~~ the visceral aesthetic
Sep. 26th, 2005 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaIt's not really a confession, because I believe it's rather obvious, but: ever since I could read, I've been in love with words, and especially with the twisty images in them, the metaphors. I'd thought of myself as an aesthete, a stylist-- someone who looks for style in writing over other concerns by nature. My first favorites in the HP fandom were very metaphorical, imagistic writers-- just like in general, my favorite authors have been rather... heavy on the lyricism. My own writing had long been practically buried under an avalanche of metaphor and simile and analogy. And then... it kind of stopped. I don't remember, in fact, the last time I used a metaphor more than twice in any fic. It's sort of worrying, but also... odd.
On top of that... I have this weird feeling of impatience when I read metaphor and imagery-heavy writers, like say![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imochan with S/R-- I really enjoy it still, but it doesn't make me happy the way it used to. I feel the words are obfuscating rather than revealing. I have no great will to savor them so much as a desire to see through them to what's going on. And it's not-- definitely not-- that I care more about the 'action' or the plot these days. Because I don't.
Actually, that's just it-- that's what I realized.
I'm still an aesthete-- I still look at style first. The only difference is, my stylistic allegiances have shifted, and not actually towards realism, per se. It's just that now the old imagistic approach seems... too smooth, somehow. Too... oblique to capture the rawness and emotional power that I'm looking for. And that is my aesthetic, I think-- I'm always looking for that which is most visceral, most uncensored and vivid and bruised with emotional power.
That's why, I think-- that's why I'm so frustrated with the run of H/D I've been reading. Not even because it's OOC (though much of it is)-- but because its emotional goals and aesthetics are so different from what I'm after. I think that's why it's nearly hopeless for me after HBP-- because the aesthetics of sixth-book-inspired fics are just too far from where my heart lies, just as post-OoTP found most of fandom floundering, unable to connect emotionally to the very rawness and bloodthirsty viciousness that invigorated me.
It's not like I want everyone to be mean or actually cruel-- what I'm after is a sort of... ruthless kindness; beauty (and humanity) stripped to its barest essentials. Something balanced on the knife-edge of two extremes-- an epiphany, really; a state where pain and pleasure are means to the same end. It's just that I think we -are- all mean bastards, when stripped of defenses, or when forced to rely upon them. Not that I feel that people are entirely inherently selfish, but that their vulnerability and generosity and altruism shines brightest in the shadow of their mockery, their fear and their deceit. And in the end, if a writer of a drama fic doesn't show me that ugliness without either flinching or excusing it (ala most Dracofic), I will basically refuse to suspend my disbelief-- I will refuse, for instance, to believe that Harry is so understanding or that Draco is so reasonable, because it's just not true, at least in my experience of people.
It's sort of... a relief, realizing that it's not that I'm so bent on Draco being vicious-- it's that I always want everything to... well, sting. Not in that swoony-sadness melancholic way of roses in the rain, missed chances and lullabies for the dying or anything-- no, what I'm after isn't sadness (is it possible to be sick of sadness? if so then I am) but that furious feeling of being truly alive. Because I look for it in R/S fics, too-- I have that same fascination with Remus' bitterness that I do with Draco's, much as they express it differently, the same love of Sirius' temper as Harry's. I get frustrated when there's no playful friction between them (though some snarky!fluff always goes over well), as well as getting rather bored if they're just... all... civil and loving and not dysfunctional whenever they cohabitate. I'm like, that's nice, but... but... but....
This sort of brings me up short though, and makes me wonder just how much of what I look for in H/D is a question of personal aesthetics and how much is just how I see the characters, and whether it's even possible to separate these things by this point. I mean, it's very possible I don't like post-HBP fics because I simply don't like their most plausible dynamic post-HBP, so I can't blame the fics for not being likely in that case, now can I. I know I insist on non-limp-noodle!Draco (and non-limp-noodle!Harry plzkthnx!)... but where, exactly, does my bias end and sloppy writing begin?
(I definitely feel like a cat trying to catch her own tail here.)
Also:_lile's Sirius painting kind of... owns my soul. o_0 ...Oh wait, did I say I was over lyricism/imagism...? I was, um, just taking a break....
