Beloved Character With No Soul, Paddington Bears,and Geek Love, or What Happens When You Throw A Question Out On Your Blog

My follow-up post yesterday to this one brought about some interesting outcomes. First, Domey Malasarn has been dared to write about a character he loves, one that is without a soul.


Second, F. Scott Bailey shares his antidote to reading books that are too grim.

And those are just the outward consequences. In responding to the insightful comments, I have been thinking and re-thinking about how I feel about difficult books. Reading The Solitude of Prime Numbers allowed me to discover a few things and now I am toying with the idea of doing another experiment.

But first, a bit of backstory.

Sometime last year, Jim McCarthy offered to give book suggestions to readers who told him the last three books they enjoyed. The book he recommended to me was Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. After reading about it, I decided to wait and chose to read some suggestions he offered other readers. I found Purple Hibiscus and This Is Where I Leave You this way.

One of the reason I shied away from Geek Love is its subject matter. From what I've read about it, the book is populated with people who do things that are difficult to understand. One character willingly ingested unsafe chemicals while pregnant in hopes of producing children who will be deformed. Just this bit of information alone gives me chills.

Yet I'd heard good things about Geek Love from different sources. And since I am exploring why I don't want to continue books that are bleak and depressing in which people do nasty things to others for unfathomable reasons, this book seems like a prime candidate to test that premise.

But I am not sure if I really want to.

Have any of you read it? Or if not, what do you think you would do if you were me?

Hope, promise, and tenderness

Thank you, to those of you who commented on my last post. You've brought up a number of ideas that are new to me. Best reason for maintaining a blog, I say, not marketing or platform, but I digress.

To recap, this was the question I asked:

Why are some books difficult to read on?

I am excluding obvious reasons such as poor writing or dull story.

I kept this question front and center as I read The Solitude of Prime Numbers, which I finished over the weekend. I had wanted to put it down after the initial chapters but decided to use this reading experience as an experiment to see if I can figure out possible reasons for why I feel compelled to put down books.

And I did come away with a few observations.

I mentioned in the earlier post that I find it hard to stomach reading about young people suffering, yet that alone doesn't stop me. Room is about a very young, innocent, and vulnerable child, yet I was able to read it to the end.

The difference is this: hope. This young boy and his mother speak of their environment not as their destiny but keep hope alive in their minds about how life can be. In Solitude of Prime Numbers, the young people who are affected and those around them are portrayed as having surrendered to their lot. There is no hint that there may be changes in the future. Their days, their interactions, their outlook: they're all shrouded in despair.

In Okay For Now, Doug doesn't come across as someone who is hopeful for change either. In fact, he seems to be following in exactly the type of behavior--channeling his nasty brother, Lucas-- that will seal his fate in its current manifestation. Yet, Gary Schmidt managed to infuse an uncertainty in Doug's behavior when he acts in -self-destructive ways. We feel that underneath the bravado, he is still holding out hope for a different, a better outcome that he seems destined for.

Hope, that's a big difference in why I will or will not read on.

The second reason I discovered is this: how characters treat one another makes a huge different to me. When people treat another with nastiness and contempt continuously, it gives me a bad taste in my mouth. In Prime Numbers, the moment when I didn't have to push myself to finish the book was when the characters started feeling empathy and treating others with tenderness. In Okay For Now, even when Doug was being mean outwardly, a few key people treated him with respect and understanding. In Room, mom and son loved each other fiercely.

I'm not sure why this issue have such a strong impact on me, People treating one another badly isn't uncommon.Again, I believe it's the sentiment underlying the behavior that affects me. I need a smidgen of suggestion that these people have some respect or understanding or acceptance of the people they mistreat to not make me despair. People being nasty to people just because: it's not something I can handle a lot of.

So hope and understanding between people: these are the ingredients necessary for me to read about people going through horrible circumstances.

Any of these resonate with you?

It's Alive!

I started writing a post to follow up on my musicspeak post last week. It took me quite a bit longer than I expected, but it was a good exercise that made me think harder about and dig deeper into the subject of genres and labels and assumptions. I'm letting that post mull for a bit.

In place of a follow-up to last week's post, this is a follow-up to Monday's post, in which I wondered if writing had killed reading for me.

I am happy to report that reading is still very much alive!

Yesterday at the library while I was checking out books for my kidlets (Sid Fleishman and Gary Paulsen and Linda Sue Park, delish;) I picked up A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby on a whim.

So far, I find myself at times delighted and at other times, thoughtful and somber. It's a story about the New Year's eve when four people meet on a rooftop, each intending to jump to their deaths. Not the most uplifting topic, but Hornby manages to, so far at least, make me smile even as I am confronted with the cruel things in life that cause people pain and despair enough to make them consider suicide.

