A Book Meme and Some Thoughts on What I've Been Reading Lately

Liz Fenwick tagged me for this meme on books and it presented me with some revelations about my recent habits. I swear, the meme is here somewhere, so just skip to the end of this blathering if you want to get to it faster.

I consider reading to be just as important to my writing as the actual writing and so the books I read tend to be selected for specific reasons. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a book to read, just because I thought it would be fun or entertaining. This surprised me. The good side of this coin is that because I’ve been reading books to gain insight into how they were written, it makes me realize that I have begun to look at writing (and the associated reading) in the same way I view learning a profession.

That can’t be all bad.

The other side of the coin is that reading has always been a happy diversion for me and I’ve been depriving myself of that pure escapism. Those books I picked up to read for the pure pleasure and entertainment of it all keep slipping to the bottom of the pile.

I can track this back to the weeklong retreat I attended with Lighthouse Writers Workshop in July. I knew some of the instructors were published authors and I wanted to read their books before I went. It would be just plain rude not to, right? There were also four books that would be discussed (the discussions were optional, but I’m an overachiever, so that was a no-brainer – of course I was going to read them all). I managed to slip in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse as a challenge to myself and then I read Tobias Wolff’s Old School because he was coming to Denver and I was planning to attend three events where he’d be presenting or teaching or reading.

In October, I’ll be attending a class called Experimental Structures in the Novel. We’ll meet every other Thursday for eight weeks and we’ll discuss four novels that take unique approaches to story structure, so I’ve got quite a bit of my future reading mapped out. We’ll read The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (ha, finally ahead of the curve), If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino and The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald. How could I pass up the opportunity to try out books like this with some actual adult supervision?

Now since my Lighthouse Writers Workshop instructor for the course is also a published novelist and short story writer, and he's had a story published in The New Yorker (yes) I’ve just started his book, Articles of War, which was listed by Esquire Magazine as one of the best books of the year. Nick Arvin’s book has also been named 2007’s One Book, One Denver selection! – More on that next week.

Prior to any of this, I signed up for the Writers Revealed Virtual Book Club and Away, by Amy Bloom is sitting quietly, waiting for me to pick it up so that I can participate in the discussion with the author on October 28^th.

In the meantime, I have books by other bloggers sitting in piles unread -- including at least one blogger who I've tagged today! The exception of course is that I dropped everything to read the UK edition of Therese Fowler’s Souvenir that Larramie was so wonderful to send me in July – how could I not?! Everything else I have in that pile (and I promise you there are about a dozen) I really do want to read and I have not had time to open. I’m also a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and the latest release has been collecting dust for weeks.

I'm not even going to mention all of the books on writing and craft I've bought and read over the last year or so -- see my list of books I've read this year on the sidebar to get an idea about those. Yikes.

Is this a bad thing?

Is all of my “serious” reading making me a dull person? Seriously, I am NOT a great big poser trying to read all these smarty-mcsmart-smart books just to look smart. I do have a big sense of having missed out on taking literature classes in college because – oh yeah, I didn’t exactly go to college, so I feel like I’m making up for lost time.

Am I depriving myself of some good old-fashioned fun, or am I doing what I need to?

OK – on to the meme:

Total number of books?

I’m not sure if this means the total number I have now or the total number I’ve had in my life – hmm. I feel like I’m constantly purging the collection because books take over the houses where I live all the time. Looks like the average number of books on each bookshelf is 30 X 20 shelves = 600, oh my God, plus the piles of unshelved books on top of tables, on top of shelved books, stuck in cabinets, in boxes in the garage – Is there a 12-step program or rehab facility for this kind of obsession!? Do I need an intervention?

Last Book read?

I’m happy to report that earlier tonight I finished The Children’s Hospital, by Chris Adrian. I hope to post a review at The Book Book within the next few days.

Last Book Bought?

That could be the last one delivered or the last one ordered – yes, I buy way too many one-click selections from Amazon! I bought three at once (listed above) for the class on experimental fiction. Yesterday, Amazon delivered Look Me in the Eye, by John Elder Robison. It had been on pre-order with Amazon for quite a while.

Five meaningful Books?

So hard to say and I know I am forgetting so many books that touched me, but here goes. Books that really made me want to write and that were meaningful to me at different times in my life include: A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle, The Other by Thomas Tryon, The Dogs of March by Ernest Hebert, Sophie’s Choice by William Styron, and The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice.

Five People to Tag – Hmmmm – How About:

Karen at Beyond Understanding

Larramie at Seize a Daisy

Kristen at From Here to There and Back

Patti at the Patti-O

Carleen at The Pajama Gardener

Now I figure I'm one of the few people I've run across on these blogs who's attempting a "Back to School" type of experience -- just like Rodney Dangerfield, only please God, I hope I don't really look like Rodney Dangerfield!

How often do you pick up a book in order to study it, rather than purely for the enjoyment of reading it?

