Thoughts on Reading/Expectations (plus a short list of fiction that’s moved me so far this year)
Earlier this week, Justin Lawrence Daugherty (of Sundog Lit fame) posed the following questions on Twitter:
Still not buying the whole “Taipei as the messiah of literature” thing, guys. Maybe I just need to read the book. Still seeing so much “this guy is a genius” stuff. We throw that term around way too easily, anyhow, but…There is nothing from reviews or discussions of the book that make me say, YES, I need to read this. Much of the discussion surrounding Taipei seems to be all: is Tao Lin a genius? Is he saving literature? Is he a movement? Boring. Question is, why does lit need saving? Why do we need to proclaim some earth-breaker has arrived? I really want to have an honest dialogue about this. Because I’m missing something, maybe. But, it seems a tired argument.
I unloaded on poor Justin. You can go look at Twitter to see what was said, but basically, the topic changed from readers’ reactions to one book (Taipei) to readers’ reactions to any book. We agreed that readers/reviewers generally ignore what a reader should do—engage with a text after they’re finished reading it—but it seems that most readers can’t be bothered. No one wants to say anything beyond “I loved it.” or “I hated it.” We don’t even consider how extreme those reactions are—love and hate, the ends of the spectrum. Most readers won’t even try to support those extremes with anything beyond “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS” or “STAY AWAY AT ALL COSTS.”
The worst part of that situation is we’re then ignoring the work in question. We’re not discussing it. We’re letting the work “speak for itself.” As lovely as that idiom sounds, work NEVER speaks for itself. It needs a viewer, a reader—an audience. It needs discussion (and, despite recent sentiment to the contrary, I don’t believe that negative criticism is the ONLY way to generate a worthwhile discussion about a book. I’m not so naive that I mistake the general public’s desire for schaudenfreude for actual interest). A book needs to be praised and criticized (notice I mentioned both), not ignored. In choosing to ignore what we read, to read halfway, to give up reading, to not give an author the benefit of the doubt, to not suspend your disbelief, to not admit bias or expectations or preconceived notions you have about a book (NB: it is okay to have/admit to having all of the above), you’re doing a disservice to yourself as a reader and to the work you’re choosing to read.
In short order, here are two examples of the ways in which readers shortchange themselves and each other by either dismissing a book before they’ve read it or ignoring a book’s merits once they’re finished reading it.
1/You’re with a friend in a book store. You pick a book from the shelves. The book is The Juror or The Hobbit or The Three Musketeers or Slaughterhouse Five or Ishmael or Bridget Jones’s Diary or Self-Help or The Idiot.
Your friend says, “I love that book!”
You buy it, read it, and hate it.
You try to talk to your friend about this book they love. They say things like, “It’s so funny!” or “It’s so sad,” or “It’s so good!”
You say things like “It was boring,” or “It was lame,” or “It put me to sleep.”
You and your friend have nothing more to say. You can’t muster anything beyond these empty phrases that don’t get at the heart of what makes a book resonate with readers. You assume that you and your friend have very different tastes. But it’s probably not true. You just want different things from your literature. But you can’t be bothered to articulate what those things are.
2/You see a friend reading a book. The book is The Catcher in the Rye or The Charterhouse of Parma or Heart of Darkness or Middlemarch or Congo or It or Mrs. Dalloway or Twilight or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
You say, “Ugh. I hate that book.”
I could stop there and allow you to figure out, on your own, the subtle trauma you’re inflicting on your fellow reader, but let’s delve into your unhelpful critique.
Let’s assume your friend is halfway through the book and enjoying it.
“Really?” your friend says. “What didn’t you like about it?”
“I don’t even remember. All I know is it was awful.”
Let’s say you didn’t finish the book. That’s fine. You don’t have to finish reading books you’re not into.
But here’s a tip: Don’t act like you have any place to discuss a book you haven’t even taken the time to read. You want to bitch about disliking a book? You have to finish read it. And you have to know why you disliked it—you thought it was boring? It put you to sleep? How about getting to the bottom of your boredom? Did you find it repetitive? Which part? How about the tedious descriptions Pip (of Great Expectations) related about having bread-and-butter in his pantleg? Did you find that wearisome? Would you rather have had character development or an exploration of setting or anything remotely having to do with the progression of the plot?
If you noticed that my tone changed just back there and I seemed a little more huffy than before, it’s because I’ve taken time to actually care about what I’m reading. Reading takes time. It’s an investment. If I’m reading a book I don’t like, you can BET I have half a thesis brewing in my mind about how and why this author can bite me. Clearly, I’m not saying you need to be 100% erudite in your needs as a reader or even your dismissal of what you’d rather not read, but just knowing why you don’t like what you don’t like makes you a smarter, better reader. If you consider a book like a intellectual meal (and, really, you should), admitting what you want from a book is like cultivating your palate.
