World Book Night 2012

  

It was (is) a noble endeavor: provide givers with 20 copies of a book they love to give away to light or non-readers. This was the second World Book Night, and the first in the US. I chose The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri as my giveaway. Printed some WBN bookmarks to stick in the books. I had decided that my introverted tendencies NOT to engage anyone in conversation if I didn't have to could be overcome by my reading enthusiasm. I had chosen a corner near an ice cream parlor, used book store, giant park, cafes and restaurants that I thought would get a diverse array of passers-by. 

But after hearing of others' less-than-glowing renditions of their experiences (a coworker even had trouble giving out her book at the homeless shelter where she volunteers!), I scrapped my idea of trying to give out the books to perfect strangers on a street with lots of diverse foot traffic and went to a local pub where I used to work. I managed to give away about 1/2 of my copies, to staff and regulars, and tried to push the idea of a pub book club - hey here's your first book! The chef had even read and adored the book already! Most don't read much at all, so most easily fell into the non/light readers category. I plan to give the rest to staff that wasn't there Monday, and maybe to neighbors (I should really talk to the neighbors shouldn't I?) and coworkers and other light/non readers I know. I feel terribly that I didn't manage to give them all away on Monday, but I'm secretly - well now not so secretly - optimistic that a least a few people will discover and enjoy a book they would not otherwise have read, and might become more avid readers because of it. (And maybe they really will start a pub book club... isn't that a good idea?)

I think some of the experiences of other givers highlight where we are as a society. Even people I knew were suspicious. Why are you giving me a book? Do I eventually have to do something? Wait I don't even have to pay you? Ohh okay I'll take a book! It's almost as if everyone thought you were either selling something or giving them homework & would be coming to collect their book reports later! Are we that naturally suspicious of generosity? What's the catch, everyone seemed to wonder? Are you going to ask me to sign a petition? Give you some personal information? Sign up for a mailing list?

Honestly, I avoid people on the street trying to engage me all the time -- because they pretty much always have an agenda. Sign this or that petition, register to vote, then vote for this person or that person, donate to this cause, sign up for this service, have a credit card, take this book and convert to that religion, etc etc. Some worthy goals, others less worthy. We are never approached by people that are just giving things away for the sheer joy of giving and spreading an activity love. Well, possibly until now, that is. 

How did other givers (both successful and less than) approach it? Did they just happen to work/volunteer at the perfect locations? Did they set them in a box with a giant FREE BOOK sign? Did they actually engage random pedestrians in conversation to give away their books?  

Battles in Psychic Regression: The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits

I must admit, the bright pinkish, floral cover of this novel, as well as the description about mother-daughter psychic damage, gave me pause, as I generally don't like touch-feely fiction unless I'm in a particular mood, but Knopf often publishes books I like, and I decided to give this strange sounding plot a whirl. While this will not go down on my list of all-time favorites, I may have to start list for best books with improbable plots just to put this one at the top. The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits turned out to not be in any way touchy-feely, and is in fact a rather dark and humorous tale wrought with anxiety and unwitting revenge. What? Exactly. 

The Vanishers tells the sporadic, sardonic tale of Julia Severn, a young psychic prodigy who unexpectedly meets her match in her mentor at an elite university for parapsychology.  Or rather, unexpectedly discovers she is her mentor's match. She then begins to suffer from a myriad of mysterious ailments, presumably somewhat psychosomatic at their root, or psychically afflicted by her mentor, and is accosted by some odd characters (one is described later as emitting a "carcinogenic unhappiness") that claim they can help "cure" her. They describe the process of disappearing oneself from one's life when it becomes to much -"vanishing"- as an alternative to suicide. Not that Julie's necessarily suicidal, but they had heard of her psychic prowess and needed her help to track down some long lost film. In order to recover, they tell her, she will have to "vanish" herself. 

The plot has many twists and turns and unlikely connections, and is anything but conventional. Julavits uses many vivid descriptors, which at times subtly imply the novel's themes, such as "With her doll eyes blinking from her scavenged face, she resembled a person buried inside another person." Julie's own mother had committed suicide when she was a baby, and elements of how it affected her relationship with her father, who would only wax philosophical when asked to describe what sort of mother she would have been: 

My response would not be a truthful attempt to answer your question, it would be an attempt to compensate for your loss by creating an ideal person whose absence you can mourn unreservedly. However, this puts me in the position of making her into someone she was possibly not; it forces me to falsely represent her to you, and in doing so I become, not the keeper of her memory, but the re-creator of her past, and that role makes me uncomfortable; also I believe it is, in the long run, a disservice to her, because you will grow up missing a mother that you would never have experienced, had she not died. And this strikes me as a second kind of death, a more complete and horrible death, to be annihilated and replaced by a hypothetical person who is not remotely you, thus I think it is better that she remain a quasi-mystery, a pleasant unknown, than an absence filled with compensatory narratives supplied by your guilty father.