...And really, I have to say, 'Paddy' is second only to 'Siri' in awfulness. And reading old-school (pre-OoTP) James makes me laugh. Oh my god, stumbling dorky well-meaning Prefect!James. It's so hilarious it hurts, kinda. It's funnier that people -preferred- him, too. I mean, it doesn't even make sense that he was a Marauder in retrospect, in that case. Oh man. OoTP was really a Very Good Thing for R/S, fanfic-wise, clearly. And now I'm wondering if Sirius would've rather been dead than a soppy bastard called Paddy... and sometimes Siri....
On top of that... I have this weird feeling of impatience when I read metaphor and imagery-heavy writers, like say
imochan with S/R-- I really enjoy it still, but it doesn't make me happy the way it used to. I feel the words are obfuscating rather than revealing. I have no great will to savor them so much as a desire to see through them to what's going on. And it's not-- definitely not-- that I care more about the 'action' or the plot these days. Because I don't.Actually, that's just it-- that's what I realized.
I'm still an aesthete-- I still look at style first. The only difference is, my stylistic allegiances have shifted, and not actually towards realism, per se. It's just that now the old imagistic approach seems... too smooth, somehow. Too... oblique to capture the rawness and emotional power that I'm looking for. And that is my aesthetic, I think-- I'm always looking for that which is most visceral, most uncensored and vivid and bruised with emotional power.
That's why, I think-- that's why I'm so frustrated with the run of H/D I've been reading. Not even because it's OOC (though much of it is)-- but because its emotional goals and aesthetics are so different from what I'm after. I think that's why it's nearly hopeless for me after HBP-- because the aesthetics of sixth-book-inspired fics are just too far from where my heart lies, just as post-OoTP found most of fandom floundering, unable to connect emotionally to the very rawness and bloodthirsty viciousness that invigorated me.
It's not like I want everyone to be mean or actually cruel-- what I'm after is a sort of... ruthless kindness; beauty (and humanity) stripped to its barest essentials. Something balanced on the knife-edge of two extremes-- an epiphany, really; a state where pain and pleasure are means to the same end. It's just that I think we -are- all mean bastards, when stripped of defenses, or when forced to rely upon them. Not that I feel that people are entirely inherently selfish, but that their vulnerability and generosity and altruism shines brightest in the shadow of their mockery, their fear and their deceit. And in the end, if a writer of a drama fic doesn't show me that ugliness without either flinching or excusing it (ala most Dracofic), I will basically refuse to suspend my disbelief-- I will refuse, for instance, to believe that Harry is so understanding or that Draco is so reasonable, because it's just not true, at least in my experience of people.
It's sort of... a relief, realizing that it's not that I'm so bent on Draco being vicious-- it's that I always want everything to... well, sting. Not in that swoony-sadness melancholic way of roses in the rain, missed chances and lullabies for the dying or anything-- no, what I'm after isn't sadness (is it possible to be sick of sadness? if so then I am) but that furious feeling of being truly alive. Because I look for it in R/S fics, too-- I have that same fascination with Remus' bitterness that I do with Draco's, much as they express it differently, the same love of Sirius' temper as Harry's. I get frustrated when there's no playful friction between them (though some snarky!fluff always goes over well), as well as getting rather bored if they're just... all... civil and loving and not dysfunctional whenever they cohabitate. I'm like, that's nice, but... but... but....
This sort of brings me up short though, and makes me wonder just how much of what I look for in H/D is a question of personal aesthetics and how much is just how I see the characters, and whether it's even possible to separate these things by this point. I mean, it's very possible I don't like post-HBP fics because I simply don't like their most plausible dynamic post-HBP, so I can't blame the fics for not being likely in that case, now can I. I know I insist on non-limp-noodle!Draco (and non-limp-noodle!Harry plzkthnx!)... but where, exactly, does my bias end and sloppy writing begin?
(I definitely feel like a cat trying to catch her own tail here.)
Also:
_lile's Sirius painting kind of... owns my soul. o_0 ...Oh wait, did I say I was over lyricism/imagism...? I was, um, just taking a break.......And really, I have to say, 'Paddy' is second only to 'Siri' in awfulness. And reading old-school (pre-OoTP) James makes me laugh. Oh my god, stumbling dorky well-meaning Prefect!James. It's so hilarious it hurts, kinda. It's funnier that people -preferred- him, too. I mean, it doesn't even make sense that he was a Marauder in retrospect, in that case. Oh man. OoTP was really a Very Good Thing for R/S, fanfic-wise, clearly. And now I'm wondering if Sirius would've rather been dead than a soppy bastard called Paddy... and sometimes Siri....
