{"id":2353,"date":"2012-05-21T18:36:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T22:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/?p=2353"},"modified":"2015-07-15T12:03:26","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T16:03:26","slug":"shut-up-cassandra-clare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/2012\/05\/21\/shut-up-cassandra-clare\/","title":{"rendered":"SHUT UP, Cassandra Clare!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Cassandra-Clare\/e\/B001JRXWE4\/ref=sr_tc_ep?qid=1337638878\">Cassandra Clare<\/a> writes popular YA fantasy series. I have no problem with that; in fact, I enjoy them as mind candy. I really wish she would stop quoting British literature, though. In the Infernal Devices series, a quotation from some British novel or poetry begins <i>every single <\/i>chapter for no apparent reason. Furthermore, the characters spew poetry at inopportune intervals too. Why? Why? Why?<\/p>\n<p>This incessant quoting serves no purpose. The pre-chapter quotes relate, sometimes in very strained, tangential ways, to the events in the chapter, but that&#39;s it. The characters&#39; useless quotations do nothing to further the reader&#39;s understanding of the story or the characters, unless your understanding is furthered by knowing that the protagonist likes books. There&#39;s no thematic, sustained, interesting, clever or relevant treatment of the quotes or the works they&#39;re from. They don&#39;t do anything except waste space. At best, they prove the author&#39;s prowess in Googling public domain works of literature. Must be some sort of self-congratulatory textual porn for English majors whose intellectual achievements peaked with their close reading of Dickens&#39; <i>Great Expectations<\/i> [snore] during their sophomore year at a small New England liberal arts college.<\/p>\n<p>As an English major from a small New England liberal arts college [ask me about my close reading of Emily Dickinson!], I&#39;m real impressed. :p<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cassandra Clare writes popular YA fantasy series. I have no problem with that; in fact, I enjoy them as mind candy. I really wish she would stop quoting British literature, though. In the Infernal Devices series, a quotation from some British novel or poetry begins every single chapter for no apparent reason. Furthermore, the characters&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/2012\/05\/21\/shut-up-cassandra-clare\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">SHUT UP, Cassandra Clare!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[696,639],"class_list":["post-2353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books-that-piss-me-off","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5340,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions\/5340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}