Elements of suicide, the past intersecting the present, revenge, and the precarious relationships forged between women are woven throughout the story. 

Because I’d decided—this kind of hating, this kind of fault-finding, this kind of symbolic matricide, it had to stop. If I’d formed an allegiance to Irenke, it was because I’d decided that to befriend Irenke was to ensure that my mother’s death did not perpetuate more pointless, self-defeating rivalries among women who, in the end, were only killing themselves.

I cannot do the plot much justice here, and it's complications almost run away with themselves, but the uniqueness of the storyline won me over in the end. 

*I received this copy courtesy of Knopf Doubleday via NetGalley. Check out its Spotify playlist, curated by Doubleday.

Literary Blog Hop: autobiographical characters

It's Literary Blog Hop time again, hosted by The Blue Bookcase. This month's question:

How do you feel about fictional characters who are obviously closely based on the author? Is this an example of authorial superego? Or just a natural extension of the "write what you know" advice? 

The shortest answer: If the story is done well, I don't mind at all. Whether it's superego or write-what-you-know depends on how it's done, on the purpose for which the method is used, and on the author her/himself.

The Bell Jar is a good example - I didn't feel that the thinly veiled autobiographical nature of the novel took away from the experience of reading it (granted, it has been many years since I've picked it up and read it all the way through). The novel itself certainly had a few structural shortcomings, and one could argue that this might have been due to its strongly autobiographical nature - our lives don't exactly follow any sort of nice narrative flow, complete with measured character and plot development, climax, and resolution. In a sense, that's where much of the fiction would have to come in. The author should know when to deviate from her/his own autobiographical feed in order to move the plot or allow for character development.

Copping to autobiographical characters or elements in one's own writing might be too close for comfort for some - writers already are baring much of their inner world by writing and sharing fiction; to admit to a specific character or plot line as being close to one's self or history might just be too uncomfortable, which could perhaps be an alternative explanation for Eugenides reluctance to claim Milton in The Marriage Plot as mostly instead of loosely based on himself. Perhaps today's culture would view such work as too egotistical and not fictional enough - I honestly don't know.  Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five clearly contains experiences based on his own time in a POW camp in Dresden, and it's definitely his most well-known work and considered by many to be his best.

As an author of fiction that can seem remotely plausible or realistic, is it even possible to write without writing what you know, or at least, what you believe to be true on some deeper level? If you don't know from your own experience, you'd have to research to fill in the gaps of your own knowledge and experience. Either way, your fictional work would have to contain elements of what's known in order to be taken seriously at all.

What do you think?

May's bookish endeavor: we the bookish read Alias Grace

In a casual twitter conversation a couple months ago, Bookworm Beth, Lit Musing Brenna and I determined that we all wanted to read Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace (a re-read for me) and thought, hey, why not coordinate and read at roughly the same time? We've set May as the month, and anyone who likes is welcome to join in - just say so in a comment below. This will be an informal read-along, with no set pace and only two posts: 

Wednesday, May 16th: General and early impressions; themes and motifs that you've noticed so far, etc. No spoilers. 

Wednesday, May 30th: Wrap up discussion, overall impressions, etc. Truth vs fiction: likelihood this version is close to the truth. Spoilers are fair game. 

A brief synopsis can be found on Goodreads, and the New York Times opens their review of the novel as follows: 

There's nothing like the spectacle of female villainy brought to justice to revive the ancient, tired, apparently endless debate over whether women are by nature saintly or demonic. Unleashed by ghastly visions of the angel of the house clutching a knife or pistol, a swarm of Furies rises shrieking from our collective unconscious, along with a flock of martyrs. Meanwhile, our vengeful passions or pious sympathies are never so aroused as when the depraved criminal or unjustly slandered innocent happens to be touchingly young and attractive.

One such alleged miscreant -- a double murderess, no less -- is at the heart of Margaret Atwood's ambitious new novel, ''Alias Grace.'' Its protagonist is a historical figure, the notorious Grace Marks, a handsome but hapless Irish immigrant who worked as a scullery maid in Toronto in the 1840's. At the age of 16, she was convicted of abetting the brutal murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his pregnant housekeeper and paramour, Nancy Montgomery. The question of Grace's innocence or guilt has always been in some doubt -- a matter that Ms. Atwood deftly re-examines through the lens of what we have since learned about the traumatized psyche.

