Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmath.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!jagardner
From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Wounded Land series
Message-ID: <15185@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Jun-85 10:56:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.15185
Posted: Thu Jun 20 10:56:25 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Jun-85 23:41:15 EDT
References: <2261@topaz.ARPA> <225@luke.UUCP>
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 42

In article <225@luke.UUCP> steven@luke.UUCP (Steven List) writes:
>
>The biggest problem I have with Donaldson's dual trilogy (other than the
>depressing, frustrating, aggravating nature of the main character) is
>his use of language.  I don't object to being forced to look up an
>occasional new word or twenty.  But GIVE ME A BREAK.  Donaldson seems to
>be incapable of writing two pages without introducing a word that nobody
>I know has ever heard of!

I, on the other hand, was familiar with almost all of the words
Donaldson used in the Covenant books AND HE USED THEM INCORRECTLY!
Donaldson seemed to be writing from a dictionary, finding interesting
words and misusing them because he didn't really have a feel for them.

Now before the flames start, I would like to say what I did the last
time the Covenant books came up here.  I read them eagerly as soon as
I could get my hands on them, despite a prose-style that brought me to
tears on occasion.  Why?  Two reasons.

First reason.  Story-telling ability is independent of writing ability
in some people.  This is true for Donaldson (and on the opposite end of
the verbiage spectrum, Doc Smith).  Donaldson grotesquely overwrites;
Doc Smith couldn't write a believable piece of dialogue if his life
depended on it.  Yet when reading both writers, I ALWAYS WANTED TO FIND OUT
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.  Nothing to sneer at, and certainly enough to make
a career out of.

Second reason.  NOBODY in any branch of literature (that I have read)
can match Donaldson for vileness.  Everyone else is a bush-leaguer
compared to him: constantly despicable protagonists surrounded by
even worse antagonists with just enough virtuous characters on the
periphery to make the others seem worse in contrast.  I am honest in
praising him for this, not coyly insulting him.  The creation of so
many exasperatingly loathesome characters is a true achievement that
no other writer (to my knowledge) has matched.  Perhaps we readers
would usually prefer to read books that instilled positive emotions,
but instilling powerful negative emotions is just as valid an
accomplishment.

				Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo