Too Many Used Books on Your Shelf? Try This:
September 2, 2010
Last weekend at a breezy barbecue, our hostess used books to weigh down her tablecloths—and after dessert, she invited each of us to take a book of our choosing home. This is my kind of party favor. Even better than having a friend press upon you the memoir “you simply must read” is to select whatever catches your fancy from a buffet of bestsellers. Our table had a smorgasbord of nonfiction, including Margret Atwood’s Payback and Joseph Heath’s Filthy Lucre—evidence of the economic downturn’s effect on my neighbour’s book club’s choices, perhaps. I like to read nonfiction, though my to-read pile is so high with novels I usually don’t get around to it. But there’s nothing like a gift book to get you started.
Once, at the home of a woman who hosted a drop-in book club at her café and was running out of bookshelf space, we were encouraged to peruse novels she’d displayed on her furniture and take as many as we wanted. Is that a great party or what? I picked up a couple of prize-winning novels whose reviews hadn’t quite grabbed me—and if I hadn’t snatched up Ian McEwan’s Atonement and J.M.Coetzee’s Disgrace from Bev’s credenza, I may never have read them, and that (I realize now) would be a shame.
So, if you want to get rid of some books and don’t feel like carting them to a used-book store or donating them to the local school fair, consider a book party. You’ll gain shelf space—and maybe new friends.
I won’t be hosting any such gatherings myself, since I don’t like to part with books I admire (I often pick them up to examine passages for literary technique). By the way, at my neighbour’s barbecue, I chose a book I’ve been meaning to read for a couple of years. The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, now sits atop my pile of cherished party favors.
If you have any ideas on what makes a great book party (or some other fun way to share good books), please comment!
Brave New World of Old Books
August 10, 2010
Here’s one of the things I love about having young adult offspring: they go out into the world and bring back books I’ve forgotten. My daughter recently finished The Razor’s Edge and was singing its praises over Sunday dinner. I’ve never read that novel, I told her; come to think of it, I don’t recall having read any of Somerset Maugham’s books. How did that happen? My son is currently into books by Aldous Huxley. Brave New World, I mused aloud; always meant to read that.
So many books, so little time. I read a lot of book reviews and tend to focus on what’s been published in the past few years. However, I do on occasion pick up a classic I’ve intended to read for what seems like forever and get the job done. I need a push, though. For example, last year, during a conversation about great acting, I mentioned to my daughter what a great job of Miss Havisham Charlotte Rampling did, and my daughter asked, Miss Who? And I explained that Miss Havisham is a famous literary character, one of the greatest fictional spinsters of all time, etc., and it occurred to me that—though I’d read several other Dickens books—I’d never actually read Great Expectations.
Well, I have now. (And Miss H did indeed live up to her reputation). And though I’m halfway through a novel published last year, on my bookshelf sits another classic I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve yet to read: Madame Bovary. I know the bones of the story, and because other writers mention it in their how-to-write-better books, I’ve read passages of Flaubert’s masterpiece but never the actual book. And beside Madame B sits Jane Eyre. I have, in fact, read this novel by Charlotte Brontë—but it was so long ago, I forget most of it. Which means, I suppose, that once I finally read all the classics on my list, I’ll probably have to start all over again. So many books, so little time…
What about you? Are there any lit classics on your must-read list?
On my husband’s birthday this year, I bought him something to tuck into his kayak for a deserted beach: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. He’s a couple chapters in and so far, he’s not sure what all the fuss is about. But then, we’re not really a blockbuster-reading family. Still, Globe and Mail calls this book and its sisters—The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest—“this summer’s beach and cottage drug of choice,” and as a self-respecting book-addict I cannot resist. I will read The Girl when the book is free.
And once I’ve read the it, because of my book-to-film interests, I’ll probably rent the movie. Maybe I’ll watch the Hollywood remake of the Swedish one, too, when it’s out—apparently Daniel Craig (a.k.a. James Bond) will play the books’ hero, Blomkvist, which adds a sexy factor though I have to say I like the idea that in the book, Blomkvist is just a middle-aged, frumpy hack. Or so I hear.
But the really great story, the one that I’ve been bringing up at dinner parties and over coffee with friends, does not yet exist on page or screen—though no doubt some big publisher/studio is already working on it.
It’s a tragedy: Larsson died before any of the Millennium books were published. Not only did he suffer a fatal heart attack before he could take his bows, we have to wonder if his $30 million-and-climbing estate went where he would have wanted. Because he died intestate, his father and brother inherited his wealth and his long-time common-law wife, Eva Gabrielsson, got nothing.
But there are rumors she has a big chunk of a fourth book on a laptop. Further gossip suggests Gabrielsson wrote part (or even all) of the trilogy. Oh, it just gets better and better.
