Reading Like A Reader

Last year, soon after it was published, I started reading reviews and blog posts about Francine Prose's book, Reading Like A Writer: A guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them". It seemed that there was no middle-ground: either the review/blogger loved the book, or he hated it. I had seen the book in the store before I had read discussion of it on-line and I had been intrigued by the title. But, I felt like I didn't need someone to tell me how to read, so it was placed back on the shelf. Later, after reading so many items about this book, I did buy a copy because I wanted to read Prose for myself.

I read the first four chapters soon after I got the book. I put the book down after those four chapters and didn't pick it up again until I read Dorothy's post a few weeks ago about it. Litlove and Stephanie also wrote about it recently. Since I was on a spree to complete several in-process books over the holiday weekend, I picked this one up & started it where I left off.

There were marks and comments in the margins of the first few chapters -- obviously I had reacted to reading the text -- but I could not remember anything significant about the book. That should have told me something about this book. I began reading it determined to complete it, and did so. Now a week later, I struggle once again to remember something distinctive in this book.

Prose's book doesn't cover anything that someone with more than one or two introductory classes in literature shouldn't have already learned. This could be an additional text for a beginning creative writing class. She dissects texts to offer up examples of fine writing, starting with the basic unit -- words -- and working her way through sentences, paragraphs, narration, etc. Some of the works she cites inarguably are examples of fine writing. Some of them, for the avid reader, are not unfamiliar, and one can appreciate Prose's efforts to find such wonderful examples to support her points.

Yet, I don't think that I learned anything new from this book. Her book may be a guide to an aspiring writer, but I think that it would have to be one who hasn't yet studied much about writing.

Is it for readers? I don't think so. I think that people who are avid readers do not need an instructive text on how a writer might approach creating a literary work. Aspiring and beginning writers might benefit. In the early chapters Prose writes about how a close reading of a text is beneficial to the writer. In fact, she suggests that this could be a better approach than a writing workshop.

I read closely, word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision that the writer had made. And though it's impossible to recall every source of inspiration and instruction, I can remember the novels and stories that seemed to me revelations: wells of beauty and pleasure that were also textbooks, private lessons in the art of fiction.

This book is intended partly as a response to that unavoidable question about how writers learn to do something that cannot be taught. What writers know is that, ultimately, we learn to write by practice, hard work, by repeated trial and error, success and failure, and from the books we admire. And so the book that follows represents an effort to recall my own education as a novelist and to help the passionate reader and would-be writer understand how a writer reads.

Prose writes about how it is reading that taught her to how to write, not writing classes. She says that the writing workshop is beneficial to learn to line-edit, but it is from reading that she learned how to write. I'm not sure why, in the initial chapters, she tries to advantage the reading of good writers over writing workshops. If such workshops teach one how to line edit, isn't that also what a close word-by-word reading would do by example? Can you do one without the exposure to the other? Is this really a dichotomy that should exist?

More importantly, does this really matter to the "passionate reader"? I'm not sure that there is one way to read a work. I think that even an unschooled reader, that is one who hasn't been introduced (is indoctrinated too strong a word?) to literary studies, can certainly enjoy a work of literature without needing to be able to dissect the manner in which the writer developed the character. One can read a short story by Chekov (Prose discusses his work extensively) and enjoy the pleasure of reading a story, perhaps connecting to it on an emotional level. On a different level, the same reader could reflect on how Chekov crafted his story, analyzing the way in which it was built, the seemingly effortless technique used to develop his characters. This leads to a different appreciation of the story and a deeper understanding of Chekov as a master craftsman of the short story, but does not necessarily reflect a closer -- or better -- reading of the text. This is just a different kind of reading of the text. Prose is right that would-be writers should study the examples of well-known authors and their works in this manner, but I don't think it is a necessary approach for "people who love books".

Then again, maybe I only think this because it took me nearly 20 years after earning my Masters to detox from the academic bs that had tainted my enjoyment of reading. Sure, I can discuss works using the terms of literary analysis and criticism -- and sometimes I do in this blog. But, sometimes, there is just a sheer joy in reading and it's okay to say "Wow! That book was great!" because that's all that needs to be said.

Away From Her/The Bear Came Over the Mountain

A few months ago, one of my reading groups selected Alice Munro's collection of short stories, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage for its monthly selection. I had the book on my shelves for a few years, but had never finished reading it. About a year ago, one issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review had featured Munro and I found the articles interesting. I was looking forward to discussing Munro's work with the group.

