Comment on I am vindicated about what I learned from ROK military channel......... by seraphima

Parent Post: I am vindicated about what I learned from ROK military channel......... · In Reply To

seraphima · 6/22/2025, 11:02:24 PM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/23/2025, 7:38:42 AM · permalink

''Okay, so about “White Nights.” You’re probably not going to like my take.''  
  
I do understand, and like your take; that was my first impression of 'White Nights' as well.  
  
''I did love the writing style;''  
  
I liked the style, but I wouldn't say I loved it; that's reserved for 'The Notes from Underground', and 'A Simple Plan' by Scott B. Smith.  
  
'' I loved the dramatic monologue, ....''  
  
It's good enough, but it pales in comparison, to 'The Notes from Underground'.  
  
''... and the dreamer's character is very interesting to me but ultimately too tragic.''  
  
Wow!   If you think 'White Nights' is too tragic, you may get depressed by 'The Notes from Underground'.  'White Night' is a happy ending version of 'The Notes from Underground'.  
  
''However, while Dostoyevsky explores hard and heavy truths, truths that make me cry, I’m left empty. There is no catharsis. I enjoy Camus. Sartre. Absurdist literature that mocks the meaningless of life and while exposing truth, there is still hope, in the end, that one can create meaning out of the void.''  
  
Yes, I get it.  
  
''Please, what meaning did you take away from this story? What meaning is there to unrequited love? I know it’s often said that it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all but I can say that I’ve never been in love and I can’t, therefore, miss what I’ve never had. I know loss. I know grief and betrayal. I don’t need a romantic relationship to break my soul too. What I mean is, life sucks enough. What good is it to come so close to the fire of love, knowing the flame isn’t meant for you but another, only to temporarily warm yourself and then have to move on, back into the cold?''  
  
True love shouldn't be selfish; if a man truly loved you, he should do what is best for you, not what makes him the happiest.    If a man insisted on what makes him the happiest, instead of making you the happiest, could you really say he loved you?     
  
As a writer, I appreciate 'White Nights', especially the ending, because it gave me the ideas for the ending for some of my stories, and a short story within one of my stories.

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seraphima · 6/23/2025, 11:29:28 AM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/23/2025, 6:41:19 PM · permalink

''Do you have any stories that are published or that you’re willing to share? I’d like to read them.''  
  
Like I had said, I've been working on 5 very good stories, more or less concurrently, depending on whether I am in a 'zone' for one story, or the other.  I do this, so that I develop my characters, and the plot, organically, seamlessly, unlike most hackjobs out there.  
  
I have yet to have my stories published; I started in earnest at 50, after reading, 'The Sand Pebbles' by Richard Mckenna.  
  
That was the kind of story I want to read/write, and know I can do better than even Mckenna.  
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s3I-VJ3unk&amp;list=RD2s3I-VJ3unk&amp;start_radio=1
![video](https://www.youtube.com/embed/2s3I-VJ3unk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNSg3fu5RQQ&amp;list=RDwNSg3fu5RQQ&amp;start_radio=1  
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLhnM-cC0rE&amp;list=RDqLhnM-cC0rE&amp;start_radio=1  
  
Most published fictions are not very good, just barely good enough; here are 6 very good stories that I have read in my life; I had read tons of books, a perk that came with mostly night security gigs for 3 decades.  I learned to appreciate, and eventually write, like Quentin Tarantino learned about movie making by watching all the free movies he got to watch while working as a video store clerk.   
  
1\. The Sand Pebbles.  Mckenna makes some rookie mistakes here; this was his first novel, at age 53?    He had been a working man; 23 years? in USN, the real old USN, before the Pearl Harbor.  Some scenes are redundant, and clunky, but the dialogues, sometimes masterful, real, deep, profound, easily matches, even surpasses Dostoyevsky!   The movie version was very good, and better edited, with a more coherent ending.   Unfortunately, Mckenna never wrote another novel; he died in his 50s.   Had he lived long enough, and grown as a novelist, I think he would have surpassed even Dostoyevsky.   
  
2\. 'A Simple Plan' by Scott B. Smith, his first novel no less, in his 20s!   Truly masterful monologues, seamless writing.   Don't watch the movie version, watered down, hollywoodized trash.     
  
3.  'All the King's Men' by Robert Penn Warren, don't watch the movie, just go for the book, amazing writing, and dialogue, but a little too theatrical, for everyman in every day situation.  
  
4\. 'The English Patient' by Michael Ondaatje, voted as the best of the Booker Prize winners over the years, and rightly so.   I was mesmerized by the writing as well.  The movie version has better ending, and beginning, and more coherent as well, plot wise in general.   But the book version has that surreal magic of visual poetry, better than even the movie version!   
  
5\. 6.  I already mentioned those two.  
  
As for those 5 stories I am working on:  
  
1\. 'The Theater of Life'  
  
2\. 'The Wedding Vow'  
  
3\. 'Beyond gods and men'  
  
4\. 'The Fascist won't return'  
  
5\. 'I tell you the truth'.  
  