As the Globe article points out, reader fascination with the dead author is a huge part of the Millennium publishing phenomenon.
Which makes me wonder: Would the books be anywhere near this big if Larsson was still alive? I like to think so. I need to think so. Because, um, if the author has to die as part of his/her marketing campaign, is the writing life really worth it?
Meanwhile, I eagerly await the story of Stieg Larsson.
Further reading: The Globe on Larsson
Slow Reading for Dummies – Illustrated Version
July 23, 2010
As a follow-up to my earlier post on Slow Reading, I thought I’d show you where I’ve been doing most of my reading this week:
The book is a novel, So Much For That, by Lionel Shriver. And yeah, I’m reading it slowly. Savoring it.
The cherries are Bing.
The sun is courtesy of the south coast of British Columbia.
Hope all of you have a lovely place to read slowly this weekend!
What Keeps Me Up at Night
July 12, 2010
Ever read deep into the night even though your alarm was due to go off at 6 AM? No doubt several literary techniques kept you turning pages, but I’ll bet it was mostly due to conflict. Conflict is a broad concept, however; in a riveting scene, it’s more likely confrontation that keeps you turning pages. Confrontation can be between characters (two people in an argument or potentially fatal struggle), between a character and the environment (our heroine tries to outrun a mudslide), or between a character and himself (a “reformed” alcoholic passes a bar after a hellish day).
Confrontation is more dramatic when we see it building. Escalate, escalate, advises one of the writing books on my shelf. Skilled writers don’t start a scene with the worst thing that could happen. (After all, where do you go from there?) Good writers make readers apprehensive, then ratchet up the tension. For example, our salivating, alcoholic friend almost makes it past the bar—but then his boss appears in the doorway and insists on buying him a drink. And then he has “just one.”
In Elaine Beale’s novel, Another Life Altogether, a scene involving teenagers at a school dance turns into a nail-biter. The kids are in a cloakroom, away from the eyes of adults, when an older boy begins to taunt a younger one. The older boy threatens to burn the face of the younger one with the end of the cigarette and though he doesn’t—in fact, I’d argue that because he doesn’t (our expectation of violence has been raised but not “satisfied”)—things are all the more tense when a major character, an effeminate boy our narrator cares about, enters the room. Tension amplifies when a bloodthirsty girl eggs her bully-boyfriend on and the kids pass around a bottle of whiskey. Beale knows how to escalate. I couldn’t stop turning those pages.
Conflict, Action & Suspense, by William Noble
Another Life Altogether, by Elaine Beale
In Praise of Older Women – And Their Stories
June 16, 2010
At a writing conference awhile back, I attended a seminar on the stories of older women—older meaning midlife and beyond—and the gist was: Well, there aren’t many. Let’s make more.
This seminar was memorable because of the boisterous, we-will-go-forth-and-spread-the-word energy it generated among the attendees, including me. Ever since that session, when I come across a female protagonist who has a real, aging body with sags and wrinkles, and who’s lived long enough to have a few regrets but also the wisdom and determination to change what she can, I am more appreciative. Tales of midlife transition—bring ‘em on!
Last Saturday night, with the TV room all to myself, I uncorked a Shiraz and watched Cairo Time. Juliette (played by one of my faves, Patricia Clarkson), a journalist who’s contentedly married, experiences not just pyramids but a long-buried part of herself. It’s been promoted as a romance, but in my view the movie is less about a love affair than it is about a heart—a middle-aged heart that’s rejuvenated. The Globe and Mail, while acknowledging that Cairo Time aims for subtly, complains the movie “seems to be making too much of too little.” I agree it’s a “quiet” film, but it’s these quiet stories that can lead to moments of reflection after the credits roll, and perhaps to deep conversation with a close friend over coffee the next day.
Another quiet story of a woman in midlife unfolds in the novel Delivery, by Betty Jane Hegerat. Protagonist Lynn kidnaps her young daughter’s baby and arrives on a B.C. island with her grandchild in a laundry basket and no plan. While figuring out what to do next, Lynn reviews her own life so far. Her daughter, Heather, shows up and it’s up to Heather to make the decision regarding the baby’s adoption. But by the end of the novel we sense our middle-aged heroine Lynn has also made a decision: to live the rest of her own life more fully. There’s no happily-ever-after, it’s a story of transition and like most real-life transitions it comes without fireworks. But it’s the kind of story that stays with you after the last page.
What are your favourite stories of midlife or older women? Please tell me. I want more.
(And, yes, I’m writing one myself, a story about several women dealing with midlife.)
For more: Delivery and Cairo Time.