I have never read any of his other books but have heard good things about them. I find Hornby's writing is so unforced, and his observations so acute that I am convinced that underneath the humor and the seemingly casual treatment of people and their lives, is a thoughtful author who carefully scrutinizes his surroundings and ideas. And that, is a good draw for me.

Oh great, I meant this as a light-hearted post. Don't know why my thoughts keep wandering around unlight-hearted things. But I will rectify that. Here is a sentence from the book I hope you find as cool as I did:

If she hadn't tried to kill me, I'd be dead, no question.

Aqua fortis and Domey Malasarn both mentioned in the comments section last week about how, when they come across a book that captures them, they pause and study, to find out how the author did it. I, however, am feeling rather like I've just found a beautiful feast and just want to eat and leave the thinking about the recipes till later.

My offering to you today: food analogies, a surprising sentence, and a promise I will have that post up, soon.

Addendum: I realize I highlighted a book about suicide in a post titled "It's Alive!" Hmmm.

Did writing kill reading for me?

I finished reading two books that have been published recently. They were both well-written and I can't really find fault with much. But the entire time I was reading, I was very aware of writerly things the authors did. For example, in both these books, each adventure follows at the heel of another, probably because of the oft-given advice to keep the tension high, don't let the story sag! In fact, increase the stakes with each obstacle! And sure enough, in both books, not only do the troubles come one after another, the stakes are increased each time.

Then there is another advice: show, don't tell, the emotions and motivations of the protagonists. And in these books, I watch characters break out in sweat or clench their teeth; and hear about their hearts in their throats or their muscles screaming in agony, with slight variations about how the pain or fear feels.

The problem isn't with the writing advice. I like an unrelenting adventure story as much as my 9-year old daughter. I have nothing against being shown and not told a person's emotions (but only to an extent; Brian's post yesterday hit the nail on the head for me.) And I most definitely am interested in what the characters are thinking and how they make decisions.

So then, why have these recent reading experiences been so much more about noticing what the authors are trying to do then absorbing the stories they want to share?

My question, to those of you who write, are these:

• Does the awareness of craft take you out of a story?
• If so, does it happen in every book?
• And if it happens only sometimes, can you determine what factor causes this type of reading?

Grab-A-Line Monday

For this second post in Grab-A-Line Monday, I am offering this:

She remembered what hope was, and this was it. That inner churning that moves you forward, plows you through life the way the boats below plowed the shiny water, the way the plane was plowing forward to a place new, and where she was needed.

Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout

In case you missed last week's inaugural post, here are the quotes contributed by my wonderful cyber-pals:

"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him, "Wild thing,"

Maurice Sendak

"I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 3

There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Having decided this, Marjorie said good night.

- Bernice Bobs Her Hair, F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Hey Tanita: just so you know, I went out and bought a short stories collection just to get to Bernice.]

Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge.
Proverbs 23:12

"There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name."

First line of Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

But with this February sun, see, the light's absolutely pure and makes the colors of the sky and the tree limbs and the bricks on these suburban houses so clean that just looking at them is like inhaling purified air.

The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

"I wish it need not have happened in my time, "says Frodo.

"So do I," says Gandalf. "And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with that time that is given to us."

J.R.R. Tolkien


What caught you this week?

My evil ploy

Grab-A-Line Monday started off yesterday with some great quotes! Thanks to those who participated. Made my day. Truly.

I am looking forward to next Monday! Remember: this week when you read something that stops you in your track, jot it down and share it here next week.

And now onto the business at hand.

In my earlier post on why we put books down, I asked these questions: what favorite books have you discovered on your own, and which much-heralded books have lived up to expectations.

Little did you know (confession: little did I know either) it was a way to get book recommendations. So I am going to check out the books you mentioned that I haven't read. So far, these are the ones I've hunted down:

• John Banville: The Sea
• R. A Nelson: Breathe My Name
• Jonathan Foer: Everything is Illuminated

I am going to start on them as soon as I finish the three really good books I'm currently reading:

Kathryn Stockett's The Help
Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge
Gary Schmidt's Wednesday Wars

{Consider this my contribution to the book-recommendation pool, although I suspect most of you have already read these ones.]

Grab-A-Line Monday: An announcement

Have you been bowled over or gobsmacked or stunned or awed or amazed by a sentence? Isn't that the most OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD feeling?

I thought I'd start a new tradition here at my blog, with the uber-catchy title of

Grab-A-Line Monday

Each Monday I'll post a sentence that made me glad I love reading.