A short story within 'The Theater of Life' are two chapters, titles, 'Up a mile high, time goes faster', and 'A man can escape from God; can he escape from woman?', taking place in an airliner on red eye flight.  
  
I was inspired by 'The Notes from Underground' for 'Up a mile high, time goes faster', and 'White Nights' for 'A man can escape from God; can he escape from woman?'  
  
The music that inspired me for this short story:  
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTgD7YGSVyI&amp;list=RDyTgD7YGSVyI&amp;start_radio=1  
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-FCb5OKnAc&amp;list=RDR-FCb5OKnAc&amp;start_radio=1  
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LOxvgD0KEo&amp;list=RD2LOxvgD0KEo&amp;start_radio=1  
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmqut3AT_YE&amp;list=RDWmqut3AT_YE&amp;start_radio=1  
  
'The Wedding Vow' has an opening chapter, titled, ''Are you good enough?'', the final chapter titled, 'The Eternal Husband', followed by an epilogue.  
  
''Are you good enough?'' opening lines:  
  
Two characters are traveling to a planet that is slowly disintegrating and are engaging in conversation.  
  
Character A: ''Have you raped a woman before?"  
  
Character B: ''Not yet.''  
  
A: ''Why not?''  
  
B: ''I'm not good enough.''  
  
How the story goes from ''Are you good enough?'' to ''The Eternal Husband'', and the epilogue is where the magic will take place.  It's going to be a genre bender, starting as an adventure story to romcom, to adult melodrama, to end as an existential novel.

57 bumps

seraphima · 6/23/2025, 8:04:06 PM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/24/2025, 10:12:52 AM · permalink

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seraphima · 6/24/2025, 1:24:47 PM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/24/2025, 4:32:11 PM · permalink

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seraphima · 6/24/2025, 5:31:47 PM · permalink

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seraphima · 6/24/2025, 5:34:21 PM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/25/2025, 6:23:48 AM · permalink

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seraphima · 6/25/2025, 11:48:15 AM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/25/2025, 3:12:29 PM · permalink

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seraphima · 6/25/2025, 4:04:01 PM · permalink

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seraphima · 6/25/2025, 4:21:53 PM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/25/2025, 5:20:30 PM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/25/2025, 5:11:29 PM · permalink

''I think most people are scumbags in denial.''  
  
I am agnostic on that issue; I do notice most people lack enough philosophical/moral fortitude till someone more courageous shows the way, at the right time.   That's what happens in 'The Sand Pebbles'.  
  
''Marriage brings out the worst in people though. That’s its purpose, imo. A spouse is a mirror, a way to expose one’s deepest insecurities and fears. Marriage is a sacrament precisely because it’s a gauntlet, a trial by fire. It’s a very hard road and not one that’s meant for everyone. If someone gets married, they should know that they are going to suffer and that suffering is meant for their growth and salvation. That’s how I see it, anyway. Marriage is both heaven and hell on earth.''  
  
I think most men are not fit for married life; they are better off living alone.   This is one of the issue I strongly disagree with the traditional conservatives, and many feminists as well.  TCs want men to conform into a mold; so do the feminists as the 'model husband'.  
  
Free men do not want to get boxed in.   I, for one, would not fit either models.  Most men don't, either.  
  
I tell you a case of one Louis Simpson, a real man, with real name, who had died a few years ago.   A black dude from Brooklyn, 20 years in USAF, who had wanted to be a successful comic book artist.    He had been divorced twice, married 3 times.   His first wife was Irish/English, had a daughter together, later divorced him, for some lawyer.  He was still kind of bitter about the split: She had written him off as a loser.     His daughter also hadn't respected him like he wished she had.   I think I know why, and no, I don't think the daughter was being a bitch, but just a no non-sense black woman.   He almost got into a fight with a co-worker, because the co-worker didn't agree with him on some scripture in the Bible!  
  
One day, he got really mad at me, and we stopped talking for several years afterward; what was the culprit?  
  
He was very proud of his daughter.  Even though she didn't respect him as much as he wished.   He told me he told her to get out there, and kick ass.  Be successful.   So I asked him, ''Do you want her to marry a man just like you, I don't mean, you, right now, but in terms of character, or do you want her to marry a man far better than you?''  
  
Louis had always been bragging how much of a great dad he had been to his daughter.    ''Do you want to marry a woman, just like your daughter, in terms of temperament?''   He had already had trouble with his second wife, by then, for lack of progress in his comic book artist career.   I told him, ''I don't think you want your daughter to marry a man, just like you in character.  I don't think you want to marry a woman, just like your daughter in temperament.   I don't think you are going to be happy with your daughter's husband if he has the same character as you do, and he's not going to be happy with you, either.   What does that make you?''  
  
Eventually, he ended up marrying, a very sweet, typical, Midwestern White lady, to take care of him when he had health problems for years, while she delayed her career for his sake till he died.  
  
I am nothing like him.

8 bumps

seraphima · 6/25/2025, 5:35:50 PM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/25/2025, 6:26:09 PM · permalink

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seraphima · 6/25/2025, 6:55:37 PM · permalink

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hyokkim · 6/24/2025, 6:30:28 PM · permalink

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