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We’ve talked about this before. A poorly written book with a good story at its core can still be very interesting. In fact in a lot of cases, it will be wildly popular and ridiculously lucrative. A badly written book can still compel you to keep reading. Even as you wince and groan at the language, you keep pursuing the ending. You want to see the story unfold, so you stick with it.
Unfortunately.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been slogging through the over 600 pages of The Historian, lugging its hardcover heft to work and back (so much so the binding broke) and all I can think is that 1) Thankfully I read this book when I was commuting by train again and 2) I’m glad I only paid $6 for this book.
This book commits a crime greater than just being poorly written. It’s a repetitive, drab, pedantic history lesson yes, but that could be forgiven (I loath little more than a character summarizing what another character has just said – apparently for the remedial reader’s benefit). The problem is that between verbose and awful, awful prose (example – “It was too serious to not be taken seriously”) there are hidden gems like this one:
“. . .but it seemed to me now that a Catholic church was the right companion for all these horrors. . .I somehow doubted that the hospitable plain Protestant chapels that dotted the university could be much help; they didn’t look qualified to wrestle with the undead. ”
Sounds intriguing right?
{Full disclosure: I’m a little defensive lately. My best friend got married in the last of the weddings for this season (what a relief) and we didn’t make it to rehearsal dinner before the “When are you getting married?” questions started. I’ve mentioned before that reading keeps me sane and my choices this week are no exception.}
I’ve had my anti-bride rant already so I’m moving on to bigger prey. In a long hot summer filled with wedding after wedding (really it was only three, almost four, but it seemed like exponentially more) I’ve become increasingly frustrated by social expectations being laid at my feet. Everyone wants to marry me off.
It still amazes me how rude some people can be. When are you getting married is not, by any means, an innocuous or polite question. And yet it’s completely socially acceptable. Even if we excuse the blatant invasion of privacy there are issues with the semantics. Firstly there is the “when” of it which implies there is no choice not to – it’s pretty clear that this is not a question of “if” after all. Secondly there is the fact that the questioner even has to ask the question, which implies that you’re taking too long (the poor, frustrated souls, I really feel for them). This questions belongs, along with its sister when are you having kids, to a society where people had no choices in the matter – matrimony and childbirth were inevitable – and frankly, they had nothing better to talk about. I for one think we’ve moved past that and our social manners should evolve as such. Unfortunately it appears that I’m in the minority on this one.
I’ve already mentioned that I’m a huge Jane Austen fan so it’s no surprise that I would pick up a book with the subtitle Pride and Prejudice Continues (there are dozens of them, but, dismissing the old adage, I picked this one because of its cover art). Not all characters are interesting enough to follow after their story has ended but Elizabeth and Darcy are certainly two that are. One can imagine a future relationship of adventure, love and shared wit. Something interesting was happening there, which surely would continue. But what exactly did their happily ever after include?
According to the author – lots and lots of sex.
One of the characters in this book, (and I’m getting the feeling she will add to the intrigue later in the story) is Juliette Clisson, daughter of a French Viscountess. She is the unofficial mistress and well paid escort of Mr. Darcy for many years before he weds. She is rich, beautiful and decidedly high class despite her profession.
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (and yes, I can only imagine the title is meant to be ironic, because it seems like all he does is take her – in the bath, in the carriage, on the grounds of Pemberly) is similar to Ms. Clisson in many ways, but mostly because they are both high brow smut. Don’t get me wrong, this book does not aim to hide the nature of its story, in fact it’s likely the book’s main selling point. Alas, however, I expected a story in there somewhere.
This blog would be remiss if one of us didn’t at least mention Harry Potter, so here’s a brief note. Harry and J.K. have weathered some harsh criticisms over the years (and it’s been a decade, can you believe it? If you were eleven like Harry when you read book one, you can read Deathly Hallows at a bar!) but I for one am willing to forgive practically everything (I say practically because I don’t know what is in store for the finale. I hope and pray J.K. will not let us down). I unabashedly adore Harry Potter and turn a conscious blind eye and ear to such criticisms.
I spent the majority of last night ignoring my dirty house, my pets and Tim so I could finish Harry Potter. In preparation for the newest book I used to read the entire series, something that is near impossible nowadays with the number of books and their inordinate length (oh yeah and my lack of time). So this time I settled for a Half Blood Prince re-read. I’m glad I did. I estimate that I’ve read about 200 books since this book came out two years ago (and yeah, I bought it the first day and read it the next day!). It’s hard to keep stories straight when they’re so involved (although one of the criticisms that J.K. recieves is that she offers clues to past stories in each of her books. I say THANK YOU, since I’m an old lady with a failing memory lately – not a vibrant 10 year old with nothing else to worry about. I need the help).
Now I’m ready.
Or am I? Despite my excitement, it’s still hard to believe that the next book is the last book.