I was surprised that nobody in the group liked Munro. How could they not? I thought. I passionately made my case for Munro: the clearly defined characters, succinct, accurate description that vividly creates an image, a sparseness of setting that perfectly echos not only the physical but also the emotional landscape, stories about women that are true to the core. They all agreed, but still, they found Munro's work to be depressing in its achingly raw truthfulness. My fellow readers found the women characters to be real, but they didn't want to live their lives. Reading one story after the other was too much.

I can understand that sentiment. I like reading one or two stories at a time, not an entire collection. Maybe that's why it takes me a few years to work my way through a collection of short stories. Munro's stories certainly demand such reading. Her stories are best read individually, and perhaps, with significant time in between each reading least the reader burn out from reading so much heartache, loneliness and real life.

By the time my book group met, I had not finished all of the stories in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, including the last one in the volume, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain". Soon after that meeting, I heard that this story was being made into a film. Away From Her opened recently and, based on its 95 rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the strength of Munro's work, I went to see it today. I think this is an excellent movie. Although the story is gut-wrenching at times, the film doesn't stoop to melodramatic sentiment. While the subject is similar, this isn't The Notebook.

Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Julie Christie) have been married for 45 years and Fiona is losing her mind to Alzheimer's Disease. Fiona enters a nursing home and is separated from Grant for the first time in their marriage. He is unable to visit for the first month. Rather than be confused as to why her husband hasn't visited, Fiona forgets her husband and falls in love with another patient. The movie, though, isn't just about Alzheimer's. It is about the curve balls that life throws at you and how you deal with it over time. It is about loss, and about love refined by the trials of a long marriage.

Directory Sarah Polley said this about the type of love portrayed in the movie:

It was the opposite kind of love than we usually celebrate in films, which is new love without knowledge and without hardship. It's the whole idea of love after life has had its way with you, and after you have kind of failed each other and things have gone off the rails. Yet love still somehow exists between them." - 2007 AP interview on "Away From Her", as quoted on www.imdb.com

I think Polley achieves this in this film. The love between Grant and Fiona is immense; after Fiona forgets Grant, his love for her continues unabated.

Julie Christie's performance in the film is remarkable, as are the performances of Gorden Pinsent and Olympia Dukakas. Like the characters in Munro's story, the characters in the film realistically struggle with their lives. Dialog is used in the movie to convey ideas presented in the short story as dreams or past events, but the screenplay nicely handles these without being too preachy. The scenery in the film plays a part too; shots of the cold, snowy Canadian countryside seem to echo Christie's character's confusion and loneliness.

After I returned from the movie this afternoon, I retrieved Munro's book from the bookshelves and read "The Bear Came Over the Mountain". Although a few insignificant changes were made-- necessitated most likely by the medium --
the film is true to the story. Like Munro's story, the film is stark, yet compelling in the manner in which Munro accurately depicts the plight of Alzheimer's patients. The screenplay is also true in sticking to the same narrative as Munro's story, with one small exception that I found jarring. Towards the end of the film, the nurse who has been helpful to Grant throughout his wife's stay at the nursing home, condemns his past affairs. While Grant is remorseful about it, he had put it in the past until his wife's deteriorating memory begins to focus things in the past. Kristy, the nurse, pointedly tells him that his behavior is typically male, that maybe his life only seemed okay to him, but not to his wife. This seemed out of character for the nurse to say, given her nurturing to both her patients and to Grant. At first I thought these words were exactly what one would expect a Munro character to speak. But, this scene is not in the story. On reflecting on it after reading the story, I think that this scene states explicitly what Munro's stories typically only imply. In that regard, it seemed out of place, but not entirely out of context with the story.

I would recommend seeing this movie and reading Munro's story.

The Movie Was Better Than the Book

It isn't often that I can state that I saw a movie that was better than the book on which it was based. In many ways, it makes sense that this would be true; in a novel, even a short one, the writer has the means to present information in ways that are not possible in a movie. Narration in a book can change from one chapter to another. The point of view of different characters can be explored. Background information can be provided. Description can be given that allows the reader to create in his mind what a character looks or sounds like, to envision how a place looks, smells, feels.

In a movie, all of this information is given through more limited means: the camera and the words and actions of the character. I don't think that movie viewing necessarily is less interactive than reading, although I think in our media-saturated culture, it is easier to be less attentive to the manipulations of the camera, to be less aware of what might be happening that we aren't told and how that might influence our reactions, set us up for a surprise, convince us to sympathize with one character over another. Although film offers the discerning viewer the opportunity to enjoy or to analyze on various levels, such as the cinematography, movies can be enjoyed only on the action level, if that is only what the viewer chooses to give to her viewing. While there are books that are mainly plot-driven too, it is more likely that a movie will live or die by its plot.

