Answer: read his books. It will happen sooner than you think.
It works like this. You start reading a Haruki Murakami book. It doesn’t matter which one. You’ll be blown away. You might even think he’s the best author you’ve ever read.
Then you’ll read a second, third, and fourth book. At some point, the bloom will leave the rose. You’ll become bored of his style, bored of alienated male characters eating spaghetti and listening to records, bored of the way he invokes the warmth of the Beatles and Respighi to cover up the emotional coldness of his stories. You might read a fifth book. But you definitely won’t think of him as the best author you’ve ever read.
I’ve had this experience many times.
When I was 7 I was a huge Goosebumps fan. It was revelatory that books could be as exciting as a cartoon. Somewhere in Goosebumps 2000, I started to wonder: why does he give his characters names? They are interchangeable. Call them “The Boy Character” and “The Girl Character”, “The Oblivious Father/Mother”, “The Bully”, and so on. Why not? Wouldn’t it save mental clock cycles if you didn’t need to figure out which character occupies what role in the story?
When I had this realisation, I could take no pleasure in Goosebumps. I’d seen what was behind the curtain. I started to feel a bit resentful, as if RL Stine had swindled me.
When I was 12 I read Stephen King. The realism of his stories appealed to me. No matter how bizarre and surreal they get, he never forgets to give his characters dry mouths and headaches.
But after many books, he lost me. I’ve read him for so long that I’ve learned all his tricks, and now he seems like RL Stine 2.0 – a sophisticated manipulation artist who presses buttons and jerks you around. I don’t hate him. Put me in a cell with Doctor Sleep and I’d read it. But only after I get bored with playing the cell bars like a xylophone.
When I was 22 I discovered Junji Ito. Extremely atmospheric and frightening HP Lovecraft-inspired manga. I read about 3,000 pages of his stuff, and then suddenly, lost interest. He can’t tell a story very well. I found myself speed-reading through the dialogue to get to the next gory image. I was desensitized to his good points, and chafed raw by his bad points.
Does this sound familiar?
It’s been said that Mad magazine was the last time anyone took fiction seriously. They exposed and deconstructed the machinery of telling stories, and it was now impossible to see a romance scene in a movie without thinking of the inevitable Mad parody. But truthfully you’ll arrive at that realisation without Mad, it just takes time.
Do you have a favourite author? Do you want him to remain your favorite author?
Then never read another of his books again. Not a single one. Even reading another word is contraindicated. You can’t allow the novelty to dissipate. You can’t allow yourself to realise that your favourite author sucks golf balls through a garden hose.
It’s sad how whole families are torn apart by simple things, like wild dogs – Jack Handey
Since the beginning, not one unusual thing has ever happened – The universal law
You know what they say the modern version of Pascal’s Wager is? Sucking up to as many Transhumanists as possible, just in case one of them turns into God. – Julie from Crystal Nights
When the axe came into the woods, the trees said: ‘But at least the handle is one of us.’ – Turkish proverb
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water – John W. Gardner
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible – Voltaire
Luck is statistics taken personally – Penn Jellete
Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. – Kurt Vonnegut
A good friend will always stab you in the front. – Oscar Wilde
I believe I have found the link between animals and civilized man. It’s us – Konrad Lorenz
Mr. Chamberlain likes to take weekends in the country. I shall take countries in the weekend — Adolf Hitler (apocryphal?)
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come. — Rabindranath Tagore
As a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every two hours and cried. – Ben Horowitz
We judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions – Ian Percy
He uses statistics as a drunkard uses a lamppost: for support, not for illumination – G.K. Chesterton
How delightful are the pleasures of the imagination! In those delectable moments, the whole world is ours; not a single creature resists us, we devastate the world, we repopulate it with new objects which, in turn, we immolate. The means to every crime is ours, and we employ them all, we multiply the horror a hundredfold. – Marquis de Sade
Luke McKinney is an Irish fella who writes annoying clickbait articles for Cracked, mostly of the “I Fucking Love Science” variety. At some point he also started a Twitter account. Unfortunately, chopping his writing into 140-character pieces was not enough to kill it.
Will Self said that Inception was “a stupid person’s idea of what an intelligent film is like.” Luke’s packaged Twitter quips are like that, too. Yes, they resemble jokes. You can find one part that looks like a setup, and then another part that looks like a punchline. But you don’t laugh. They’re always miscalibrated in some way.
He starts strong, then falls off his bike and shits himself. I didn’t react with laughter, I reacted by thinking “A game that realistically models infection and disease might actually be pretty fun. Someone should make one. What was the joke again?”
The tweet is phrased like a smackdown, but since what he’s saying doesn’t make much sense, it provokes confusion, not laughter. He lights the fuse, but the powder is wet. Meanwhile, check out his pandering opinions4u about #feminism.
#FEDORAS #DOUCHEBROS #SOLIDARITY #AMIRITELADIES #BEYONCE #JUSTCLICKTHERETWEETBUTTONPLEASE
As noted, he is a big fan of science…or is he? I sometimes wonder about these “SCIENCE IS FUCKING AWESOME” people. Do they really care that much? Or is it just a badge of identity, like how skinheads wear Doc Martens? Is their professed love of science just a way of feeling special and erudite and above all the other jackoffs regurgitating “rebellious” opinions online that are actually not very rebellious at all? Not that Luke McKinney would feel the need to do anything of the sort.
On the positive side, reading his twitter keeps you a safe OH&S-regulated distance from his articles…and his Oscar Wilde worthy prose…
Research lets you turn your soul into a fascination engine, consuming the output of human intelligence, living and breathing the very pinnacle of human progress. Then reaching out to push it a little bit further.
It lets you “breathe” the “pinnacle” of something, does it? I hope science is FUCKING AWESOME enough to drop a space rock on your head, fag.
