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/lit/ - Literature

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799548 No.799548 [Reply] [Original]

>Novelists can't resist including a dog barking in the distance

http://www.slate.com/id/2256007/

>> No.799556

yeh I read it .

also are you the only poster who uses these MoMA photos? cos you make a lot of threads...

>> No.799558

So true. This is classic. Just like Harold Bloom's observation about J.K. Rowling "streaching her character's legs" more times then he could count.

Modern authors are running short on phraseology..

>> No.799566

... So? Most novelists also include references to clouds in the sky. Why should we take it as a sign of lazy or cliched thinking that the most common things in real life are also common in fiction?

>You're thinking, "So what if novels are full of barking dogs? The world is full of them, too." But I don't find it curious when actual dogs turn up in novels. Dogs that authors bother to describe, or turn into characters, don't pull me out of my reading trance. The thing is, these so-called dogs are nameless and faceless, and frankly I doubt them; it's the curious incident when one actually does come into view. Really, are there so many out-of-sight, noisy dogs in the world?

I hear a dog barking at least twice a day. I don't see many dogs, except for my own, but I can't go a whole day without hearing this one dog that lives in a house down the street. I don't know what it looks like, I don't know its name, but I know what it sounds like.

What do you know, it just barked.

>> No.799568

>>799566
herp derp

>> No.799571
File: 28 KB, 400x300, barking-dog.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
799571

>> No.799572

ｗ Ｗ Ｗ . A n O ｎ _ Ｚ _ Ｔ Ａ l Ｋ . s ｅ _ ｒ e m ｏ ｖ e _ ｚ axlgpmlmutxln sop lqk gbc ij eacqtpepf

>> No.799573

Your art is transcendent!

Beautiful!

>> No.799574

>>799568

Gosh you sure proved me wrong.

>> No.799580

>>799574
that's all i heard 'cos you failed to understand the article.

>> No.799586

>>799566

Most people also shit at least a couple times a day, but how often are we graced with riveting prose about a character's bowel movements?

>> No.799592

>>799586
exactly

herp derp

its about selective observations

>> No.799600

>>799580

There's a reason I quoted what I quoted.

>>799586

A bowel movement takes a lot longer and doesn't have the same atmospheric and sensual effect that a barking dog has.

>> No.799602

What an interesting article! I've never really noticed an overuse of barking dogs in a novel. Of course, I live in a semi-rural area and I constantly hear dogs barking - in fact, a dog's howling across the road right now.
However, it's quite true that there are much more common sounds that many authors overlook. Planes, helicopters, the drone of traffic, random thuds and bumps. I agree with the article's author in that barking dogs do have less inherent meaning, which leaves more room for interpretation.
Why get so annoyed by it, though? I don't see how reading about a barking dog would negatively affect your enjoyment of the novel in question. Of course, now that I've read this article and thought a tiny bit about it, I'm sure to be distracted by every dog I read about.

>> No.799617

>Charlaine Harris, queen of the vampire authors, in Dead as a Doornail: "The entire parking lot was empty, except for Jan's car. The glare of the security lights made the shadows deeper. I heard a dog bark way off in the distance."

>vampire writer
>shadows deeper
>suggestion of something invisible but present
>this is definitely a "narrative rest stop"

>The chief of Scandinavian crime writers, Henning Mankell: "She begins to tell him. The curtain in the kitchen window flutters gently, and a dog barks in the distance" (The Eye of the Leopard).

>crime writer
>a confession
>a suggestion of a voice coming over a wide distance
>this is definitely a "narrative rest stop"

>"During our worst dreams we are assured by a dog barking somewhere, a refrigerator motor kicking on, that we will soon wake to true life."

>he explicitly states the purpose of the dog
>gosh this is terrible

>> No.799643

>Farmer Brown froze in his tracks; the cows stared wide-eyed back at him. Somewhere, off in the distance, a dog barked.

>> No.799652

>He stared into her eyes. They were as blue as the ocean, and her hair was as golden as corn. Suddenly a dog barked.

>> No.799680
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799680

Timothy Zahn likes his lip twisting, cheek biting, finger squeezing and lip curls.

Getting through this series is fucking murder.

>> No.799682

>>799680
I've always hated 'lip twisting'. Just sounds painful

>> No.799689
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799689

>>799682

>> No.799750

There was also a short Onion article, "Novelist thinks people shrug way more than they actually do." Seems true to me. People don't shrug that much but they shrug all the time in novels. I don't think there are much more shrug-worthy moments in novels than there are in real life, either.

>> No.799759

>>799586

Not nearly often enough, my friend. Not nearly often enough.