Monday, May 14, 2007

Saturday Knight Fever

The `Passing Sentence’ Project Gets Critiqued

As promised, here is the critique of the Passing Sentence project, by well-known Toronto-based book critic Lotus Reads. She gives us a definite thumbs-up, while this wonderful caricature - neatly capturing the spirit of the unusual story - comes from another popular blogger, McGlinch.

Over to Lotus Reads ....

When David proposed the Passing Sentence challenge, I will admit I was very curious to see what shape the story would take. The starting prompt, "It was a dark and stormy knight" seemed like the perfect opening for a story in the Gothic romance or thriller genre, so I was pretty tickled when with the introduction of Sir Grabalot in the second line we were led into an enchanting, comedic, medieval tale of quirky knights and ladies, knaves and squires in a parody of the mother of all medieval tales, Camelot .... but beware, for just when you're settling down into the satire waiting for your next favourite Camelot character to show, the story changes gears, hurtling you from the 15th century to 2007 in one quick leap.

Treachery, crazy comedy, quirky characters with unforgettable names and a fine twist at the end, make this story a most enjoyable read..I especially loved the allusion to the Blairs, oops Blares, as having a Camelot-like existence a-la the Kennedys. Very clever!

I'm really amazed at how wonderfully the story came together ... a great combined effort with some amazing editing by David. Guaranteed to make you laugh out loud! Read it!

7 comments:

Lotus Reads said...

What a great caricature! :)

LOL, David, do you know I read the first sentence of the story as "A dark and stormy night"? YOu can blame it on the sun...my poor brain is so fried! So, unfortunately the opening paragraph of my critique is completely off! lol SOrry about that! It is a great story though!

Lotus Reads said...

And, ofcourse I meant hurtling not hurling! Sheesh!

david mcmahon said...

Hi Lotus,

I kinda figured you read the first sentence as ``night'', not ``knight''!

Must have been the big day and all the distractions! No problem at all - and thank you for doing the critique so graciously and so quickly.

And, I looked at hurling and debated whether you actually meant ``hurtling''. Anyway, I've changed it now to ``hurtling''.

Many thanks!!

David

Lotus Reads said...

You are kind, David, thanks! Yes, now that the soccer and softball season is upon us the weekends get pretty crazy. Thanks for understanding.

david mcmahon said...

No worries at all, Lotus,

I am a parent too. I understand these things!

It's called parental daze syndrome (I think!!)

And just remember that our kids will have to do the same for us when they start driving!

Keep smiling

David

karmic said...

I loved both the story and the critique! Very well done!

david mcmahon said...

Hi Sanjay,

Thanks for dropping by and taking the trouble to leave a comment.

I'm so glad you liked the story. Like I said to Lotus, it's really a case of Fiction Sans Frontiers.

I was intrigued at how quickly everyone jumped at the challenge. I'll be running another one this week - so feel free to have some fun with it.

Hope to see you back here soon.

Cheers

David