I remember this book as a favorite, but it's been several years since I read it. I hope it's as good the second time around. After all: spontaneous murder, gender bias, questionable psychology, illicit affairs, what more could we as for?

On Rereading

Ever notice how rereading can reveal how much you've changed since the first time you experienced a book or story? Ellen over at Fat Books inadvertently reminded me I've been meaning to write a bit about this. I might even posit that rereads reveal more about yourself than first-time reads. (Later viewings of films/movies can have the same effect, though to a lesser degree.) Many have theories on how much or how little we change over time, but the differences can be both subtle and drastic at the same time. Subtle shifts in perspective and attitudes can lead to a drastically different experience of exactly the same words - but not necessarily exactly the same story, since as readers we insert aspects of ourselves into what we read.

I noticed this most acutely when I reread The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy last fall, previously one of my all-time favorite books, but no more. I still love the writing and the language - and even the story to a point. But it's an overwhelmingly tragic and sad story, jumping about through time to slowly reveal why the twins are possibly irreparably  damaged, wandering aimlessly through the ruins of their lives. Are the young, or at least those fortunate enough to have never had to experience true strife up to that point, more drawn to tragedy? Do they find it more romantic, more appealing somehow? I must have, but I definitely don't anymore.

Roy paints a story in which almost all of the 'adults' during the twins' childhood have very few redeemable qualities, and the twins suffer the consequences of their actions within a prejudiced society built around the caste system. Their adult selves are basically ghosts, hollowed-out husks of what they could have been. It's still a beautiful novel and definitely worth reading, revolving around a rich, colorful culture but also a strikingly rigid society based on strict interpretations of class. Just don't expect to come away feeling all happy-gooey about humanity (not that I ever do, really, but it's nice to at least find elements of redemption, or even just the possibility of redemption).

The first time I read this, on the very strong you-have-to-read-this-Right-Now recommendation of a friend, I believe I was a fresh-faced new college graduate, newly supplanted to New York City, wandering anonymously through the bustling, gritty humdrum of the city. (Or it was my last spring break during which I visited NYC - either way, for some reason I associate my first reading with the city.) I was fairly naive and extraordinarily trusting, though also painfully shy. I'm not really many of those things anymore, at least not nearly to the degree I was then. Still fiercely introverted but not so much shy, still occasionally clueless but the awfulness of which humanity is capable no longer shocks me to the same degree. Tragedy is just tragic; it's not romantic, it's usually not enlightening, and it's always always unnecessary, and, apart from natural disasters, always completely avoidable. Perhaps that was the ultimate point of the novel, one that touched me then in a way that seems obvious to me now.

Other rereads have produced similar results, not always that I enjoy the novel less - sometimes I like it much more. Vonnegut's fatalism seems much more smack-you-in-the-face now than it did 15 years ago. And it's not just specific books but even types of stories. Forbidden love, especially when it's forbidden because one or both the parties are married, is just eye-rollingly tiresome, and not romantic.  Have you had this experience? Have you noticed your tastes changing over time to the point that rereads are completely different experiences?

Franzenuddism

What's up with this guy? 

He seems to be morally opposed to Twitter. Apparently he thinks people are trying to tweet their entire dissertations or well-researched and supported arguments in 140 characters or less:

Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose ... It's hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters … It's like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it's like writing a novel without the letter 'P'… It's the ultimate irresponsible medium. People I care about are readers … particularly serious readers and writers, these are my people. And we do not like to yak about ourselves.

Um, yes, it's very hard to create an entire argument replete with citations and support in 140 characters or less. It's also hard to call something 140 characters long a novel, or a book, or a run-on sentence. Which is why no one uses Twitter to do that. Twitter is not supposed to replace novels or essays or long-form. It's just a tool to help discover long-form arguments and articles, to share them with those that might be interested. It's there to help disseminate information and events and opinions. Is that what he's against? Sharing information and opinions? You don't get twitter,  or you do and you don't like it, so... don't use it. Simple. It is not the scurge of society. It is a tool that's only as good as the people that wield it, like any other.

