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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 13, 2008 - 10:32am PT
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I am a dogged if not prolific reader—maybe 20 per year-and try to pick books that are ‘worth’ reading. I pick from Bloom’s conical list and intersperse the books that my book group reads, which mostly alternate between 20th century novels and non-fiction. Part of the reason that I read ancient stuff is that I feel ripped off if I read something new that I don’t think is very good—time is tight (if something is considered a classic and I don’t like it, I figure it is my problem.)
In this light, I have been surprised that some relatively new, very well respected and famous novels I have read are not very well told stories and sometimes even the writing needs a good editing hand. Since this is my opinion, I want to try to get more objective criteria.
Any literary types in ST land that can recommend a book with a title that might be “The Theory of the Novel, its History and Modern Approaches, With Examples,” written recently, and not requiring a PhD in literature?
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frodolf
climber
Sweden
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Apr 13, 2008 - 11:33am PT
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I haven't got a PhD, but well a bachelor degree in literature, and I can assure you that you won't find any "objective criteria". There's a whole lot of books on writing, rethorics, style, aesthetics and so on that can be interesting and educating, but you're in the wrong field for objectivity.
In my experience, if you don't like a classic (or a modern work for that matter) it is NOT your problem. If you think it sucks, it sucks. For you. You're right to have your opinion, just as Bloom or whoever. It might not be as enlightened, but it's still valid. Personally, I hate hearing about people suffering through brick-thick "master pieces" that they hate, just because it's supposed to be good. It's simply the wrong way to read, IMHO.
/F.
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Big T
Trad climber
Running Springs, CA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 11:47am PT
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Twenty a year... That seems pretty good. I teach high school English and a lot of my reading is actually re-reading. I probably only read ten new books a year if I'm lucky.
Can you share examples of some of these relatively new titles that were disappointing for you? What is your critical leaning?
One approachable book dealing with critical approaches that I enjoyed is Falling Into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature. As I recall, it's a collection of essays on the topic. Michael McKeon has written at least a couple of books on dealing with evaluative criteria for the novel.
Going climbing in a few minutes...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 13, 2008 - 11:54am PT
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I feel your pain Roger.
(Not that I read that much, what with super topo and ADD and all). Ha ha.
I can't help you with the work about which you're inquiring, but that concept would certainly be something to tackle.
Along the lines of what you're up to reading wise, I read an interesting short piece in the New Yorker about Art Garfunkel's prolific reading habits and his reading list: his leanings seemed similar to yours.
So that might be a place to start, a clue as it were. Maybe google Art Garfunkel and look into it, as I think the piece in the New Yorker alluded to his having a web site which contains his list and there may be something more in terms of his criticism and choices.
I recall he had some definite opinions about modern literature and specific things he didn't like about certain modern works.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Apr 13, 2008 - 12:14pm PT
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I could give you a long list of modern authors, but I'll keep it simple: work your way through the works of Conrad. Most people have read "Heart of Darkness"; however, there's much more and worth the effort. "Victory" is one of my favorites.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 12:29pm PT
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Bloom's conical list? is this hyperbolic?
I think you're doing it yourself, and with your reading group (which is very admirable, by the way). You know or sense there are a limited number of plots, check out the The Internet Public Library for one take (actually several) on the commonality. How do you know this? you've read what others have said are "good books" and you've gotten into an intellectual rut. Good reading is not necessarily easy reading, and "eating" a steady diet of the same stuff can't be all that good.
What literary criticism can do for you is make you aware of the external aspects of the book, the allusions (like the famous farting scene in Moby Dick, never heard of it? I'm shocked!), the state of the author (Hemmingway, Joyce, Homer,...) the historical context (Dickensian England, Dickinsonian Amherst, etc).
To answer your question, though, what makes a good story is that you (and I mean Roger Breedlove) finds something in it that connects with your life experience. That makes literature very personal, and as broad or narrow as you are (or want to be). It is the same for all of us... we seldom "waste" time on things that don't concern us directly, reading is no different.
Ever read Joyce's Ulysses? I've must have started it a million times, and read bits and pieces, and even quoted passages. I've been around and around it a lot but never ever satisfactorily gotten what I want out of it... I try because Joyce had an idea when he wrote it that I want to grasp, and understand myself. Someday I'll be able to read it, but I just don't have the time (nor have I had it) to devote to doing the hard work of reading it.
What do you want to get out of your reading?
Did you Google "history of the modern novel"? That might be a start. But also, you've done the ground work to understand a graduate level exposition of literature, maybe you should just go and take a course. Stop being an "arm chair" literary critic and go and do some work on it. Like you mother told you about climbing: "practice makes perfect," so too for your intellect.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 01:12pm PT
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I feel very comfortable in my opinions about what I like and don't like and I have no sense that I should like something because it is good for me--way to old and pigheaded for that. Maybe a way to say it is that reading and understanding writing is a serious hobby. I am not put off by difficult books if I am reasonably sure that once I get the hang of the author's style it will be enjoyable and fulfilling. Usually that works well for me; sometimes I just have bragging rights for something that is on the "Reading for Pain" list. Being part of a book group with serous readers, it is also helpful to have a broad sense of literature, since collectively we have probably read most of the Western Canon, but individaully no one comes close. It makes for very interesting discussions and forces thoughtful responses.
For example, I started Dante's "Comedy" because it is central to our culture (my friends thought and continue to think I am nuts), but I found it engaging and immediately understood that it speaks to all the same human issues that everyone faces. Mind you, I have to read a lot of commentary to tie the Greek and Roman myths to the text as well as Catholic orthodoxy and Medieval Italian political history. (We also read Eco's "The Name of the Rose" which I thought was terrible, but I had no issues with the history since it is set only a few years after Dante finished his "Comedy"). I remind myself--I used this same argument with a climbing friend--that I hated off-width until I figured it out and I have worked whole seasons (not recently) just to get up some prized new route in the Valley. I also find it very interesting that for the past 2500 years the emotions and desires of people are pretty much the same as today.
