Gulping Words
I had a conversation with "Balls" author Julian Tepper the other day. We were discussing whether it was a good thing when someone says, “I read your book in one sitting,” or “I couldn’t put your book down.” Perhaps for different reasons, we have both received this response to our books. Julian’s novel is a quick-witted and slightly outlandish look at a young man’s identity issues after receiving a diagnosis of testicular cancer; "Motherhood Exaggerated" is a deeply personal journey through my inner life while caring for my daughter during her treatment for Ewing’s sarcoma. Either way, how could we not be thrilled that others found our works so compelling.
Julian and I are both musicians. A musical opus—whether long or short, dense or light, tonal or atonal—is meant to be listened to in one sitting. Would you ever put on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and stop it halfway through the last movement and return to the rest of it later, picking up where you left off as if the drama were just sitting there waiting inside of you to resume?
So, yes, I love it that a person can become so immersed in my book that he or she can’t turn away from it. The need to read in gulps rather than sips is what I hope will happen to me every time I crack the binding of a new book. So much can be lost with each separation from the words on the page. It can be hard to climb back into the story.
But a worry is nagging at me. Is my book too simple? The October 19th issue of the Los Angeles Times includes an essay by Hector Tobar comparing the reading preferences of Obama and Romney. Tobar’s bias is clear. Obama came out on top because he read the “weightier” works, the ones that make you brood and drive you to think. Tobar writes, “Good books take time and effort.” Does time mean how long a book takes you to read, or does it mean how long the words stay with you? By effort, does Tobar mean the sweat you have to put into understanding what you are reading, or does it mean how deeply you respond to the situations and ideas presented. A book that becomes too much of a struggle would make gulping impossible. But if it stirs up emotions or challenges your views or teaches you something, and if it stays with you long after you have read it—bleeding into other books you read or events in your own life—then that would make it a good book in my definition.
There are exceptions, of course. Wine and fine whiskey should not be gulped. They should be sniffed and sipped; their flavors should have time to roll around in your mouth. Similarly, there are some ideas that require you to stop turning pages for a while. You can’t read about quantum physics, interpret a biblical text or figure out the meaning behind a Shakespeare soliloquy without stopping and starting. These books aren’t better books because they take effort to read; it’s just that the difficulty is built into them. But writing anguished sentences or thinking philosophical viewpoints are valid only if they are presented in a convoluted fashion is a façade for intelligent and challenging writing.
I wrote "Motherhood Exaggerated" to invite the reader to enter my life after I had already negotiated its mazes and twists and turns. I don’t want anyone to tiptoe or to get lost or to duck in and out at will. "Motherhood Exaggerated" depends on the reader joining me, perhaps not for a single sitting, but for a series of connected gulps.
Salud!
Julian and I are both musicians. A musical opus—whether long or short, dense or light, tonal or atonal—is meant to be listened to in one sitting. Would you ever put on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and stop it halfway through the last movement and return to the rest of it later, picking up where you left off as if the drama were just sitting there waiting inside of you to resume?
So, yes, I love it that a person can become so immersed in my book that he or she can’t turn away from it. The need to read in gulps rather than sips is what I hope will happen to me every time I crack the binding of a new book. So much can be lost with each separation from the words on the page. It can be hard to climb back into the story.
But a worry is nagging at me. Is my book too simple? The October 19th issue of the Los Angeles Times includes an essay by Hector Tobar comparing the reading preferences of Obama and Romney. Tobar’s bias is clear. Obama came out on top because he read the “weightier” works, the ones that make you brood and drive you to think. Tobar writes, “Good books take time and effort.” Does time mean how long a book takes you to read, or does it mean how long the words stay with you? By effort, does Tobar mean the sweat you have to put into understanding what you are reading, or does it mean how deeply you respond to the situations and ideas presented. A book that becomes too much of a struggle would make gulping impossible. But if it stirs up emotions or challenges your views or teaches you something, and if it stays with you long after you have read it—bleeding into other books you read or events in your own life—then that would make it a good book in my definition.
There are exceptions, of course. Wine and fine whiskey should not be gulped. They should be sniffed and sipped; their flavors should have time to roll around in your mouth. Similarly, there are some ideas that require you to stop turning pages for a while. You can’t read about quantum physics, interpret a biblical text or figure out the meaning behind a Shakespeare soliloquy without stopping and starting. These books aren’t better books because they take effort to read; it’s just that the difficulty is built into them. But writing anguished sentences or thinking philosophical viewpoints are valid only if they are presented in a convoluted fashion is a façade for intelligent and challenging writing.
I wrote "Motherhood Exaggerated" to invite the reader to enter my life after I had already negotiated its mazes and twists and turns. I don’t want anyone to tiptoe or to get lost or to duck in and out at will. "Motherhood Exaggerated" depends on the reader joining me, perhaps not for a single sitting, but for a series of connected gulps.
Salud!
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