Books About Books

This fulfills another category in the my Year of Mini Challenges for the nonfiction category. I had planned to read Three Cups of Tea since it was already a book club book for me, but I just couldn't finish it. It's a great story of what one person can do to make a big change, but I've heard so much about it, I felt like I already knew the story. The writing is not great, and I've too many other books waiting to be read. So I gave up after about 100 pages. Now, on to the books I did read. They are both books about books and how and why we read them, as well as how writers can learn how to write better by reading great books. The first book is How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom, and the other book is Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose. I know that not one person that bothers to read this blog will find it at all weird that I have read and enjoyed these books. However, that's not been the case with the people I run into during my day to day life. In fact, I found myself more than once hiding the cover of the books when reading in public. I didn't want to have to explain AGAIN why a 41 year old librarian would want or need to read a book about how and why to read a book. It just doesn't make sense to those outside the book lover's realm, which sadly describes most of the people I encounter daily. Don't get me wrong, I am not surrounded by a bunch of illiterate people. On the contrary, many of them read and would say that they enjoy reading. However, none of them feel about books the way that I do or the way that many of you do.

My initial impetus for picking these books up in the first place was to learn to read more closely in order to wring everything possible out of the books that I read. Often when I read reviews of books that I've read or participate in book group discussions, I always find something that I missed or see something about the book in a new light. I think we've all experienced this. In fact, that's one of the reasons I love reading your blogs and participating in group discussions in the first place. I get more out of my reading when I do.

Well, you may ask -- did I learn anything from either of these books that will help me be a more attentive reader and get more out of my reading? The answer would be a resounding, yes. Though, I liked both books, I learned much more from Francine Prose's book, which was also written in a style that I much prefer over the Bloom book. Always a good indication for me of how much I like a book or how much I want to be able to recall is the number of book darts I use. Let's just say that I wouldn't be able to take the Prose book through a metal detector as it is now. I think I used almost an entire container of book darts in this book.

For the most part, I'm a fiction reader. I don't read a whole lot of nonfiction unless it's about books and reading or some related topic. There are a few exceptions occasionally but not very often. The reason for this is the language. I often find nonfiction written in a straightforward way in which language is used only to convey meaning. In other words, for me at least, the language isn't beautiful; it doesn't paint a picture for me; it doesn't transport me to another place or time. It simply relays information. That being said; however, I've learned that this certainly isn't the case for Francine Prose. I fell in love with this book and her writing style while reading the first few pages of the first chapter. I used 10 book darts in the first 12 pages. The first chapter is entitled "Close Reading." Prose begins with the question of whether creative writing can actually be taught. She doesn't really try to answer this question fully, but rather she looks at how she learned to write and how many other writers learned to write, as well and uses this as an example. She says on page 2,
"Like most -- maybe all -- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books. Long before the idea of a writer's conference was a glimmer in anyone's eye, writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied meter with Ovid, plot construction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes; they honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson. And who could have asked for better teachers: generous, uncritical, blessed with wisdom and genius, as endlessly forgiving as only the dead can be?"

She continues on page 3 to describe what she means by close reading,
"I read closely, word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision 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."

According to Prose, which makes perfect sense to me now that I think about it, we all began to read this way. As we gained more aptitude, we were able to read chunks of text at a time instead of decoding each word separately. This of course is necessary to be able to read anything of any length. However, it also makes it possible to miss subtle nuances that the author embeds in her book. Of course, it depends on what you're reading and why you're reading it as to how closely you want to read. A technical manual on how to put something together or make something work only needs to be read closely enough to pick out the crucial bits. However, a literary novel by an erudite author may require a closer reading in order to catch all the allusions, to understand all the symbolism, etc. That's basically what this book is about. In each chapter, starting with the smallest component of a novel -- the word -- and going on to the sentence in chapter 3, followed by paragraphs, narration, characters, dialogue, details, and gesture, Prose breaks down how to be a close reader. On the final page of chapter one, she describes a scenario in which close reading helped her in her own writing. She was writing a story and having a hard time figuring out how to make a violent ending seem natural and not forced. During this time, she was also teaching the works of Isaac Babel in one of her classes. As usual, they were reading his works one word at a time and breaking the story down in order to understand his choices and what each word signified for the story as a whole. In doing so, she realized that Babel often used "intense lyricism" directly before a scene of intense violence. "It's characteristic of Babel to offer the reader a lovely glimpse of the crescent moon just before all hell breaks loose. I tried it -- first the poetry, then the horror -- and suddenly everything came together, the pacing seemed right, and the incident I had been struggling with appeared, at least to me, to be plausible and convincing."