That he's "opposed" to Twitter is no surprise. Last year he bemoaned the evils of Facebook, seeming to think it turns us all into narcissistic attention monsters:

Our lives look a lot more interesting when they're filtered through the sexy Facebook interface. We star in our own movies, we photograph ourselves incessantly, we click the mouse and a machine confirms our sense of mastery.

And, since our technology is really just an extension of ourselves, we don't have to have contempt for its manipulability in the way we might with actual people. It's all one big endless loop. We like the mirror and the mirror likes us. To friend a person is merely to include the person in our private hall of flattering mirrors.

First, "sexy Facebook interface" - really? And this was before the timeline, which is at least an improvement in the look of the profile. Clearly this dude's got low standards when it comes to "sexy interfaces." Second, "private hall of flattering mirrors"? I wish. It's more like being trapped in the private hell of high schooly cliquishness. Nothing like learning about births and engagements and marriages of friends formerly considered close via Facebook. But hey, at least I'm in "the loop," or something. 

But I digress regressively into my childhood wall flowered self (Franzen, are you wearing off on me?). I'm clearly not Facebook's biggest fan, but I don't think all its 800M+ account holders are hopeless narcissistic automatons addictively clicking every "like" button they happen across. Sure, I have some pictures on there, and I'm even in some of them, and I've "liked" some stuff too, oh my, but I mostly use the service to stay in touch with certain people with whom I otherwise wouldn't be in touch and to share interesting or ridiculous or infuriating articles. Goodreads automatically lets everyone know what I'm reading (not seriously, if it's an ebook, obviously), mostly because I am under the delusion that all of my "friends" are precariously balanced on their seats' edges, waiting to see what I'll read next. And much as I hate to admit it, (but in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due), my now spouse and I reconnected across a couple thousand miles on the site almost 5 years ago, before it had become the monolith it is today. And... that's about it for me and the old FB. 

This particular piece is obviously not entirely about Facebook, and is well written and makes some valid points about our growing and disturbing obsession with technology, and about the dangers of mistaking the more sterile online connections for real-life connections. And he admits to his crankiness. 

But when coupled with his recent denigration of ebooks (and those unserious readers that read them) and his unspeakable irritation with Twitter of which he miraculously managed to speak, it just makes him sound like an ungrateful, clueless curmudgeon who refuses to admit the value and usefulness of some of these new technologies. 

I've already spoken of my distaste for snooty formatists, but let me reiterate. Get over yourselves. You prefer "real" books, fine, then don't buy an ereader and read only "real" books. That's your prerogative, and I have nothing against you for making your own personal reading choice. I myself embrace all formats. Franzen, clearly, does not: 

I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn't change...Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book, I'm handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing - that's reassuring. Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it's just not permanent enough.

Okay, he's OCD, and he never feels finished with his work, and needs the physicality of printed text on paper to convince him that it's over, the book is done, so stop futzing with it. That's fine, but his lamentation of the "impermanence" of ebooks verses the "permanence" of paper books is just plain silly - look around! Nothing at all in life is permanent, buddy. Printed books are not permanent. Permanent implies unalterable, indestructible, will never not be there, etc. But "permanent" is just long-term temporary. But that's a philosophical discussion, to be saved for another time. Still: let's say my house burns down. (House, this is not an invitation to burn down. Please stay standing. I've knocked on wood and everything. I would thank you to remain a house.) All my physical books are destroyed, and so is my ereader. But hey look! I can get another ereader, and all my ebooks are still readily available! I'd even be convinced that the text hadn't changed. 

I'm really not dissing physical books - I love them. I have too many of them. But I also love the convenience of reading ebooks. (See former post for why.) I'm only saying that "permanence" is in the beholder's eye, and Franzen should allow for the existence of alternative preferences that are not ipso facto inferior to his own.

I can only conclude that Franzen is "opposed" to people like me, since he basically has deemed me a narcissist, a non-serious reader, and ultimately irresponsible, by virtue of the fact that I use Facebook, read ebooks, and tweet. So. I can't say I'm rushing out to read his novels, or to write about them, or tweet about them, or share that I'm reading them on Facebook. I'm sure he's a smart guy and all, but he should be a little more careful with his snobbery and insults. 

Literary Blog Hop: Who's got time to read? And why's reading important anyway?

It's Literary Blog Hop time again, hosted by The Blue Bookcase. This month's question:

How do you find time to read, what's your reading style and where do you think reading literature should rank in society's priorities? 

