Back At One

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I'm reading Lois Lowry's The Giver. You probably remember this book from your summer reading list if you went to elementary school in America in the 90s. I didn't read it or most books on the reading lists. Back then I was a strictly academic reader, meaning if the book wasn't within the walls of a school, most likely it wasn't going to be opened by me. So needless to say, this would be my first romp with Lowry's seminal work.

Actually, I've been reading it for a couple of days now. I'm on chapter 13. It's a good book so far. Which is a weird way to start taking about an award winning kid fic novel, a Newbery Medal no less, but I don't judge books by their covers. By the by, the Newbery seal is one of the things I remember most about books from my childhood. I don't know they were prestigious back then, but they sure did stand out from the non-berys when ever they brought out the Scholastic book table set ups in the library. You didn't know what the Newbery was--Confession, I still kind of don't, but I'll look it up... Someday.--but you knew this book had somehow gotten the gold. The only Newbery book I remember reading in my youth is Holes, Louis Sachar. Sachar books are kind of special to me because it's where me and my younger brother, who's in college now, meet in literature*. I was able to turn to Sachar's books, Wayside Stories and Holes, and that's pretty cool, even if he's not much of a reader now.

The Giver is a book I would have enjoyed reading as a kid. Stanley Yelnats's initial slide down life's tall hill and long trek back up intrigued me and I loved Potter's humble climb to greatness (Another Newbery winner, I think. I tried to get my brother to read it--he didn't take to Potter very well.), but Jonas's story seems a little different and I wish I had read The Giver then too.

The Giver is sociological. It definitely deals with the psychology of Jonas,its main character--it has to, but the overarching themes are very sociological, at least in the first 13 chapter. There could be a twist. Holes deals with the more intimate structures of family, destiny, and in large part history too. Oppose to family, J. K. Rowling's books deal with friendship, the nature of evil, and in small part the cultures of school and government. I believe Lowry's book would have made my personal reading list well-rounded with her psychosociolgical novel. That's the way I feel part way through at least.


*Nope, I was wrong about that. When he was last home, I lent him my copy of Frederick Douglass's Narrative in the Life..., a book we both had to read for a class. We talked about it some and that was pretty cool too.

I'm Starved for You by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My experience with Margaret Atwood's work is unfortunately limited, to "I'm Starved for You" in fact, but I hear she's one of the best. After reading this e-book, I believe it.

"I'm Starved for You" is a quick read with a lot packed into it, corruption filling a void left by deterioration, relationship woes, speculation on a near future possibility, and a beautifully utilized story hook at the end.

This was a fully enjoyable compact read, very entertaining.

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Selections from Fragile Things, Volume One by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Bottom line: Selections from Fragile Things is a good pick of short stories (3) and a poem (1) from the larger collection. The picks made me want to buy the full Fragile Things collection.

These stories went from fable, "The Mapmaker", to mystery, "A Study in Emerald", to a fairy tale/poem in, "The Fairy Reel", to a campfire tale, told by a month of the year, "October in the Chair".

These are real "story" stories, as much worthy of being told hundreds of years ago as they are adequate for being told today. Timeless.

I'm sure the full collection reads the same way.


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The Shiz on the Shorts: Reading

As you can see, I'm reading a lot of short stories. But I having wrote about them in a while. That's forthcoming, but right now I want to talk about reading short stories. The once dying art form was given new life by the advent of digital media circulation*. But I still don't believe shorts get the shine they deserve.

In a world where popular novels are ever frequently coming in the not so easy to digest portions of Super Sized, the short story is just as frequently looked at as obsolete. Something I frequently read in reviews and comments, not always specifically about short stories, is that the story was too short and the reader didn't get a chance to care about the characters. This has to be what gives short stories a bum rap and it's not fair. Length rarely is the culprit when a reader is unable to connect to a character.

If I were to make a list of the things I feel get in the way of the reader-character click, length of the story would be far down the list. It would look pretty much like this:

1.  Reader experience. 
1. Where did the reader grow up?
1. Does she identify with that region/area?
2. Does she enjoy reading literature from that region, confirming/expanding her views of it? or 
3. Does she enjoy reading literature from places other than that region, subverting/validating her views of her own region? 
2. What is/was the reader's family life like? (Sub questions similar as the above)
3. What are the reader's interests? 
1. Do they stay pretty much static or do they change? 
1. Does he want his literature to be as pliable as himself like the ironically mind bending Jorge Luis Borges or Franz Kafka? 
2. Or does he want his literature to be conservative/predictable, less questions or reinforced values, like "evil never prospers". The kind of stuff you get with series writers like Ian Fleming.
2. Author experience, basically the same as above, except for the question: 
1. What is the author doing with his/her writing?
1. Is she big on place, and more specifically architecture, so she spent a lot of time implementing descriptions of the huge estate looming over the edge of the crags?
2. Did he just go through a divorce and somehow that sucker slipped right into the pages of his new novel and it looks as if he might be a little bitter? 
3. The new trend, what is it? 

Etc.

I can go on and on and on, but my point plain an simple is all this can affect whether or not a reader can relate to a character well before length. In fact, it's my belief, or at least my practice, that as a reader I come to the table invested in the character I'm about to read about. To me it's not your job as an author to get me invested, though I do believe some authors are capable of doing so, it's your job as an author to keep me invested. Most readers in my opinion are willing to slog through the boring blah, blah, blah of book to get to the fast-pace forward progression of the characters, or willing risk fainting due to hyperexpiration after sighs and groans over ridiculous plot twists and turns to get to the meatier moments of an authors work.

Of course, the shorts are all hits or misses, not enough room to make up for a flub. I haven't found too many misses in my reading. Anyway, give the short story a chance. Today's publishing climate is good for them. There are a lot of digital magazines and Amazon's kindle singles. Both are great ways to indulge in the short form. Great writers are definitely utilizing this. I'm reading Margret Atwood's "I'm Starved For You", bought the new Vonnegut novella, I've read the kindle single version of "Mile 81" from Stephen King and the Koontz novella The Moonlit Mind.

Okay, I'm done with my PSA for short stories. Go read something. Please?

RoR