Also, I know it’s hard not to dismiss books you simply don’t want to read. I get that it’s easier to just choose books based on the list that shows up in the sidebar on Facebook. But if you only have the same friends suggesting books to you (or, in this case, the same algorithms), you’re only going to find things that are similar to books you’ve already read. The oft-quoted “I don’t know art, but I know what I like” is apropos here, though in an altered (maybe attenuated) form: “I don’t care what I read as long as I like it.” You’ll like it because it’ll be a mashup of things you’ve read and liked before, but probably derivative and certainly not challenging the way “new” literature has the potential to be.
But maybe I’m discrediting you. Maybe you ignore those sidebar ads. Maybe you prefer to go to book stores and/or libraries and glance around and choose books at random. Maybe you read dust jackets and spend hours trying to choose which book to read. Most readers who elect to read blind, as it were, just want what we all want—to be wooed by jacket copy, to get a taste of what’s inside (maybe an excerpt above the blurbs?), to then tear into the book and have the book, in its way, tear us back.
And, honestly, that’s really all you need to do to review a book. You need to read everything on the outside, followed by everything on the inside, and you need to be willing to have your worldview changed (every book has the potential to change you, if only you’d let it). Some might argue that a reviewer needs to do research in order to review a book or they should have a deeply vested interest in the material. I would argue that a reader shouldn’t have a specific disinterest in the material in question, but otherwise, a reviewer should have the book itself (and all the marketing that normally accompanies publications nowadays) and just one statistic: how long the writer has been plying his or her craft.
I don’t mean that the reviewer should know whether the book in question is a debut or where the author went to school, or which publications are in the author’s credits (because, believe it or not, that doesn’t actually matter), rather I want/hope/wish more reviewers bothered to learn whether this book is part of an ongoing conversation, whether the author has an oeuvre—themes, orbits, whatever you want to call them—because writers tend to go through movements (just like other artists), and it might shed some light on what the author is “trying to do” with his or her latest book.
I know that seems irksome, but consider it this way: most people place a lot of importance on first impressions. Think about the last time you met someone you disliked. Think about how long it took to get over that initial impression. Let’s say it was a friend of a friend.
Another brief example:
You meet this friend of a friend at a party; let’s call him Doug. You have other friends at the party; you introduce your friends to Doug. You, like any other rational human being, give Doug the benefit of the doubt in assuming that he’s both sane and friendly. These assumptions are supported by his having made your mutual friend’s acquaintance. But then Doug starts telling lies about your mutual friend. Stupid, harmless lies. Things you know aren’t true, like, “Yeah, we got matching tattoos after serving in Iraq together. But then we had them removed ’cause, you know, we need real jobs someday, right?”
You know your mutual friend never served in Iraq. You know he doesn’t have tattoos. You want to say something, but you don’t want to look like an asshole. So, you turn to your mutual friend and say, “Dude, your friend kind of sucks.”
“Who, Doug? Don’t worry about him, he’s cool.”
“He’s doesn’t seem cool. He seems like a toolshed.”
“No, no. That’s just how he gets to know people.”
“By lying?”
“Yeah. He likes to mess with his friends. That’s how you know he likes you.”
If this seems idiotic, remember people actually say things like this. But follow me now as I alter the example to apply it to literature:
“What are you reading?”
“I’m not even sure I can really explain it. It’s this fucked up sort of travelogue. At least I think it’s a travelogue.”
“Okay…”
“But I don’t even know what’s real because the narrator is all over the place and the scenes keep changing and it’s not linear—I feel like the author is kind of messing with me because she’s got this ironic tone, but at the same time, it’s also really earnest? So she seems untrustworthy, but it’s in this way that I can’t look away from. Does that make sense?”
“Sort of…”
“…”
“So can I borrow it when you’re done?”
Q: Why do we accept this sort of deceit from a book—even want it from a book—when we wouldn’t want it from a person?
A: [Sidestepping the fact that we are far more likely to accept artifice in a thing we know is made up...] Because it’s easier to accept a thing as surprising/difficult/confusing if you’re warned in advance. Knowing beforehand that someone is going to lie to/mess with you (which is not remotely the same as suspecting someone will lie to/mess with you) makes it somehow easier to bear once it occurs.
In other words, it’s easier to accept difficult material—to want a challenge—when you feel like you’re in control (insofar as you can be with something that’s published before you read it). When we feel like we’re receiving a methodical kind of madness, we consume it whole. If a book has an internal kind of logic (even logic that seems to work against us), we take the time to learn the rules. We feel proud because we did so. We became experts on the book’s logic’s rules. We officially “get” it. And “getting” a thing usually feels like you’ve been incepted into some all-inclusive club.
Now that you’re comfortable—think about the last time you felt like you were outside of that group who “gets” something. Consider how frustrating it is to hear about that thing you don’t get. To hear how great it is. To hear how great everyone else thinks it is. That’s what it’s like to be inundated by readers who say
YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS YET?? IT’S SO GOOD. IT’S LIKE GETTING HEAD FROM A DEITY. IT’S LIKE A THOUSAND CUTE CAT VIDEOS PLAYING AT THE SAME TIME. IT’S LIKE ALL YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS GOT TOGETHER AND WROTE BOOKS TOGETHER—BUT INDIVIDUALLY—AND THEN DEDICATED THEM ALL TO YOU. THAT MAY SOUND LIKE AN EXAGGERATION, BUT IT’S NOT. JUST READ THE BOOK. YOU’LL UNDERSTAND.
