Hi Edward Thanks for reading through it! Brilliant feedback, and you're so right - I do have trouble with the characters, especially the brothers, and Richard does mostly disappear half way through (I hadnt spotted that!). Also the family/ parents as well, maybe I should bring them back somehow! Also good to get into the heads of the baddies/ the bankers ... you're right.
There are some far fetched bits- in some ways the aluminium bit is a joke, but then I am in sort of social realist territory. And his being clubbed to death by a banker is pretty surreal! Maybe I should work on making these more realistic. I did rush the murder scene, so will have another go at that. Thanks again Edward, this is really helpful! cheers, dave On 16 May 2011 18:44, Edward Picot <edw...@edwardpicot.com> wrote: > Dave - > > It's a bit far-fetched. The aluminium in aluminium pans is released by > cooking highly acidic food in them - the example always quoted is > boiling rhubarb. I don't think boiling or frying potatoes or a > potato-and-flour dough would do the trick. That's leaving on one side > the question of health-and-safety inspections. And the idea of a mob of > London bankers pursuing a drunken Irishman through the city streets in > order to beat him to death is also a bit hard to swallow. > > The characters are rather undifferentiated from each other, Richard > disappears out of the story about halfway through, and there's no > insight into the mindset of the bankers. As far as the story's concerned > they're just the bad guys - but of course bankers don't see themselves > in this way. To make a story like this really interesting you have to be > able to get inside the heads of the baddies as well as the goodies. > > Having said this, the story has got certain good things going for it. > It's extremely readable. It moves fast from one development to the next. > The slightly-unhinged Danny is an interesting character, with both good > and bad aspects to him, which helps to give the narrative a feeling of > moral complexity (good people can do bad things when they're under > pressure), and this stops it from being too simplistic. You do convey a > real sense of how economic conditions can drastically change people's > lives. You've also got some quite nice thematic links going on - they > way Joey's bad dream comes true at the end of the story, and the idea > that "repetition is the key", which crops up a number of times. > > - Edward > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