To translate a book into a movie is difficult because of the length that is afforded the novelist. A screen writer must be more concise because of the medium. The interpretation that is offered is that of the director. Translations of short stories, because of the compactness of the narration may be more suited to film. An obvious example that comes to mind is Brokeback Mountain. All that is in Annie Proulx's compact but lush story was in Ang Lee's film. Only one additional scene in the movie is added to indicate the passage of years and to convey what directions the lives of the main characters took. There is little difference in the story-telling between the two forms of the tale; the chief difference between the two forms comes from the dazzling scenery of the mountains in the film. The length and compactness of the story aided the adaptation to film; a longer story or novel would have contained more and something would have had to have been omitted to fit the film format. In this case, however, the movie is truly a re-creation in a different medium of Proulx's short story.

It is because of the differences between a novel and a movie that I think that I almost always prefer the book to the movie adapted from the book. Too much needs to be cut out of most books, leaving the movie a sad empty shell, barely reminiscent of the book. Characters are eliminated or morphed into one. Places are changed. Details that serve as the glue to hold the book together are omitted. Overall, although I love the movies, I am almost always disappointed in an adaptation from a book, even if I read the book after I've seen the movie.

A few days ago, the Hobgoblin wrote a review of P.D. James' The Children of Men. Generally, he found that the characters were lacking and the book, overall, disappointing. I commented on his post that after seeing the movie, and having read 1/2 of the book, I was perplexed that anyone had read the book and even considered it for a movie. It isn't that the book is unfilmable; it is because the book, although it suggests some thought-provoking ideas, is just not that interesting as a novel. The characters are one dimensional and the ideas are not fully developed.

This is the first P.D. James' book I have ever read. I've always heard great things about her works, but who-dunnits are not my usual reading fare. Had I never heard of her, I'd be unlikely to read anything else by her. I have promised some of my James-loving acquaintances that I will still read one of her mysteries, but I did not like this book at all. Had I read it before I saw the movie, I wouldn't have seen the movie either. But, having experienced both the movie and the book, I will say that the movie was much better.

In the book, the author introduces many ideas that are not elaborated upon. Many of the characters are one-dimensional. Few serve a purpose other than to advance a small piece of the plot, and sometimes their behaviors are incongruent to the character previously introduced. The motivation of the main character Theo is not clear, whether it is in writing a diary describing what he sees as the last of his days on the planet even though he knows there will be no future generation to read his memoir, or his falling in love with the first woman on the planet to become pregnant in 25 years. Why does he love her? Is it because there is something remarkable about her other than her pregnancy? Is it because he is attracted to her physically or psychologically? Is it because she is fertile -- something that his character should be smart enough to realize but never does. Why does Theo dislike his cousin Xan, the dictator of England, so much? Why did Theo abandon his governmental post? Why is Xan his enemy -- or is he his enemy? Xan is portrayed as being devoid of feeling, only interested in power. But, is Theo much different? The reader never really knows.

P.D. James brings up many interesting ideas in this short novel. She depicts a world devoid of hope. She suggests that as a dying race there would be no interest in religion. For a book full of religious symbolism as well as a few outwardly religious characters, she does little to suggest that the people in her imagined world need religion. The faithful and the religious fanatics seem to not care much if others don't agree with them, even when they have changed religious practices such as christenings into social occasions for celebrating their pets, keeping a ritual that is suggestive of life, but which plays into the insanity of not having children to love and nurture. She suggests that the government is evil, yet its Stepford-wife citizenry seem not to care as long as they are safe and happy. But, when James suggests that the government is abusive and murderous, she does little to indicate why. There is a lengthy scene describing the state-sponsored suicide ritual. In this scene, one character, introduced earlier as someone who wouldn't willingly participate but now senile and probably incapable of such a decision, tries to abandon her suicide attempt. She is attacked by the state police and killed. But there is no reason why the government would do this. With a dying population not yet having exhausted its resources, there is no reason to kill its citizenry except to be brutal.

Initially Theo becomes involved with the radical group because he is politically convenient as the nearest relative to the dictator. But the group's goals change once there is a pregnancy. This change suggests the corruption of power, but the idea is never fully explored. That hope for the future doesn't die when the father of the child dies is not convincing. Theo's eventual triumph and conversion to faith and hope in the future is so foreshadowed that the predictable climax loses its power to be suspenseful and a fulfilling conclusion for the reader.