Finding time to read: It's not so much about finding time but making time. Last year I managed to plan a wedding and to read more books than I had in years, and twice as much as I'd read the year before. I usually have a book with me, so I not only read at home before sleeping and on weekends, but whenever I have downtime or free time. Long line at the supermarket? Pull out the book. Computer crashing and rebooting? Let's read a couple pages. I have to admit, this method doesn't work so well with short stories, so I tend to stick to novels and full length books. I also listen to audiobooks occasionally, though I haven't been able to utilize that method as well as others. Oh, how I miss passive commuting.

Ebooks make it very easy - especially when you can sync across devices. (I'm totally with C-C here.) Then I can just look like I'm casually checking something on my phone instead of blatantly reading a book because I'm that bored with everything going on around me. Still rude, sure, but for some ridiculous reason it's somewhat socially tolerable (I can't go so far as to say acceptable) to pay attention to your phone but not so much a book. I figure if people I'm with have no problem constantly texting or checking their email or blogging or whatever, then I can certainly read. I am by no means a fast reader, so making time to read is important.

Reading style: I'm not a terribly big annotator - but I highlight/underline a lot. With library books, I use those little post-it flags for marking passages and actual post-its for writing comments. Blogging has changed how I read, making me pay more attention like I might have back at college, but hopefully I'm just so engaged in the text that I'm not constantly stopping to mark things. It really depends on the book.

Literature's priority in society: Reading actual literature should rank pretty highly in society's priorities, though it certainly doesn't. I find reading incredibly important and enjoyable, on a level that television just can't quite reach. Sure you can be engaged in a show or a film, but you're usually not required to do much of the work. Reading is more active than watching - you have to use your imagination to fill in the visuals. In the case of non-fiction, you are hopefully learning something new or coming to understand a new perspective, or adding to your knowledge base.

With all the new technology bombarding us, we have to learn to prioritize, to use the new mediums at our disposal effectively and efficiently (but let's not dismiss them entirely). Prioritizing reading, getting people to engage with the written word in this age of 24 hour news, dozens of social media options, the drive to disconnectedly stay connected - it's a major challenge. It's part of the reason I signed up for World Book Night (though, really, how I'm going to approach random strangers and try to convince them to take a book from me is still a mystery - we shall see!) - reading can be such an enriching experience that it's almost sinful that so many are missing out.

I could go on and on, but that would be silly. I'm most likely preaching to a bored choir. But what do you think? Any tricks for making time to read? How do you rate reading in your own priorities? Where should it fall, generally?

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley: Impressions

To say I enjoyed The Rook by Daniel O'Malley* would be a painful understatement. This was the most fun I've had reading in quite some time. Now, if you are not into books or stories that have anything to do with the supernatural, don't get too excited; this book is most definitely not up your alley. However, if you are, and you've just been waiting for something like the x-men running an MI-5-type secret branch of the government, complete with a secluded boarding school, dangerous conspiracies, campy humor and an amnesiac superhero protagonist, well, you should read this. Right now.

The book opens with Myfanwy (I keep having to check the spelling - it's a Welsh name, the novel explains, and is pronounced like Tiffany with an M, it says, although later it seems that might not be accurate after all, but it's ok, because most of us do not have Welsh alter-egos monitoring our inner mispronunciation of Welsh names and words) Thomas standing in the rain surrounded by dead bodies wearing latex gloves, and she has absolutely no idea who she is or what's going on. She reaches into her pocket and finds a letter from her former self who had been warned something like this could happen & was uberprepared for just such a thing.

And so we are introduced to the former Myfanwy Thomas, whom we learn about through her series of meticulously written letters describing who she was and as much as she knows about the conspiracy that lead to her amnesia. We learn about her job as a "Rook" (yes, after the chess pieces) with the super secret super powered Chequy, the supernaturally-inclined version of the MI-5. In order to determine who has stolen her memories and who is out to destroy her, amnesiac Myfanwy must fake her way through her role as a high-level executive with the aid of the letters and a binder chock full of histories of the organization and the high-leveled people with in it. She must come to grips with 4 bodies that share one brain, a woman who can enter her dreams, a house covered in what I couldn't help but picture as pink poltergeist goo absorbing all the inhabitants into a hive mind of some kind, and a weird conspiracy replete with mutants that were built instead of born.

That's the basic premise, and I don't want to say too much more for fear of giving anything away. I'm not saying this is a literary masterpiece, but it's a fantastic, imaginative, highly engaging, smartly ridiculous and cleverly wrought story. If you happen to have enjoyed Joss Whedon & The Bourne Identity, I think you'll really like this book.

*I received this book courtesy of Little, Brown and Company through NetGalley.