Van Irie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yvannairie) wrote2018-12-15 01:51 pm
yvannairie) wrote2018-12-15 01:51 pm
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Instead of doing anything more topical, I reread 17776 again.
The last time I read it, I was left with a vaguely hopeful feeling. It has this tone I can't quite nail down, it's kind of... post-existentialist, and matter-of-fact about things that are frankly impossible. The world in it is not really good or bad, but because we never see the bad things I kind of. I don't know. I latched onto the idea that it was about. And there's really no wrong answer with a text so layered.
And I guess as someone who was at the time going through the bad things, that's just what I needed to take away from it. I mean, I cried, but I felt good after it was over, it was cathartic crying. This time I cried a lot harder and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't know what my takeaway is, other than it ends with a "but". It's emotional dissonance. I feel good and I feel bad and I don't think either of those is the right reaction.
Can uncertainty be cathartic?
Anyway 17776 totally holds up, it is very well-written throughout and has good characterisation and you know, it thrills me as a scripwriter to see people wrestle with how to represent the pace at which conversations evolve. I do that a lot, I write out the continuity of the conversation and I'm super impressed how the authors managed to get that rhythm across without having to resort to flavouring it. It's very "pure" writing, I enjoy that sort of thing. Not every story needs to be that way but I really like seeing people do interesting things with the media.
Also, the emotional beats still work. There's a lot more of them that work better now. I've been to Central Park, and I was kind of numb to the idea of it being miles underwater but this time I got where Nine was coming, saying they wanted to see it. I started crying when the Bulb broke and cried all the way to the end of the story.
There's a continuity of emotions, but unlike Nine, we don't get to hibernate on them so much. There's a lot the text posits about humanity which is hard to understand and hard to believe but you kind of. You want to believe it, in a way. That's where the ambivalence comes from.
It's beautiful.
It's beautiful.
Go read it if you haven't.
And I guess as someone who was at the time going through the bad things, that's just what I needed to take away from it. I mean, I cried, but I felt good after it was over, it was cathartic crying. This time I cried a lot harder and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't know what my takeaway is, other than it ends with a "but". It's emotional dissonance. I feel good and I feel bad and I don't think either of those is the right reaction.
Can uncertainty be cathartic?
Anyway 17776 totally holds up, it is very well-written throughout and has good characterisation and you know, it thrills me as a scripwriter to see people wrestle with how to represent the pace at which conversations evolve. I do that a lot, I write out the continuity of the conversation and I'm super impressed how the authors managed to get that rhythm across without having to resort to flavouring it. It's very "pure" writing, I enjoy that sort of thing. Not every story needs to be that way but I really like seeing people do interesting things with the media.
Also, the emotional beats still work. There's a lot more of them that work better now. I've been to Central Park, and I was kind of numb to the idea of it being miles underwater but this time I got where Nine was coming, saying they wanted to see it. I started crying when the Bulb broke and cried all the way to the end of the story.
There's a continuity of emotions, but unlike Nine, we don't get to hibernate on them so much. There's a lot the text posits about humanity which is hard to understand and hard to believe but you kind of. You want to believe it, in a way. That's where the ambivalence comes from.
It's beautiful.
It's beautiful.
Go read it if you haven't.