I totally get what you mean about revision. I feel like I even have had the same intense expression on my face as Indy does when I am revising. I finished a short story, and mostly just wrote, but at one point found myself going back over a scene. It felt like time froze for a second as my fingers hovered over the keyboard, looking for that perfect tension --- juuust right, there it is -- before putting down the new words.
I will put Moonbound on my to-read list! And, on the seeing like a state angle, my mom recently sent me a nice longread of three big articles (in Russian) about the start of WWI, and how it was *really* about Russia wanting to stop Turkey from buying these dreadnoughts. Only a theory to be sure, but a fascinating one, showing the deeply bizarre notions that likely drove the actions of Statesmen in those critical months of the summer of 1914. The state does not see like a human, indeed.
I'm reminded a bit of War & Peace also, the historiography bits: folks want to ascribe human agency to events, but to what extent are events ever truly in anyone's particular control, let alone in the control of the folks who we believe to be controlling them? I wonder if that's some of the appeal of spy stories—they play to our sense that there's more than what we see, while also condensing all that into a sphere of relatable human action.
Love this :)
I totally get what you mean about revision. I feel like I even have had the same intense expression on my face as Indy does when I am revising. I finished a short story, and mostly just wrote, but at one point found myself going back over a scene. It felt like time froze for a second as my fingers hovered over the keyboard, looking for that perfect tension --- juuust right, there it is -- before putting down the new words.
I will put Moonbound on my to-read list! And, on the seeing like a state angle, my mom recently sent me a nice longread of three big articles (in Russian) about the start of WWI, and how it was *really* about Russia wanting to stop Turkey from buying these dreadnoughts. Only a theory to be sure, but a fascinating one, showing the deeply bizarre notions that likely drove the actions of Statesmen in those critical months of the summer of 1914. The state does not see like a human, indeed.
I'm reminded a bit of War & Peace also, the historiography bits: folks want to ascribe human agency to events, but to what extent are events ever truly in anyone's particular control, let alone in the control of the folks who we believe to be controlling them? I wonder if that's some of the appeal of spy stories—they play to our sense that there's more than what we see, while also condensing all that into a sphere of relatable human action.
Yes! 100%