Dome of Death by Clovis

[Greedya]

Dome of Death by Clovis (link)

[Greedya]

Review - Dome of Death

 

Ch. 1

Judging from your prose style, I can say you are one of the writers who master the English language. Your English is classy and gemstone-like, unlike mine (which is saccharine and sometimes awkward lol ) And, together with the hint that you are interested in classical music, I can't help speculating that your occupation relates to arts of some sorts. The language you used, while not reader-friendly, illustrates an excellent use of pointillism(?) and is pleasing to the poetic mind of mine.

 

Now to the lines ---

 

People who call themselves artists remind me of Napoleon seizing the jewelled cap, crowning himself and living to rue the day.

 

How sarcastic lol. Although it's ideologically shitty and stereotypical, I like it.

 

Before films and television arrived to bewitch the world, paintings could sway multitudes, convert sceptics and provoke intellectual war. Today, they've been reduced to decoration

 

 

Man, honestly, I've been to some of the world's most famous art museums, and I was like 'what the heck are these multi-million-dollar craps?' Paintings are too cryptic for my taste and my decoding skills are better at music and literature. I prefer Mozart to Van Gogh at any time. I won't even consider drawings for decoration (trees are better, or maybe glass windows if the outside is green). Anyway this is just a matter of taste and interpretation skills.

 

Speaking of intellectual wars, today we have complex socioeconomic systems and REAL issues to worry about. So it makes sense that painting-inspired intellect is more of a recreational product. And yeah, multimedia is like microwave food. Easy to go. Instant entertainment. Paintings and poems are too cryptic and thus not appealing to the mass.

 

As usual, he was right, and as usual, it irritated.

 

 

The acknowledgment that other people are right isn't irritating as much as the revelation that you are wrong.

 

People were showing plenty of interest.

 

 

Interest isn't equivalent to willingness to buy. And the ability to buy is a different story.

 

At Maximillian's there will be no minimalist shams brimming with light, space, air and understatement.

 

 

f**kin fantastic. Improvised prose poem. I can't say anything like that in real life lol.

 

Fat chance. I was sticking to my theory as an excuse for the lack of any more red dots.

 

 

Is there any chance you and Dave (sendraguy) shares a piece of mind? Both of you have eagle eyes on human nature. LOL @ the typical theory of not accusing oneself for being the cause of failure.

 

Godlike, he raised his arms for silence then, eyes wide, mouth agape, he toppled forward, swimming fruitlessly in the air before hitting the marble floor headfirst with a distinct thunk-crack as his skull split and neck snapped.

 

 

Very beautiful prose - but weak tone and strange pacing. Things like that happen in a split second, and carry a tone of shock and horror, like a thunder. But somehow the pace of the motion seems awkward to me. Like listening to fantastic Hungarian Dance in a wrong tempo (the sentence is too long, I guess). The effects aren't as strong as they are supposed to be. Also, it would be great if you could insert a line separator to hint that the reader should take a deep breath before going on.

 

Max had never been open about their relationship, refusing to discuss it.

 

When I asked why he was being so generous, he'd changed the subject.

 

 

Awww. you know how to draw in the reader, don't you? Mystery, mystery... yum.

 

This crappy little turd has been playing around with his master for the last six months, but can't bloody well raise it for his mistress.

 

 

Wow, what a surprise! There is more to the marriage. Um, there's possibility that Maurice is bi and plays both the master and the mistress.

 

work-to-food ratio

 

 

A superb term there. You managed to say about twenty words in two. Sharp and piercing. Excellent.

 

either marry me with a legally binding contract making us joint tenants of everything, or lose everything

 

 

I believe there is more than that, but you just don't wanna reveal yet. There are at least four mysteries here. One, Max's crime. Two, how Frances learned about it. Three, Max & Maurice's relationship. Four, there may be more the Max's death than what it seems.

 

calculating bitch! All she'd wanted from me was the security of having someone in the place while she was being screwed.

 

 

That's an attribute of characters that readers love to hate. I wonder if there's something else that she misled Pete

 

dragged up the doona

 

 

Doona sounds good. Is that intentional? You could have internationalised the word, y'know.

 

I grasped his arm, twisted it up his back, frogmarched him downstairs and thrust him out into the car park.

 

 

Teehee! Pete will regret that act one day. When you hurt a mad dog, it will bite you whenever it has a chance.

 

(a) Max had never been open about their relationship, refusing to discuss it.

(b ) It hadn't been Max who refused to explain about Frances, it was me who'd refused to listen.

Wait, man. There's a huge difference between refusing to discuss and refusing to listen. Surely even a broken heart knows the difference. You bitch, Rigby, :P you misled me!

 

 

 

I love the mystery, the prose, the plot, the character (Frances), and Peter's blurry future. There seems to be subtle clues in this chapter that I may have missed. Oi! This means I'm hooked already.

[Clovis]

I seem to have got lost and posted the same response in two different places... sorry. Thanks Greedya... much appreciated. XXXCFlattery, Greedya, will get you everywhere. Thanks for such a detailed and amusing review of the chapter.

By user-friendly. do you mean it makes you think? or you have to read it twice to understand?

