!

heh-heh...buttina

bow wow wow

Hey dudes. I’m jumping on here finally, I kind of held off initially just so people could post their thoughts without feeling weird that I was gonna comment on everything and so on. But now it seems like most people have read it (at least among those who have registered on here) so maybe we can talk a little bit more in-depth about what worked and what didn’t. I mean that’s the only way I’m gonna learn, right… oh and by the way there will probably be some SPOILERS in case you haven’t read it all.

Re: Ed’s comment about Art Hellman’s development throughout the book, or lack thereof. When I was writing I had some characters in mind from the start (Jenny, Dawson, Burgle, Hellman) but others (Bob Brad, Bale, Bullweather, Francisco, photographer) kind of just came along and ended up being major characters as opposed to some of the other people who were in and out in one chapter, more or less. But even the characters I had in mind from the beginning, I didn’t feel like I really “knew” them until well into writing the book, or even toward the end. (By “knowing” I mean having an idea of what they’d do in any given situation.)

So one of the hard parts was revealing a character’s way of thinking as I went along, to keep things moving even when there might not be action, but also trying to show some kind of “development” or growth by the end of the story. some of the characters (Dawson especially) didn’t really learn anything or do any growing as people, and that’s fine. Others I tried to have change a little bit, but nothing that went against their nature or whatever—Jenny kind of coming out of his surly shell, Burgle making an effort to do the right thing for his father/family and growing to tolerate bob brad, Bale getting in touch with her emotional side toward the end, etc. With Art Hellman I kind of tried to demonstrate him overcoming his fear toward the water/ocean and putting those demons behind him, so to speak. I think it works if you look at it a certain way, but from other perspectives it probably doesn’t look like he came very far as a character. But that’s okay, I don’t think every character needs to have their own personal revelation, and besides a few people have told me there are a lot of characters in the book anyway—I never really thought there were THAT many, but then again I wrote it, so I have a different perspective on it.

Something Fran mentioned to me, which I kind of struggled with, was the “parts” the book is divided into. Most of them, it made sense to have some kind of separation between one and the other, but then there’s that one that’s like 150 pages and another one that’s 110 or so, I think, while most of the others are around 50. Did anybody notice this? Did it bother anybody? Most of the sectioning was done as I went along, without really paying attention to that stuff, but going over it again after I was finished writing and revising it kind of irritated me, but by that point I just wanted to wrap the damn thing up and couldn’t be arsed to rehash all the parts and besides, they still kind of made sense where they were.

Anyhow, replay away plz

WARNING, THIS POST MAY CONTAIN'S NO SPOILERS
[Eddie RE-edited it back]
Seeing as how I caught on many of the inside-jokes and the autobiographical nature of the author's story, it's hard for me be an impartial, un-assuming, book club dude. Therefore, I probably won't be much help to the discussion....but...top three favorite characters:

3) Art Hellman (dialog reminded me of a certain neighbor of mine.)
2) Shelia Bale (i made out with a shelia once)
1) Delos Brazos (who could say no?)

My one character critique: Most of the characters' personalities were easy to nail down and most were developed by the end of the book...except for Art Hellman. He seemed more or less a faceless, talking head. There. I said it. WWWooooo!

I know it's kinda predictable, but I like Cap'n J. Mostly for his stoicism. I also like characters I can dislike, so Jack Dawson is another fave. Plus his dialogue is the most ridiculous IMO.

who's your fav character?

im partial to Art (because of his dialogue), and i really like the photographer when he's explaining how he became part of the butlers.

being in norway with all the ships made reading this book that much radder!

more 'indepthanalysis' to follow

mooks

If it does become a movie I think STV SLV should make a cameo as the burly man in aviators from Hellman's childhood. Seriously, when I read that part I kept imagining STV saying his lines.

books are so gay

i don't read a lot of books, really. probably 4-6 a year, usually fiction in a similar vein. i thought "wet" was totally enjoyable, and once i got into it i really got caught up in all the characters and how their stories were intertwining. the humor was so unexpected at times which was an overtone of the whole book, making it certainly classifiable under comedy or humor or something in that umbrella. the asides in italics were a clever and interesting break from the regular format, and it was cool to see them get a persona at the end of the book. the alternate-dimension bird characters are pretty incredible. i think this book should get turned into a movie. bill murray will play art hellman, and catherine keener will play sheila bale.