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Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

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Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#31

Post by emseetech »

defrost wrote: post #21
ByQuyzzy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently reading Turris Babel in the original Latin. What books are you into? You will be judged by your answer, and assumed to be a non-reader if you don't reply.

It's a toss up between Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive by David Mowaljarlai and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar for me. Readers who like Kircher might also enjoy: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=C0iGO0Hr95UC and triple check his math .. it gets pretty wonky.

> Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive by David Mowaljarlai

This looks incredible. Going to add it to my (always expanding) list.

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#32

Post by sandspar »

forgotmyinfo wrote: post #20
ByQuyzzy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every school library in the US has 120 copies of this book. I'm just wondering how many non-school / library buyers there were. If her success is government-mandated, it can easily be discounted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#33

Post by defrost »

emseetech wrote: post #31
defrost wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a toss up between Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive by David Mowaljarlai and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar for me. Readers who like Kircher might also enjoy: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=C0iGO0Hr95UC and triple check his math .. it gets pretty wonky.

> Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive by David Mowaljarlai This looks incredible. Going to add it to my (always expanding) list.

Your mileage may vary, I enjoyed it :)

Obit: https://australianarchaeologicalassociation.com.au/journal-c...

Artwork: https://www.aasd.com.au/artist/1861-david-banggal-mowaljarla...

Short trailer for a movie filmed in David's country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJv1AVvPK3Q

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#34

Post by hyperthesis »

> show don’t tell [...] she informed one writer that their “story is certainly worth telling,” but they “describe people and events from a distance instead of dramatizing them, developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are instead of being told.”

The second part of the quote (from "developing...") seems to be saying tell don't show. Is the quote mangled or I am misparsing?

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#35

Post by synecdoche »

worddepress wrote: post #30
dragonwriter wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was assigned to read many books in schools, but I was never forced to read any of them.

A stern letter to your parents if you don't might count as force.

This depends on perspective and agency. In my opinion there is nothing you must do in this life, as in forced by others, unless physically unable to resist. You can consider the consequences and make a more or less informed choice. The point being, the choice is yours and noone else is to be blamed for the consequences.

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#36

Post by markoman »

sandspar wrote: post #29
presbyterian wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She’s a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, National Book Critics Circle Award, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters; one of the most celebrated writers in American literature. I understand that you may not personally like the book of hers you read, but to suggest that people read her just because the…

Awards are a racket that perpetuate themselves by making money for a constellation of editors, magazines, and talk shows. They have little to do with talent and even less to do with readability. How many of the Academy Awards Best Picture nominees over the last five years has the average person watched and enjoyed? Book awards are even more out of touch. Also do you honestly think that winning the Presidential Medal…

I think you're going to have connect a lot more dots than that to prove that type of conspiracy. These awards are heralded year after year because of their reliability in giving people what they expect out of an award, whether they're forward looking (for predicting future success) or more backward-looking. There is some flexibility in how people judge deservedness for them.

You can at least concede that when it comes to Toni Morrison, its not like she only won a couple of isolated awards. She won a long string of them, and is one of the most decorated American writers of the last 80 years. One of her books, Beloved, was made into a movie by Oprah. There are plans to make a second book (Sula) into a movie or series as well.

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#37

Post by halayli »

presbyterian wrote: post #5
ByQuyzzy wrote: post #3

I was forced to read her book in school, I didn't care for it. One wonders what percentage of her readers read her willingly.

She’s a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, National Book Critics Circle Award, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters; one of the most celebrated writers in American literature. I understand that you may not personally like the book of hers you read, but to suggest that people read her just because the…

Not taking sides but this is argument from authority fallacy. Whether she is a Nobel Prize winner or not is irrelevant to answering OP's comment and whether her books are page turners or majority find them uninteresting.

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#38

Post by ryanjshaw »

halayli wrote: post #37
presbyterian wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She’s a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, National Book Critics Circle Award, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters; one of the most celebrated writers in American literature. I understand that you may not personally like the book of hers you read, but to suggest that people read her just because the…

Not taking sides but this is argument from authority fallacy. Whether she is a Nobel Prize winner or not is irrelevant to answering OP's comment and whether her books are page turners or majority find them uninteresting.

All you have to do is go on Rotten Tomatoes and compare the professional critic's rating with the audience rating.

If your preferences generally align with professional critics, you are in the minority as far as I can tell - at least for movies.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for books, vindicating OP, but I don't know of an appropriate data source that could settle this.

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#39

Post by [deleted] »

hyperthesis wrote: post #34

> show don’t tell [...] she informed one writer that their “story is certainly worth telling,” but they “describe people and events from a distance instead of dramatizing them, developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are instead of being told.” The second part of the quote (from "developing...") seems to be saying tell don't show. Is the quote mangled or I am misparsing?

[deleted]

Re: Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

#40

Post by aprilthird2021 »

ByQuyzzy wrote: post #3

I was forced to read her book in school, I didn't care for it. One wonders what percentage of her readers read her willingly.

Since no one else has asked, what did you not like about it? I found the magic realism look towards, specifically, racially segregated chattel slavery and the generations who lived in the shadow of it was a very interesting mix of ideas. I remember her stories being beautiful and horrifying, her prose being precise while being fantastical, and her style and story material being quite unique.

Would love to know what you didn't like. Perhaps I have a rose-tinted view of reading those books long ago

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