Rules for Writing Fiction

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by Bleak&Icy

Quote Originally Posted by qcrisp One writer's choice in the article linked to of The Temptation of St. Anthony as a bad book (a book I've been meaning to read for a long time) only makes me want to read it more. I thought you might enjoy Lovecraft's opinion of Flaubert: "Gustave Flaubert ably continued the tradition of Gautier in orgies of poetic phantasy like The Temptation of St. Anthony, and but for a strong realistic bias might have been an arch-weaver of tapestried terrors." -- Supernatural Horror In Literature

Yeah. I loved Salammbo, too, which the guy I mentioned also disparaged to a degree. So, I'm with Lovecraft here to some extent, but, I have a feeling that Flaubert's more realistic pieces were him playing with realism. Personally, I like that idea. It's too late for me to be articulate about this, but I really love artists who are able to take some delight in their work as a kind of artifact in itself, like the idea you can produce 'realism' as an artifact...

As I said, too late to be articulate.