To delve into a book completely is, to me, the greatest part of reading. There is great freedom in suspending your own internal voices and embracing a story without reservation. Which isn’t easy when the voices in your head are used to being listened to (as mine are). Oftentimes part of this suspension is allowing yourself to be easily led where the author wants you to go. Which can be exactly where you don’t want to go and sometimes it can be away from something you want to see. They lock the doors and take the lights out on the stairs. All we can do is turn away and go where the path is open.
I make a habit of not reading book sleeve synopses. If I did, I might have been forewarned. Angelica is divided into four parts. I was only two sentences into part two when I realized I had been duped. Part one is centered on Mrs. Barton (Constance) and a pernicious spector haunting her life. I believed it all without reservation – it’s a great ghost story through and through. Of course she’s haunted. Of course she’s unable to remove it. Of course she hires someone to expel it from the house. Of course her husband has something to do with it.
What to read next? It’s probably one of the most exciting and frustrating questions a reader can ask. It’s a tough question. Tougher still if you are a discerning reader looking for something new and interesting.
Though I like a good mind candy, beach read book as much as the next person, I’m a little more demanding when it comes to “good reads.” If it’s currently on the NYT bestseller list (Harry Potter being the exception), I don’t read it. If I see more than two people on the subway reading, I skip it. If it’s in the top 100 on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, I’ll pass. A good website for fiction for the anti-masses is bas bleu though they have been known to be very wrong (the Hazards of Good Breeding and Lucy are two notable examples).
The safest bet is to ask other reader friends. Reading is an experience made more enjoyable by sharing. The simple phrase “You gotta read this!” makes what is necessarily a solitary activity suddenly a social one. It’s the one thing guaranteed to drag us – hard core readers that is – out of our shells. We hold up our titles like recent travellers with a photo album. We want others to read – to see what we saw and to live what we lived.
There are many stories about warped or slightly skewed fairy tales. This is certainly one of them, but not quite.
The most important difference is of course the quality of writing. This is my first experience with John Connolly, but it will decidedly not be my last. He has a eye for imagery and a gentle but persistent grasp on plot. This man knows how to tell a good story.
The second reason is that the warping of the classic tales in this story are not for political purposes (don’t tell that to the communist 7 dwarfs though). Or for simply humorous ones (although it is quite humorous at times). It is for one simple reason: The characters themselves made it that way. Each of the monsters and magical perversions in this world is someone’s fear, based in the foundation of sometimes horrific children’s tales. The rulers of this kingdom are stolen children, trapped in a world they don’t know or understand. They make sense of it the best way they can – through the lens of tales they grew up on.
OK, I have an assignment for you.
Go out to the bookstore or library.
Get The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear.
Read it, preferably aloud, to a loved one.
Finished?
Good, now that you’ve had a little taste of Moers, you’re probably good and soundly addiction. Go straight back out and get Rumo (sorry, I should have told you that the first time).
I’m not a fan of sequels, and thankfully this one is not. You will see recurring characters and creatures from Blue Bear, but you will not see (at least I haven’t so far) Blue Bear himself. For the uninitiated, this tale of Zamonia will seem like a bunch of nonsensical balderdash.
Readers of Blue Bear will know it’s a bunch of nonsensical balderdash.
I’ve never been one for “studying” literature. Dissecting plot lines, themes and social context doesn’t really inspire me. That is the main reason why I never pursued a degree in English Literature, despite my passion for reading it. I didn’t want to make it work.
My senior year in high school AP English is a perfect illustration. We studied a lot of works that year (1984, Canterbury Tales, and Macbeth to name a few). The total number of pages I read can be calculated easily – zero. How did I pass? My class was filled with the smartest of the smart kids that year (one major exception being my friend Christine who, I suspect for communist reasons, opted out of AP for regular English class *gasp*) and all I had to do was let them start the discussion and take their talking points a bit further down the road.
I’ve never been haunted by the ghosts of AP English past, and I’ve never taken the time to read the books I should have read ten years ago. In fact, I always felt as if I had already read Pride and Prejudice. It’s such a famous book that it’s wormed its way, Jungian style, into the literary and popular culture (see it referenced in the movie You’ve Got Mail). Between the BBC version, the new Keira Knightly movie and the pervasive Bridget Jones I’m sure everyone feels it would be a bother to actually open the pages. We already know the story.
The ability of children’s literature to handle the “hard topics” is often underestimated. Sometimes authors are criticised for pandering to children; they are accused of telling kids that the world is a good place where the bad guy always loses. Embarrassingly my return to YA fiction in my adulthood was for this very reason. Mostly it has been about nostalgic memories and a yearning for simpler stories. As I creep farther and farther in adult society, children’s stories address a need for clear cut lines and black and white outcomes.
If only it were that simple. That I am misremembering is becoming increasingly clear. Books like Bridge to Terabithia, Where the Red Fern Grows, Charlotte’s Web, and Tuck Everlasting are simple? Clearly not. They delve deeply into the basic questions of life: death, love, family and loss. I’m finding that most YA fiction written today follows the example of these classics. In fact these days authors more often come under heavy fire for treating kids as they should – as intelligent beings able to deal with complex issues.
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