Throughout the rest of the book, she uses examples from some of the great writers to illustrate how to choose the perfect word, write the perfect sentence, put together a great paragraph, etc. Whether you're reader like me who wants to get more out of her reading or an aspiring writer, this is an excellent book. It is amazing what you can get out of reading if you take the time to slow down and look at it more closely. I know it's not possible to read everything this way or I'd only finish a couple books a year; however, for certain books, I think it is a shame not to slow down and delve a little deeper. After all, the author took all that time to embed these little nuggets of literary gold, the least we can do is take the time to appreciate them properly.

Before you think this post is never going to end, I promise I am soon coming to a close. However, I thought I should say a little something about the Bloom book since I mentioned it at the beginning of the post. It's a good book, but it's just not as good as the Prose book. He is more concerned with convincing people that they should read "the best" books. Of course, he goes on to tell you exactly which books are best and why he knows this. It's hard to argue with some of his choices, such as Shakespeare, but I just don't like being told what I should like and what I shouldn't. His writing style certainly doesn't read as fiction as does some of Prose's. He is a brilliant literary critic, and he includes some analysis of some really good pieces, but I just didn't find it as enjoyable or useful. I may have felt differently had I not read these two books so close together. If you're still with me at the end of this long, rambling post, I think that probably means that you feel about books as I do. If this is the case, I highly recommend Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose.

One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash

This book fulfills categories in two of my reading challenges -- What's in a Name? and "a new to me author" from the Year of Mini Challenges. To fulfill the mini challenge, I am supposed to find information on this author and share it with you. So, here goes. Ron Rash was born in 1953 and grew up in upstate South Carolina, which is where this book is set. He went to Clemson University, which also gets a mention in the book. He currently holds the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University where he teaches the works of other great Southern writers like Lee Smith, Fred Chappell and Robert Morgan. This was his first novel for which he won the Novello Award and the Appalachian Book of the Year Award. Unfortunately, the book didn't garner the widespread publicity that it truly deserves. His latest book just came out, Serena. It is already gaining quite a buzz, and I think it will find a much wider audience. I hope it lives up to the quality of his first novel. If it does, book lovers all over the country are going to happily discover a great new author. Rash has also written short stories and a couple poem collections.

This book has everything a good Southern novel should contain -- love of place and a connection to the land, religious symbolism, ode to a fading way of life, superstition, and a fierce individualism. The story is set in the Jocasse Valley in upstate South Carolina just after the Korean War. The story is told from the perspectives of five different characters -- the Sheriff, the Deputy, Amy Holcombe, Billy Holcombe (Amy's husband), and Isaac Holcombe (the son). All we know at the beginning of the story is that Holland Winchester is missing. Holland is a rough, mean guy who has very few friends in the county, but he returned from Korea a hero. The Sheriff narrates the first chapter as he begins to try to find out what happened to Holland.

The story builds from there chapter by chapter as the main characters narrate their individual stories, and the reader begins to see how their lives are all interrelated. The book reminds me just a little bit of Robert Morgan's Gap Creek with its depiction of the land and how hard these people work to scrape a living out of the dirt. Another similarity and one of the reasons I really like the book is the chapters told by Amy and Billy Holcombe. I'm always fascinated to see the same events played out from the individual perspectives of a husband and wife. Rash does this particularly well. It would not have been near as good a story if he had left any one of these characters' stories out.

One of my favorite characters in the book is the Widow Glendower who lives alone in a remote area. She is a "granny woman" or midwife, and she practices herbal folk medicine. For all of these reasons, she is seen as a sort of witch. People seek her out when they are in desperate need of help, but at other times she is scoffed at or feared. The widow's speech exemplifies best some of the true Appalachian dialect that the author uses in the book. Amy Holcombe goes to see the widow when she and Billy have trouble conceiving a baby. However, once she conceives, Amy is scared to let the widow midwife for her as promised. She hopes she won't find out for fear that she may harm the child. I'm afraid to say too much more about the plot because I'm always scared I may inadvertently spoil it. However, I really feel like this is one of those books that transcends the plot. Don't get me wrong -- a great deal happens in the novel. However, for me at least, I don't think that is the most important part of the book. The characters themselves and their inner struggles are more important than the actual story. Why did she do that? How desperate would you have to be before making a decision like that? How could she keep quiet? The characters seem to be real. They're not one-dimensional stereotypes or archetypes. They exhibit all the characteristics that we all do. They're not always good, and they're not always bad. They have good intentions and still make terrible mistakes. That's what makes the readers heart ache for them. For me, that's what makes good writing.