So why is the movie better? The same characters in the book are in the movie, although there are some significant differences. The character of Theo is still a cynic but his motivations for becoming involved are different; Julian is still a radical, although her character is less significant in the movie. The radical group, the Five Fishes, is still pivotal to the plot, but in a much different way. The self-absorbed Omegas, the last generation to be born, are hardly discussed in the movie. The world of the movie teeters on the brink of chaos as in the book. There is no hope in a world of a dying human race, little reason to plan ahead, many reasons to be suspicious.

But, where the narration of the book fails, the movie succeeds. By changing the world to be more recognizable as our own-- a future that could be 2008, not 25 years in the future as James' book was when published in the early 90's -- the world becomes believable. The nationalistic fervor that pervades England in the movie is frightfully understandable for any country struggling with culture wars taken to the extreme: anyone who is an outsider is to be feared; anyone who fights against governmental policies is a terrorist and should be hunted by the police and deported to the chaos outside the borders of the country. In the movie, the birth of the child is heralded in a refuge camp. In an unforgettable scene, warring factions stop fighting at the sound of a wailing baby. In the movie, the pregnant woman is little more than a child herself, both excited and fearful of giving birth. The corruption of politicians and the police is more believable; without family to care for, self-interest, whether expressed as pleasure or power, is paramount for most. In a polluted, toxic waste environment, cynicism is abundant. In the movie, Theo is a hero who abandons his self-absorbing cynicism when he realizes that he can make a difference in the world; in the book, although he becomes involved in life-altering activities, he never rises above his own self-interest to be considered a hero.

In the end, the movie is better than the book, but not because of the medium. It is better than the book because the plot is more coherent, the characters better crafted, the world depicted more believable. Sometimes, it is the writing after all, not the medium, that makes a work successful.

Is this stupid stuff?

I'm not sure why I looked at my stats today and did some quick calculations. It isn't something that I do routinely, although after my post about keyword searches the other day, I did check. For some reason, I seem to be motivated today to do an end-of-month assessment.

Others have written recently regarding their reading, writing or blogging goals (see Kate, or Danielle, or Emily, or Mandarine for instance) and that has had me thinking. Before I read Kate's post a few days ago swearing off of a goal she set for herself, I had thought that perhaps I should have set such goals for myself. I'm not very good at that. Heck, I still have on my daily work to-do list, where it has been since 1st week of January, to write departmental and staff development goals. Those haven't been done either.

I considered setting some very specific goals -- how often I would post, how many books I would read, at which levels I wanted to see my blog traffic by the end of the year. But, I tend to resist such goals. In my work life, I have to live by them (well, mostly; if crucial I'd have completed those dept goals by now....) But, if I do so in my personal life and apply it to something that I consider recreational, like reading and blogging, it seems to suck the life out of it quickly. It becomes just one more thing that has to be done. ugh!

So, how did I do in not meeting the goals I didn't set?

1) I've written several vocab words in my notebook, but I haven't looked many of them up. I decided to include words that I know in context, but that I really haven't made my own, words I might not be able to define if pressed to do so without a context. This was the only true reading/blogging goal that I had -- and it wasn't a specific measurable goal: just to record and post new words on a regular basis. Number of posts on this topic in 2007: 0. Number now planned: Probably 0. Just not sure that it would be interesting for anybody and the notebook serves it purpose for me.

2) Keep a reading diary. This lasted about 2 weeks. I found myself wanting to write more in the book margins than in a notebook. Putting the book down to jot a note was a burden. I might still keep this in some manner, but only to record things that I might blog about later.

3) Reading goals. Didn't have any. Didn't hit any targets. Right on track! Read and posted on 1 book of poetry, blogged about 1 movie, participated in Poetry Thursday 3 times and posted an additional poem. Finished one memoir/nonfiction book (There is No Me Without You, Melissa Fay Greene) which I intend to write about soon; started another memoir, Julie and Julia which I will probably post about as well. Am buried up to my eyebrows in reading Jeffry Sachs book, An End to Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Times. I'll definitely write about this one, but it is slow reading. Why? Did you notice the word 'economic' in the title? It is surprisingly readable for a book about economics and public policy, but it really makes me think, which is what slows me down. This is for a discussion group on Monday; I hope I finish it by then.


4) Reading groups. Participated in one online (A Curious Singularity), and 2 in-person groups. Even read the books for them, something that I don't always accomplish. I've been thinking that I should write a post about one of my groups; it is an interesting mix. Maybe I'll do that soon.

