Uh, the OP here.
I've recently discovered that for me it's very important to know who are the people that are behind my favourite works (be it music, film or literature), so I thought it'd be right for me to reveal finally why the hell I made this thread and what my previous post means.
Well, the answer is kind of simple. That passage was intended by me as an introduction for a story that I was going to write, and didn't have any meaning beyond a simple recounting of some event in the story. The way it was posted was really an experiment, and I hope no one is going to have anything against me for being made a participant of it against their will. The goal of the experiment was to find out how much attention a lone, unexplained (and hopefully, mysterious) thread could attract.
Well, I take the results of the experiment to be very promising, although I acknowledge that a large part of the discussion wasn't about the first post. But in any case, based on these results I've got a suggestion to any forumites that might be intending to post their literary works for critique on the forums. If you see promise in your creation, do not add any explanation to it. And partially because, having read a number of threads where authors seek criticism, and having made a couple myself, I suspect that most authors sound just whiny this way. After all, if you're looking for critique from other people, you are supposed to have found no flaws with your work yourself, or at least no ways to correct it. It's good enough for you, so have courage to show it as a fruit of creativity and toil (also, critique as the intended purpose takes much away from the immersion, I think, and your readers might find flaws where otherwise they would have slipped by, consumed by the narrative).
That was my one point. The other point is who I am who dared to impose his riddles on you with his thread.
It'd be easier to answer it, relating the answers to some of your opinions on the meaning of the first post.
As I said, the passage (or, as some have called it, a poem, although it was not composed as such, even if it may share some traits of structure with poetry) didn't have any meaning beyond narration. And so, no sexuality. I think I wouldn't even dare to bring such matters in my writing here. I'm not a man as free with it as some, probably due to some extent to my provincial Russian origins, where I like to think we're still a bit medieval. And in large part due to my religious issues. Until a couple of years ago I, having been brought up as an orthodox christian, had a big torment within me, as I tried to bring together my religion and my body. In the end, the latter won. But even if now I try to have sexuality in my speech it usually sounds awkward. To it adds the fact that I've had no success with women. So, you wouldn't get very mature writing if I wanted to bring up sexuality.
Another opinion was about war. Well, other things I brought from my religious torment and other experiences are some pessimism, fatalism and misanthropy (or people, probably, would call them that). So, I do not say that violence is the answer, but on the other hand - and it could probably make me very unpopular here - I think that WWII was over half a century ago, and if it were Middle Ages we would already be commemorating the end of some plague in place of WWII's end; that people die every day and despite all the wars we get more and more populous, to the point of a crisis; that in the end everything turns to dust, and dust rules the universe, not man, and such small matters as wars do not make even ripples on it.
So, no, I wouldn't push my opinion on war strongly in my writing.
But now, what? The passage has no subtle meaning, no magic? No. I just thought the wording, the style would catch the reader's eye, entice him or her to read further, I felt that the reader needs something unusual. Yet, I've found that the story itself was quite ordinary, and what's worse, didn't fit my current opinions. It was a thing that I made up as a teenager, and thought it was quite epic. No I think that epic is not enough.
So, I'm leaving the passage the way it is, and strip it of its further story... See? If you liked it, I give it to you as a present. If it fits well onto your anti-war banner, let the cries be of innocent civilians. If you're planning a small-scale sexual revolution, let the flaming spear... be whatever you... desire. Even in my mind I'm stripping it of its background, so it may be that crystal-clear stream of thought some in this thread have wished it to be.
Anyway, this is the explanation, and I hope I've made piecewise happy with it.
Now I'm tired and need to sleep.
P.S. Well, that final bit went a little out of hand. Got a little too self-congratulatory, it seems. But you've gotta finish on a high note.
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Topic: Away. (Read 6000 times)