Max's fall was deliberately downplayed -- almost casual, as that demonstrates the arbitrariness and surprise of sudden death, and allows the reader to react as he/she chooses. Most, like the audience in the book , will be turned on, and that's quite an interesting phenomenon.

Art used to stir passions because it was the TV news and philosophical/moral commentary of the time. That role has been usurped by modern electronic media. It was taken over by newspapers, radio and TV for a while, but as they are all owned by the same people whose aim is to preserve the status quo and have nothing accurate or worthwhile to say about humanity or our problems, we are left with internet blogs. A cunning ploy as there are so many it's a case of divide and conquer for the new dictators of the planet. Most if not all contemporary 'art' is incompetent daubing by people with nothing to say and no desire to have that sad circumstance understood. That is why i consider it an egregious conceit for anyone to say, 'I am an artist.' That is for time and others to decide.

Thanks very much for appreciating the language, it took me several years of honing, especially the first chapter, to reduce a host of words to exactly what i wanted to say in the most apt words and with the least redundancy. I guess i rewrote the first page at least thirty times , and remain pleased with it. I hope you read on and continue to enjoy the tale of intrigue and mayhem. It was in tended as a gay James Bond/hero etc... tale, but morphed into something more realistic and possible, which pleases me.

Sendraguy and i have only 'met' in our reviews of each other's work. I appreciate his humour, and accurate observation of human foibles, in which he excels more than I. Perhaps our main similarity is that we write about things other than the problems of telling your teenage boyfriend that you're gay. there's a need for those stories, but gays live in a world in which most people are neither gay nor gay-friendly. they have all the other problems of non gays as well, and most are not basketball stars with perfectly honed torsos, brilliant blue eyes and black hair as soft as silk. most gays are very ordinary, with ordinary bodies and skills.

Cheers,

[Clovis]

Flattery, Greedya, will get you everywhere. Thanks for such a detailed and amusing review of the chapter.

By user-friendly. do you mean it makes you think? or you have to read it twice to understand?

Max's fall was deliberately downplayed -- almost casual, as that demonstrates the arbitrariness and surprise of sudden death, and allows the reader to react as he/she chooses. Most, like the audience in the book , will be turned on, and that's quite an interesting phenomenon.

Art used to stir passions because it was the TV news and philosophical/moral commentary of the time. That role has been usurped by modern electronic media. It was taken over by newspapers, radio and TV for a while, but as they are all owned by the same people whose aim is to preserve the status quo and have nothing accurate or worthwhile to say about humanity or our problems, we are left with internet blogs. A cunning ploy as there are so many it's a case of divide and conquer for the new dictators of the planet. Most if not all contemporary 'art' is incompetent daubing by people with nothing to say and no desire to have that sad circumstance understood. That is why i consider it an egregious conceit for anyone to say, 'I am an artist.' That is for time and others to decide.

Thanks very much for appreciating the language, it took me several years of honing, especially the first chapter, to reduce a host of words to exactly what i wanted to say in the most apt words and with the least redundancy. I guess i rewrote the first page at least thirty times , and remain pleased with it. I hope you read on and continue to enjoy the tale of intrigue and mayhem. It was in tended as a gay James Bond/hero etc... tale, but morphed into something more realistic and possible, which pleases me.

Sendraguy and i have only 'met' in our reviews of each other's work. I appreciate his humour, and accurate observation of human foibles, in which he excels more than I. Perhaps our main similarity is that we write about things other than the problems of telling your teenage boyfriend that you're gay. there's a need for those stories, but gays live in a world in which most people are neither gay nor gay-friendly. they have all the other problems of non gays as well, and most are not basketball stars with perfectly honed torsos, brilliant blue eyes and black hair as soft as silk. most gays are very ordinary, with ordinary bodies and skills.

Cheers,

[Greedya]

Max's fall was deliberately downplayed -- almost casual, as that demonstrates the arbitrariness and

surprise

of sudden death, and allows the reader to react as he/she chooses. Most, like the audience in the book , will be turned on, and that's quite an interesting phenomenon.

 

A surprise usually comes like a thunder, loud and clear. Although it could be confusing, it is stunning, not casual. May readers react as they choose. But I felt something was missing there. The impact of the thunder was too quiet. Just my two cents though.

 

Chapter 2:

When I innocently remarked that it was surely an accident, the duty constable stared at me with such suspicion I was glad a hundred people could testify to my whereabouts at the time of the fall.

 

Ahhh.. an excellent example of contrast between empiricism (what you see) and rationalism (what you think). By rationalising alone, Peter does not yet have enough information to conclude that it was an accident.

Most came for a gawk at the spot from which the rich architect fell, no doubt hoping for residual bloodstains

Funny isn't it? Real life drama is some sort of entertainment sometimes, no matter how sad it is.

 

surely no one called I Scumble would dare to deal in art

 

This is great, man. Hilarious!

 

I kinda follow what you said about drawings. I don't know whether you can tell an artist's personality from his/her work. But it seems it's like music. The more heart the artist puts in their work, the more real the output is. Not as dramatic as the first chapter, giving readers a time to take a break and a breath... though danger is lurking in the shadows.. Mad seems to know something 'bout Max..