And what's more, if you call now, I'll send you a set of ginsu knives free, absolutely free. Wait. Wrong channel.

Let's try that again. And what's more, I'd like to invite you to join me by posting a sentence that made you stop and think and wonder. And if you want to link it to your blog and invite your readers to join in, we'd all have a blast.

Celebrate language!
Celebrate communication!
Celebrate expression!
Celebrate writers!

[I promise I will not bombard you with the over-abundance of exclamation points and centering and colors and all-capss after this post. Unless, of course, I am so overwhelmed by the responses that I absolutely must jump up and down and yell and dance.]

Why we put books down

From the comments in my recent post on books I couldn't finish, I am, first of all, glad that I am in good company. The consensus seems to be:

• life is too short, we want to read books that mean something to us;
• these books didn't live up to expectations that came with recommendations or reviews or other reasons that made us keen on reading them.

I wonder if we had picked up books without such expectations, would we have gone farther? But then of course, we'd have to assume that it is possible not to be affected by what we've heard about the books.

Before the days of accessible reviews, I used to browse libraries and bookstores and would pick up whatever book that looked interesting. I've come across quite a few books that I ended up liking a lot. Two books I remember are Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott and Dream Me Home Safely, edited by Susan Richards Shreve.

It was a great feeling, this discovering something for myself. Having said that, I've also had books that lived up to their high expectations: What Was Lost; Lovely Bones, Penderwicks.


On an aside, usually I watch movies with some idea of what they're about, except when I saw The Crying Game. Yes, I was one of the twelve people in America totally surprised by The Twist.

Anyway, back to books. How do expectations play in your reading? Do you have books that you discovered purely on your own and love? What about It Books that didn't disappoint? Do share.

MG and YA books I read this summer

Even though I couldn't finish several books lately, I've managed to complete quite a few middle-grade and young adult novels this summer. Here are the ones I read between Memorial Day and Labor Day:



Middle Grade:

• Gregor the Overlander books 1-6 by Suzanne Collins
  
• Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
• Umbrella Summer by Lisa Graf
• Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
  
• Solving Zoe by Barbara Dee
  

Young Adult:

• Chinese Handcuffs by Chris Crutcher
• Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Shift by Jeniffer Bradbury
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  
• Paper Towns by John Green
• If I Stay by Gayle Forman
  
• Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson

[I mentioned in the comments yesterday that I would have a post about what some of you have said but don't have time to write it yet. This one was written a few days back and scheduled for today. See you tomorrow.]

Books I couldn't finish

Yesterday I confessed to putting aside a book I started but couldn't finish. As recent as two years ago, that would have been unusual for me; I used to finish every book, even one that I was tempted to throw at the wall multiple times. But giving up half way has become a more common occurrence these days. I don't know if it's a trend for me or if I'm becoming intolerant and critical in my old age.

Here are some reasons for the few books I put down midway recently:

Book 1
Gorgeous, lyrical writing that leaves me contented just to bask in the language. The story unfolds slowly, breaking my heart bit by bit. I couldn't finish because some of the descriptions come too close to home, not necessarily in the actual events but in the characters' emotions. Will pick it up again when I'm feeling more robust.

Book 2
International bestseller. Cool protagonist. Supposedly an intricate mystery but my mind wandered repeatedly.

Book 3
Also internationally well-received. Narrator has a way of describing his setting and social situations in a way I can relate to even though the actual cultural setting is foreign to me. But as I read, I discovered that I liked the narrator less and less. It's not that I don't like flawed characters; I love 'em because they're real. But for me to go along for the ride, I need to find at least some little bit of the character that I, if not like, then at least understand or can somehow relate to. Maybe if I can get over that particular prejudice I have against the narrator, I may read it again because I do like the writing and am intrigued so far by his view of the social/human condition.

Your turn.

Experiment halted

First, I got distracted by my critical mind intruding into my reading.
I tried to push it aside, not always successfully.
After a while, I decided to give in. Last week, I started experiment to read with a pencil.
Wondered how it would work
Doubted it would work.
It didn't work.

Most likely reason? Tricia is right; I pulled out the pencil initially because I noticed so much of the craft side of things in the book. Not surprising. This is not the type of book I normally read; I picked it up primarily because it's quite a "hot" book right now. The language is very descriptive, florid, and has a feeling of being translated. My critical mind was alerted, and when I gave in to it, it just took over. I found myself avoiding the book repeatedly, and when I did pick it up, I wasn't keen on it.

Would I have not enjoyed the book even if I hadn't subjected it to the experiment? I don't know.

Would the experiment have worked had I chosen a different sort of book? I don't know.