It amazes me that this is a first novel. There is so much depth to it. It was a perfect book for our book club discussion last night. As I said earlier, the book is full of everything that makes Southern Literature its own genre. The focus on the land and the importance it plays in people's lives permeates the novel, as well as the fear of losing that land and thus a way of life. This drama unfolds in the forefront as the characters deal with the personal decisions they make and the hand that fate has dealt them. Carolina Power (now Duke Energy) is getting ready to flood the valley and all these people are being forced to move off land that has been in their families for generations. Unfortunately, this part of the story is all too true. There were many dams built in the Carolinas as part of the WPA projects following the Depression and WWII. Jocasse is just one example. Santee Cooper is another one that I'm familiar with, but I think there were somewhere between 7 and 9 dams built in North Carolina alone.

I can't wait to read his latest novel, Serena, and I hope that it lives up to this one. I rank this book right up there with the likes of the aforementioned Gap Creek and Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons when considering contemporary Southern novelists. I'm thankful that there are Southern authors that are continuing in that proud traditions begun by legends such as Faulkner and O'Connor. As it turns out, I'm going to get to meet Ron Rash because he is the featured speaker at the Pfeiffer Friends of the Library luncheon on April 7th. I hope he's as good a speaker in person as he is on the page. I'll let you know. I'll leave you with a quote from the book that mentions the Eden of the title:

"There was something deep inside him that money and fame couldn't cure. I reckoned it must be in a lot of us since his records were so popular. Lonliness was a word you could give it, but it was something beyond words. It was a kind of yearning, a sense that part of your heart was unfilled. A preacher would say it was man's condition since leaving Eden, and so many of the old hymns were about how in another life we'd be with God. But we lived in the here and now. You tried to find something to fill that absence. Maybe a marriage could cure that yearning, though mine hadn't. Drink did it for many a man besides Williams. Maybe children filled it for some, or maybe like Daddy even the love of a place that connected you to generations of your family."

A Room of One's Own (Mini Challenge # 6)

This book fulfills #6, 'borrow a library book' in the Year of Mini-Challenges. It actually fulfills several of the categories in this challenge because it is a 'new to me author' (I can't believe it either, but I haven't read anything by Virginia Woolf before now). It could also fill the 'read 2 essays from the same collection' because this book is based on two talks she gave in 1928. But, I'm only going to count it towards #6 because I have some other things in mind for these other categories, and I want to do all twelve mini-challenges separately.

I know this will definitely not be my last book by Virginia Woolf. I love her writing style. She is very witty while at the same time fleshing out a serious argument. Woolf was invited to speak to two British women's colleges in 1928 on the subject of women and fiction. She begins her talk by explaining that she has had quite a bit of difficulty preparing her remarks. She came to the conclusion that what she really wanted to explain is the fact that in order to write or be creative in any number of ways, it is crucial for a person to have freedom. She must be able to have a place to get away from the everyday interruptions and responsibilities of life and the money that provides that type of freedom. This is where the title of the book comes from -- a room of one's own.

She accomplishes her goal by fictitiously describing the two days that preceded her coming to this meeting. During these two days, she illustrates the myriad ways that women are 'kept in their place.' For example, she's walking outside when she forgets herself and mistakenly takes the path reserved only for the male scholars of the university. She has just had a brilliant idea when a male figure begins approaching her with his arms waving wildly. In the ensuing moments, she forgets the idea that was forming in her mind. She proceeds in this manner describing event after event in which women are treated differently than men, which in turn stymies the creativity of the women.

All sorts of questions are raised in her mind as she goes through these two days in preparation for her talk. "Why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What effect has poverty on fiction? What conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art?" She seeks the answers to these questions in the British Museum by taking book after book off the shelf. What she soon discovers is that for most of recorded history, the majority of books were written by men, even the books about women. Then more women began to write and publish books in the mid to late 1800s -- George Eliot, the Brontes, Louisa May Alcott to name a few. However, she noticed something different in the writing of these women in comparison to the great male writers of the day. Even with their immense talent, she felt that they were at a disadvantage because they lacked the necessary freedom to write without restraint. She goes on to say that she believes that in another 100 years possibly women will be able to write without thought of gender like men have always had the luxury of doing.

There is absolutely no way I can do this book justice. Virginia Woolf makes a very compelling argument without bitterness or blame. She simply states the fact that to be able to be creative and write well, a person needs money and personal space -- something that women have lacked throughout history. Creativity needs freedom to be able to think and write without worrying about daily responsibilities or societal expectations. Woolf accomplishes her goal with candor and humor. As I said at the beginning of this long, winding post, I will definitely be reading more Virginia Woolf in the very near future.