Skip to main content

On the best writers

The stuff that writers come up with is insane. These guys can take a character and do what they please with it. They make characters so real, so well realized that real life seems pale by comparison. The best writers all have this quality. They have this quality of prose, the way they write, they compel you to read, to invest yourself in the characters, the story. The pages become more than a picture can show, more than the best movie can capture, indeed each page takes on a life of its own. Robert Kirkman does this as well as anyone, develops characters but keeps them ambiguous as well so they can do anything at any point of time. Margaret Atwood could write about someone eating shit and it'd still come out like poetry. Douglas Adams and Wodehouse have such a profound sense of humour, you could read a page of theirs and think about how they wrote it and nobody could figure out how they did it. I mean it took ages for people to realize that Wodehouse was a great writer. What do you say about Neil Gaiman, an author with an imagination so profound that nobody else comes even remotely close to what he does. Graphic novels, novels, short stories, any genre bring it on, Neil Gaiman could probably fuck each of those in the ass, live to talk about it and be rolling with money by the end of it all.

Ponder upon this, movies constantly seem dated, Star Wars effects must have seemed cool at the time but they are nothing in comparison to what we can do now, music of the earlier era seems badly produced but you read something and you cannot possibly say which era it came from. A science fiction book written in the 1950s could be as prescient now as it was back then. Childhood’s End with its treatment of the overlords seems as good today as it must have in 1950s. To kill a mocking bird is still as powerful a story as it was then. Harry Potter will continue to fascinate all for a long time to come. Indeed movies may grow old but books seldom age and survive generations.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Murgi’s fun facts

This one goes out to Mrigank Gupta aka Murgi. Murgi is such an awesome dude that even Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth can’t hold a candle to him. Below are Some facts that are indeed facts When Murgi was an infant he changed his own diapers Murgi was born toilet trained Murgi is actually the eldest in his house. He let the others enter this world before him When Murgi was born he got his own birth certificate from the doctor’s office Murgi never sits idle. He is just pretending to be like us Murgi never listens to excuses on the phone. He simply tells you what to do and disconnects. When Murgi will finally take a vacation the world will stop spinning While Chuck Norris counted to infinity twice, Murgi had already finished counting thrice and was solving everyone else's problems. Natural selection does not apply to Murgi. (Courtesy Ikka) Murgi caught an electron at rest.(Courtesy Ikka) When Arthur Eddington was asked if he really believed there were just three peop...

Places to eat in Kanpur

Our real exploration of Kanpur began in our 5th year when we had our stipend to spend so hopefully this article will prove helpful to all the foodies out there. Surprisingly(and I really mean this) there are a number of terrific places to eat in Kanpur. Hopefully this article will prove helpful to many who are looking forward to spend their stipends. By far the best way to reach places to eat in Kanpur is to catch the bus that the institute provides. The bus runs everyday(except Sunday) at 8:00 pm and 9:00 pm. The bus returns at around 10:15 pm. Murgi(Our food and snacks Coordinator, every wing should have one) always takes the phone number of the conductor so that he can stay updated about where the bus is and so that the return is convenient. The bus service is really a life saver and unless you have a bike should be the first option. It is also better to roam during weekdays than weekends simply because there is lesser ruckus everywhere. Going to a restaurant on a weekend is an ab...

The travails of a frustrated compiler

I was thinking about what would happen in case a compiler becomes sentient. Rather than just translating code it would be able to understand things but I suppose because the programs are written by humans are so often wrong the best part would be the error messages. Here are a few I could think of "Hello World again and again. Do you know how many times I have had to print that bloody nonsense. You can do anything else, print your name for gods sake but it always has to Hello fucking World." "Look Lad, not so fast, take a step back, a deep breath and your fingers away from the keyboard, and now think for a second" "Son, you have been trying to do this for an hour now. Honestly speaking you are not cut out to be a programmer. I would suggest you look for the nearest river or the tallest building or best of all find something you are better at" "Does any decent person code at this time in the morning. How would you feel if I dragged you out of your slee...