I am back to square one: I still don't know what to do with the intruding analytical mind. I'll have to try something else. In the mean time, I have at least two books waiting for me to read and enjoy.

Reading with a pencil

It was great to get the feedback from yesterday's post. Dialoguing with other writers and bloggers is so much more interesting than just me saying my thing to the great silence of cyberspace.

So the topic: reading critically. I am starting an experiment in which I jot down thoughts that occur to me when I read a book, positive and negative.

Several people commented on how they cannot read like this, and I actually don't know how long I can do this either. And those of you who do read with a pencil tend to focus on the positive. I find that I learn as much from what doesn't work, as what does, so I do both. I hope I'm not being unnecessarily judgmental.

Last night, I was pondering how long I can sustain this exercise; It does seem an unnatural thing to do. But then, maybe it is somewhat natural. After all, I started this experiment because my critical mind kept intruding when I tried to read. Sometimes I can shush it up, but other times it is just such a distraction I can't enjoy the reading.

That was the original reason for me to read this way: to find out what happens if I give in to my critical thinking and not try to push it away. Kinda like if you let your kids have a little bit of ice-cream sometimes so they won't feel deprived and pester you all the time.

Lady Glamis brought up another good point, and that is when a book is published, it has gone through the eyes of the author, the author's early readers, agent, and editor. We should read and enjoy, not read and nitpick. (I am not talking about celebrity books here; just the real books written by real blood, sweat and tears authors.)

A book has to have achieved a high standard to be published, very high standard. But "good" doesn't mean the same to everyone. I used to wonder why there were things in published books that were not very good, and thought that I needed to adjust my own thinking. I still think that my thinking needs adjustment and tweaking--all the time, as long as I am writing and learning--but I also believe that I have put in a lot of work and now have at least some ideas of what works. So when I do see something that doesn't, I take note. Not to be disrespectful to the author, or to feel smug in that I-know-better-than-you-even-though-you-are-published-and-I-am-not manner, or to gripe about how some authors can get away with drivel, but to learn. I know I make enough mistakes for a whole village of writers, but I see no reason why I can't learn from other people's mistakes, even when they don't consider them mistakes.

So, thanks for your comments. Keep them coming. And I will keep you posted on how this book is going.

And oh Cheryl, I am going to let people guess the title. It's not an obscure book. Recent. Well-received.

First person to guess gets a free book.

Joining 'em

This week I'm exploring the relationship between studying and enjoying an art form.

On Monday I asked the question:
If study can make us lose our enjoyment of the art we love, is it still worth it? Everyone who commented think it is. I do too.

Yesterday I asked if there are ways we can manage our critical thinking better so it doesn't interfere with our enjoyment.

Today I want to take a different direction. I have decided to read one of my current books [a book that I am currently reading] by engaging my analytical and critical mind. I'll be making notes in the margins with the thoughts that occur as I read.

In other words, since I can't beat 'em, I'm going to try joining 'em. It's an experiment. I'll see how far I get and how much I learn and most important of all, if it completely destroys the reading process for me.

So here are some notes I've jotted down in the margins so far:

Her father's nervous voice. Her mother's anxious face. I hope the show-don't-tell police doesn't show up here. This works, in context.

...thought she looked ...much older than her thirty years. I don't think a young girl would think a thought like this. Sounds more like the author telling me the age of the mother and that she is tired and worn out.

Two new characters introduced, and not knowing their relationships to the narrator for three paragraphs--in which we hear about someone's mother, and detailed characteristics of a place--is too long for me. Especially when the place names are foreign and I have to work hard to keep them straight in my head, all the while not knowing who these people are whom I see lolling or oozing sex appeal.

Clever use of cultural references to let us know the time period.

Oh no, not catching her own reflection in the mirror and seeing a woman who stared back at her who is [fill in description.]

More next time.

It's worth it. Now what do we do?

In yesterday's post, I wrote about how years of studying music has ruined the leisurely, unadulterated enjoyment of music for me. On the other hand, it has also allowed me to recognized gem moments that I otherwise won't have the heightened awareness to spot. From the comments, the consensus is yes, it's worth it.

All we have to do, is somehow deal with the critical mind.

Million dollar question: how? whack it on its head every time it surfaces? Yell "lalalalalalala" so we won't hear it? Trick it to go to someone else's brain?

I like how Tanita put it:
"But some study has to be put into learning to disengage the critical, too."

Study: that's a strong, active verb. I wonder if there are standard procedures that psychologists or other people studying the brain or learning have come up with ways to help us develop the ability to turn off the critical mind. Right now, thinking about how not to think critically is akin to remembering to forget: the very act of trying to do something defeats itself.

I would love to hear your thoughts.