, I said multiple times that they were clear and robust. Poor and uninteresting writing is bad just by definition. If you read a novel and the writing is bad, then that's a problem. Everything else can still be perfectly fine, but since you spend 100% of your time with a novel *reading*, it's more pleasurable and entertaining if the writing is of a high quality.
I'm sorry, what I meant by "muddled" was that lackluster writing can cause the reader to misunderstand or entirely miss the intended messages or themes. For example, I should have chosen better wording in my previous comment.
For sure. Thanks for clarifying.