5) Posted 13 different entries, a slight increase that I attribute to not forcing myself to adhere to a schedule. I'm actually posting more. Received 82 comments on those posts. This really surprised me. As I've said before, it is the comments that make the community; it is the community that makes blogging worthwhile for me.

6) I've had a large number of hits on my blog this month. The hits have been steadily increasing over the last 3 - 4 months. When I looked at the stats, I thought "Only 8 more to reach 'x' for January". And then I realized that was a silly thought. It isn't quantity that should count (which is why I am not revealing the number, probably higher than some, lower than others).

7) Didn't sign on for any challenge that I would have felt guilty about not completing. By not committing to reading from my stacks, for instance, I've actually started 2 books that I've had for awhile. Reverse psychology? Maybe.

What's ahead? I'll keep on reading, and posting. See you around!

Spending a few hours with Mary Oliver's Winter Hours

Following a long nap -- a perfect past time on a snowy cold day -- I sat down to browse through a book I picked up a few months ago, Mary Oliver's Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems. Oliver writes in the forward that this collection, published in 1999, is of poems and essays that reveal herself, "to offer something that must in the future be taken into consideration by any who would claim to know me". But, Oliver warns, it is not a work that is chronological or opens up secret matters of her life and heart. Rather, she writes, it is like "parts of conversation, or a long and slowly arriving letter...natural in expression".

One of the essays in the book is about Robert Frost. Other essays deal with Poe, Hopkins, and Whitman. In a brief essay, she writes convincingly about Frost as a poet who on the surface appears to be writing about how all is right, yet subtly reveals that all is not right. His works are lyrical and perfectly formed, Oliver states, but the meaning behind the form defines an ever-present discomfort with the world. Oliver writes:

So often is seems Frost is about to float away upon a lilting cadence, or barge away in some desperate rage, and then he reins himself in; there is the wondrous restraint, the words that are rich and resonant: dark and deep. And there is also that other restraint: the impending rhyme-match and the line length that must reach, not never overreach, its companions.... Whatever the painful and unresolved interior of the poem, the poet has kept his balance, and we can too. Balance, restraint, steadiness, a controlled and reasonable tongue, and an eye that never fails to see the beauty of things whatever else it sees -- these are victories. Whatever disappointments and woe Frost felt, he rocked him way through them and made the perfect cages of his poems to hold them.

This renders "the woods are lovely, dark and deep" in a different perspective, doesn't it?

In another essay, titled The Swan and preceding a poem with the same title, Oliver writes of her rules for acceptable poems:

Every poem I write...must have a genuine body, it must have sincere energy, and it must have a spiritual purpose.... I want every poem to "rest" in intensity. I want it to be rich with "pictures of the world". I want it to carry threads from the perceptually felt world to the intellectual world. I want each poem to indicate a life lived with intelligence, patience, passion, and whimsy....

I want the poem to ask something and, at its best moments, I want the question to remain unanswered. I want it to be clear that answering the question is the reader's part in an implicit author-reader pact.

Following this brief essay is the poem The Swan. Oliver writes that it has some of these qualities, but in fact it has all of them. To quote a few lines (unfortunately, I don't know how to reproduce the indentions as published):


Said Mrs Blake of the poet:

I miss my husband's company --
he is so often
in paradise.
Of course! the path to heaven
doesn't lie down in flat miles.
It's in the imagination
with which you perceive
this world,

and the gestures
with which you honor it.

I think that Oliver is absolutely correct on this requisite interaction of the reader with the text. And it isn't limited to poetry alone. She writes: "The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building...The point is not what the poet would make of the moment but what the reader would make of it." Oliver succeeds in meeting her standards for a poem with "The Swan". It indicates "a life lived with intelligence, patience, passion, and whimsy" and it also rests with intensity and causes the reader to think about the non-flat, non-linear miles in the arc of a life and to contemplate what are the gestures which honor that.

My experience with Oliver's poems has been limited. I'm not sure that I'd recommend this book as the starting point for someone with no exposure to Oliver, but it does provide a glimpse into Oliver as a writer without bogging down in memoir-esque trivial details, revealing too much about the writer that might persuade one to confuse the writer with the speaker in her poems. Nor does it overwhelm the reader with theory or explication that might send one fleeing rather than to the nearest volume of Oliver's poems to read more from this gifted poet. Mostly what I like about this book is that it provides insight into how a poet regards other poets' works as a reader as well as how the poet envisions readers of her own work.