Ok I had a thought last night that may not be very coherent this morning, so bear with me.

A story is best half-told. The art of good storywriting is allowing the reader to flesh it out with details that are personal to themselves.

For example, if I was to describe the room I am in now, I would be better to say 'I am sitting in a window alcove, watching the sea crash against the rocks as I type. The sun is blanching the white walls around me'; and let you fill in the details, than to describe in more precice detail:

'from my window-alcove, where I have fitted an MDF desk, I type out a diatribe on torpor whilst watching the waves crash against the rocks, approx. 20m high, roughly 200m away at the end of the street, at brown's peninsula. It is hot and the sun is shining with great strength through my window. The roof (as this is an attic room) towards the window slants at roughly 45 degrees, and the white-painted, cracked supports either side of myself and the window are shining painfully.'

... or perhaps not, I dunno.

Anyway my point is; I recently read a description of torture in a book by Richard Morgan (debut) called 'Altered Carbon' that was very gratuitous. Until last night, when I finished 1984, I thought it was the most disturbing description of torture ever.

The gist of the torture was a man was waking up in the body of a menstruating teenager, and then being tortured with a long, hot iron rod in a convenient place, and a blow torch until his (her?) heart stopped and then he would wake up in a new teenager's body etc. etc.

Whereas the 1984 torture is a lot less pronounced or detailed, yet far more effective. I put this down (of course) to great story-telling: there was no science-fiction spin on it, the torture was as it is performed today; and described in just enough lack of detail to let your mind fill in the gaps in your own, personally terrifying way.

Hot rod in the vagina.. sounds a lot like a scene in de Sade's Judith, which also involved boiling water.

Ouchie.

Posted by locust from 203.59.48.253 @ 03/31/2003 04:46 AM CST

maybe 1984 was just a better book so every part of it affected you more.. including the less-sketched-out torture

Posted by mewse from 24.85.15.200 @ 03/31/2003 10:55 PM CST