Or, conversely,
OH NO. DON’T READ THAT BOOK. THAT BOOK CAUSES STERILITY. THAT BOOK CAUSES ME TO SAY EMPTY, CYNICAL, MOSTLY BASELESS THINGS THAT CAN’T BE TESTED OR PROVEN, E.G., THAT BOOK KILLED MY NEIGHBOR’S DOG. THAT BOOK WILL MAKE YOU BORING. IF YOU READ THAT BOOK ALL THE WAY TO THE END, YOU’LL HAVE BAD SEX FOR THE NEXT SEVEN YEARS. THAT BOOK WILL GIVE YOU HALITOSIS AND COTTONMOUTH AND DANDRUFF. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T READ THAT BOOK.
It’s horrible, but we’ve all done something like this. We’ve all been wound up at the moment someone brought up something we loved or hated and then we said stupid things to defend/tear down the book that so deserved our hearts/ire. Seriously, every one of us has done this. You may still do it. So, if you would, I want you to do something to offset it: I want you to admit that you have things you want from the things you read. You probably read specific websites—CNN, HuffPo, Fox News, WWTDD, whatever. You visit those sites because you have preferences. You read literature for the same reasons.
However, what you get from a literature—what literature is capable of giving you—is different/better than anything else you can read (the news, tabloids, cereal boxes, et al.). But in order to get that special something out of lit, you need to allow yourself to think/feel/explore whatever it is in you that keeps you reading in the first place. Do you read to feel less isolated? Less afraid? Less without? Do you read for entertainment? For solace? For beauty? Do you read to learn? (You may be nodding to all of these. Or none. Both are okay.) Learning to think about a book, learning to admit your expectations, learning to engage with a text and say, “Here’s where I stopped liking it,” or “This is what kept me going,” or “This sentence is beautiful/confusing/unclear/moving.” All of that is what will bring you closer to being the best reader you can be—a reader who gets the most you can out of whatever it is you’re reading, without feeling like reading is just one more thing you arbitrarily do with your time/life.
I could go on and on with this, but I’m going to instead punctuate my argument with a list.
The year is half over. I’ve read less than I would’ve liked (isn’t that always the way?) but, of what I’ve read, the things I’ve liked? I’ve loved.
What follows is a short list of what I loved and why.
First, the long of it—the books:
A Million Heavens by John Brandon
The book is told from seven or eight perspectives, one of which is a wolf. It straddles the divide between life and death (one of the characters is dead), responsibility and guilt, nostalgia and grief. It’s funny in a dry way and sad in a beautiful way. The best part is that once you think you’ve got the plot figured out, Brandon pulls an ace so subtly to remind you that what you think you know about people is not always what’s true.
A standout sentence: These humans were stranded in the desert and above them hung a moon that was also a desert.
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
I gave a lecture on writing dialogue a couple months ago and wound up pulling examples from contemporary literature with strong, compelling voices. Among them, I used the opening paragraph of this smart dystopian novel. Veselka’s narrator is both unsentimental and vulnerable, a mixture we so rarely encounter in literature. Best of all, her images are so clear, you can see them. Also, it has one of the finest last lines I’ve read in contemporary fiction.
A standout sentence: Because the search for authenticity is a well without a bottom.
The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu
Some of the funniest novels are about war. Catch-22. Slaughterhouse Five. And now, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid. In spare, direct language, the novel follows three friends from high school through their mandatory military service in the Israeli Defense Forces and the few years that follow. Starting from the established, very unfunny topic that is war, this book has every reason to not be as funny as it is. But during its serious moments, of which there are many, an inversion takes place. What Boianjiu has made funny is again turned on its ear to become very serious indeed.
A standout sentence: I did not see who fired it, or where it hit; I only heard it; growing bigger as it passed through the sand and the line and the cement barricade where I was still trying to almost break a fall I was not having.
Second, the short of it—stories:
“City/Body: Fragments” by Susan McCarty
I love Susan McCarty’s writing so much. I read this very recently and was struck by the pacing, how tightly everything fits together, but how loose the narrative feels. Her word choice is always spot-on. Her imagery hauntingly lovely. And just when she’s broken my heart, she makes me laugh.
A standout sentence: You are running unsteadily now, really more of a lope than a run; certainly this lead-assed shamble will not save your life.
Faith Gardner is the queen of lush language. She can take a story about two poor little girls—two poverty-stricken orphans—and make it read like a fairy tale. But we’re reminded that the original fairy tales never ended well. Her concision, what she decides to tell from the girls’ perspectives vs. what comes out in third-person is a dream and a nightmare and I can’t shake either.
A standout sentence: The sisters with the sunset hair and grapefruit lips sipped their sodas and watched the clouds swallow the world out the window.