I Need to Talk About Lionel (Shriver)
March 15, 2010
Sometimes you just know a book isn’t right for you. It might have received great reviews and/or won a literary prize or two but you have no desire to read it and the reason is the subject matter. The subject may seem uninteresting, or it may be downright disturbing to think about and you can’t imagine why you’d want to spend your Sunday afternoons with it. The novel could be about a kid who turns into a mass murderer, for instance. And then, for some reason, you end up reading this novel and after that, whenever you and your writer friends have one of those best-books-you’ve-ever-read discussions, this particular novel is one you always bring up.
It’s like that, for me, with We Need To Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver. I really did not want to read this novel. So what if it won the 2005 Orange Prize for fiction? (A lot of novels that win literary prizes leave me wondering about the IQs of the judges, but that’s for another post.) Then an acquaintance, a short story writer I admire, convinced me to give the novel a try. So I took Kevin out of the library. I didn’t want to go out on a limb and buy it because I was positive I wouldn’t read more than a chapter or two. After all, even reviewers who praised this book called it “disturbing.”
And it is disturbing. Kevin is an epistolary novel in which a mother writes to her estranged husband about their son, Kevin, who has killed seven of his fellow high-school students shortly before his sixteenth birthday. In the letters, the mother relates the story of Kevin’s upbringing. She’s a reluctant new mom and never bonds with her son properly. But then Kevin is not exactly a rosy-cheeked cherub. I turned each page with a sense of dread. But the book is one helluva page-turner and I did read it, the whole damn thing, and it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve ever read.
Reading it reminded me of the Greek notion of catharsis, that purging of emotion that leaves you empty inside. The afternoon I finished Kevin, I felt in the mood to drink lots of wine while staring at a blank wall.
Post-Kevin, I tried another Shriver novel, The Post-Birthday World, but I ended up not finishing it. A Perfectly Good Family didn’t really grab me, either. There’s a coldness to Shriver’s writing that doesn’t fit every subject, I think. A writer can’t hit the ball out of the park every time.
Now Shriver’s come out with So Much for That, which purportedly tackles the U.S. health system, the cost of care and the question of whether or not we can (or should) put a price on human life. This sounds like a topic the cool pen of Shriver could take on in a way no other writer could. I’m looking forward to reading it, soon.
Why do you read?
March 8, 2010
On Saturday, I taught the first class of How To Read Like a Writer to a new group of students. (HTRLW is a course I designed in the spirit of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, though my approach and content is quite different.) I begin by asking everyone why they read. (And, of course, I’m referring here to fiction and literary non-fiction; everyone knows why they’re reading Windows 7 for Dummies.) As I expected, as we went around the table there were various expressions of a desire to be “somewhere else” for awhile: People said they read for “entertainment,” “escapism,” “to get inside someone else’s head,” as well as “learning.” But one man surprised me with, “Efficiency—I can get more experience in one hour of reading a good book than I can in one hour of life.”
I love that. Granted, you could argue that if one happens to have just won an Olympic gold medal, one may have had a greater experience in a few minutes than there is to be found in a hundred books. But otherwise, books—good books—do provide a bang for the buck in terms of time spent, don’t they? I read part of a novel last night and I walked down a back street in Barcelona in the early 1900s, I touched the scum of algae on the surface of a neglected swimming pool, I met an impoverished and bitter widow and I watched a young couple begin to fall in love. All this in less than an hour—talk about efficiency!
Please tell me, why do you read?
How To Make an Entrance in 113 Words
February 16, 2010
I once went to a seminar at a writers conference and listened to a guy argue that a story is essentially a promise. To paraphrase, in the opening of a novel, a skilled author tells us not only what the story is about but asks (or implies) the story question—the overall question that the novel “promises” to answer. It’s the question that hovers in the background of every chapter, every scene, every line of a well-written book.
In a great novel, this question grabs you and holds you until the end of the story. Beside me right now is such a novel. Here is the first paragraph:
A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.
The first sentence shows us a want (money and praise), who wants it, and that this want is deep and lasting. The second sentence hints of danger (“sweet poison”) and uncertainty and fear (that what he wants could be snatched away from him); it further clarifies the desire with the term “miserable piece of paper,” which at the same time hints of sadness and regret. The central want/desire/goal is clear, who wants it is clear, and that there is danger is clear. In fact, the stakes could not be higher: it is the writer’s very soul that is at risk. So, by the end of this first paragraph of 113 words, we are asking ourselves: “What is the price of a writer’s soul?”
I’m only 75 pages into this 531-page novel, so at this point I can only assume that this question is the “story question.” But after an opening paragraph like this, I’m more than ready to trust this writer will deliver what he’s promising. I’m really looking forward to getting deeper into The Angel’s Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
(BTW, the conference I refer to above is the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, and the seminar leader was Bill Johnson.)