Reading With Training Wheels

I read To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf last week and it wasn’t until I watched Stone Reader earlier this week that something clicked. Critics and scholars discussing Dow Mossman’s book, The Stones of Summer commented that it was difficult to read, that they had to try it more than once to get through it, but that it was brilliant. That got me thinking about a discussion we had here some months back about whether we read some books because we like them or because we just want to like them.

At the time that I posted about our reasons for reading the classics, I don’t think I could articulate the reason I want to read them now. By reading great works that have shaped our culture we open ourselves up to a heightened experience.

There are books that most people agree are very difficult, almost painful to read. I’ve confessed here that I tried several William Faulkner novels before I was able to read and ultimately enjoy As I Lay Dying. James Joyce and William Gaddis are still sitting on the shelf, waiting.

Before last week, I’d never tried reading Woolf and I was a little worried. I sat down with the book and a highlighter and the expectation that it might be rough going. I knew that there wouldn’t be a word or a sentence that was not intended and I read slowly, paying particular attention to the objects, the individual characters and the dialogue. I read many sections a number of times as I went along.

I got it. I loved it. Of course there are things I’m sure I didn’t pick up on, but an understanding of the literary technique that makes this book special came through to me.

It makes me a little wistful to think that there are probably people like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Faulkner and William Gaddis – pick your icon, writing what could be this generation’s great literary works, but I doubt they’d have much chance of publishing it today. We're in too much of a hurry to get the action.

Reading books like these is a different kind of reading. It’s like the slow food movement. It can’t be done while I’m distracted and I can’t pick the book up five minutes here and ten there. It requires time set aside to focus.

For me, developing an appreciation for great literature is like learning about wine. It takes time and a little bit of money to develop a palate for good wine, but once you do, you can recognize what a miracle an exceptional wine truly is. Better yet, it makes discovering a good $10 or $15 bottle of wine that much more fun. Understanding the terminology, learning about the wine growing regions and the varietals grown around the world is a little bit of work, but anyone can do it and when undertaken as a hobby or learning experience, it can be a lot of fun. Learning about wine isn’t something everyone is interested in, but it doesn’t change the fact that bad wine, good wine and fine wine exists.

Developing an appreciation and even a love for great literature is similar. I’m referring to the books that are generally considered a part of the Western Canon; those works of artistic merit that have been most influential in shaping western culture. Up through the 1960s, there wasn’t a huge amount of disagreement about what works should be considered part of this list that goes back to the ancient Greeks. There has always been some disagreement of course, but not an enormous amount. Since then, there has been a great deal of controversy. My point is that there are works that did help to define our culture and what would be considered “high culture”. These books are held in esteem, not because the literary or academic world is exclusionary or elitist. It’s because they are better than other books. They have stood the test of time and continue to be studied and read long after they’re written.

Reading these books is not for everyone, but I delight in saying that despite my fears, it can be done, even by someone outside of a classroom – like me. To the Lighthouse was the first classic I read as a writer that I was able to study and enjoy at the same time. I think these types of books truly require study and some dedicated time. I don’t think any of the classics written up to the early twentieth century was ever meant to be read in the way we read other books. Many of us read before sleep when we’re tired and our concentration is at a low. I can do that with most books I read purely for pleasure, but not these.

So I wondered, when I finished To the Lighthouse, which I read immediately after Aristotle’s Poetics (also with highlighter in hand), how do these works impact me as a writer? When I intersperse reading these works with books like The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, what am I gaining from this? Certainly, studying the classics, hearing the voices and recognizing the literary technique and the uniqueness of what each author has done is feeding me and helping me to grow and improve. It makes me aspire to write as well as I can in my own voice and with the awareness that I’m living in 2007 and like it or not, there are market realities I have to keep somewhere in the back of my mind if I do ever have hopes of publication.

The happiness I felt after reading this one particular book is in knowing that reading, understanding and enjoying the classics isn’t something that’s closed to me because I didn’t study literature in college. These books are accessible to me. For the same reasons that I learned about wine and about fine art, I want to read great works of literature. I’m not rich and I have very little formal education in the humanities, but what is fine and what is beautiful belongs to everyone, including me.

Do you read the classics or have a desire to read any that you haven’t? Do you believe our children should be taught the classics in school? How about art and classical music? Do you believe there are any great novelists writing today that are destined to become part of the Western Canon? If you don’t think there are any, why do you think that is?

Writers Revealed Classics

Writers Revealed has launched Writers Revealed Classics, a monthly live chat about great classic and world literature. It will be hosted by Bethanne Patrick, a journalist and literary critic with a master’s degree in English from the University of Virginia and by Jennifer Bassett, a literary magazine and book editor with a master’s degree from NYU and a BA from Columbia.

The first chat session will take place on August 21, 2007 and Bethanne Patrick will host a discussion on To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf.

On September 18, 2007 Jennifer Bassett will host a discussion on Rebecca, by
Daphne Du Maurier.

I’ve already ordered To The Lighthouse and Rebecca and despite the fact that my TBR stack continues to grow, I’m delighted I’ve got deadlines to help shepherd me back to these classics. I can’t think of a better, more convenient way to incorporate more classic literature into my reading diet.

Please check out Writers Revealed Classics for details.