Over the years, I have read quite a few books on writing and a few on criticism. But a couple of novels that I did not like have been written relatively recently. They seemed to me to just sort of end in a way that seemed artificial to the storytelling. If they were less gifted writers, I could just put it down, but since they are well respected and obviously know how to construct a story and know how to write, why did they choose to end the story the way they did. Our book group just read Philip Roth's "American Pastoral." One or two liked it, but most of us thought the writing sounded like a 'bad therapy session'--as our resident shrink put it--and that the multiple story elements ended up just being elements in which the reader could more or less decide what was real and what was imagined by the characters. I did not think that the story needed to be 'wrapped' up--it is fine with me that it was just a angry slice of life--but the ending seemed tacked on and did not tie back to the first 90 pages that set up the story in the first place.
Since I have read other books with this approach to story telling, (some that I liked, some that I didn't) I want to better understand it. I have searched a bit online and at the book stores, but mostly I see reading lists and I don't need any more of those. Has anyone read or know of "The Rhetoric of Fiction" by Wayne Booth? This was written in the early 1960 and updated by the author in 1982. If it were newer, I would read it.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Apr 13, 2008 - 01:34pm PT
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Hi Roger old friend. Wish we could crack a cold one for this discussion.
My $ 0.04 (inflation, y'know...)
With a BA in Theory and Criticism of English Literature I can't actually be bothered to know of any modern summary of the direction of writing. I'm too busy writing myself, musing about it or sparring about it with my editors, and reading the modern stuff that truly grips my heart and gives me the best to chew on.
So one guy: Jim Harrison. Read anything he ever wrote. I am so far down the rabbithole of his writing that of my 20-30 books a year, re-reading Jim Harrison is over half of my total reading. Not ashamed in the least to say I do it to cop moves. And because the mystery of how he does what it is that he does leads me the deepest into the frontier of writing well.
And more deeply because the content of Jim Harrison's musings and ramblings, the depth of his grasp of human psychology swilled in with the terror and wonder of the usual suspects of life itself, just plain fills me up with more than enough to inform my dreams and daydreams.
I too only read half fiction. And I don't write it. (Well, not on purpose.) So the forefront of writing that most fascinates me and most helps me write what I write is the recent application to fiction techniques to nonfiction: personalization, point of view, and most exciting to me at the moment, breaking into the story of the narrator to speak directly to the reader. There are others...
I got to meet Jim Harrison last May and sit at his feet with drinks in our hands for several days (a dozen others were involved) and it was the highlight of the last year...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 01:36pm PT
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some interesting ideas... could it be that the reason the thinking for the last 2500 years seems the same is that the only stories that survived that time were the ones that were the most common, orthodox and accessible?
It sort of reminds me of the issues with the Gnostic Gospels, which ended up on the "cutting room floor" when the final production of the Bible was produced. Now the topic of lots of popular fantasy - on topic tangent, Elaine Pagels wrote a scholarly work on this which brought it to public attention, her husband, Heinz Pagels was a theoretical physicist who died on a scramble on Pyramid Peak at one of the "Snowmass" meetings held every summer by the particle physics community.
Anyway, the point is, stuff that is "good" survives, stuff that is "bad" doesn't. I haven't read Roth, but while you didn't like his novel American Pastoral there is the whole interesting discussion about what he was trying to do when he wrote it... what is it about the finished product that didn't get to where he wanted it to go. That can be an interesting discussion in it's own right.
Where's John Long in this discussion? he's a serious writer with serious ideas on this and should be a part of the thread!
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Apr 13, 2008 - 01:51pm PT
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I will 'lurk' this thread as I find it very interesting.
A couple things Ed said above made me chcukle:
"the Gnostic Gospels, which ended up on the "cutting room floor" when the final production of the Bible was produced. "
Humorous yet apt way to put it.
A good companion read to the Gnostic gospels would be 'The Passover plot'
"Where's John Long in this discussion?"
NS ^ ?
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Apr 13, 2008 - 01:51pm PT
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Or even that the last 2500 years is evolutionarily a handful of generations in the 130,000 years we have been around?
I hope that your non-fiction background is enough to make sense of this observation. It would even survive if there were perfect retention of all written works.
If not, try Fooled by Randomness. I picked that up at the library yesterday. Almost done with it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 02:19pm PT
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yes, time is short, the canonical generation is 30 years, so 2400 years is a mere 80 generations... the beginning of the logistics curve is indistinguishable from an exponential, so perhaps the reason there aren't a whole lotta stories from the past was that there weren't a whole lotta us back then...
...say 10,000 BC, perhaps a million people, total, that's twice the population of Cleveland. That's a mind blower. 2,500 years ago maybe 100 million, less than half of the current population of the US.
How many stories in the Naked City? (trick question).
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 02:41pm PT
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Morning Doug, morning Ed, morning TIG,
Doug, I have some trips planned for later this year to the City, so maybe we will get to crack a cold one. "I too only read half fiction. And I don't write it. (Well, not on purpose.)" Made me laugh. Some would argue that non-fiction writers are just delusional.
I haven't read any of Jim Harrison's books or poetry. I will pick one up.
Not to beat a dead horse, but your categorization of breaking into the story of the narrator to speak directly to the reader as a recent technique shows up several times in Dante's Comedy. I did a double take the first time he used it.
Hey, Ed, I misspelled canonical.
TIG, interesting point. The 2500 years is back to the earliest Greek writing--Homer is a bit older. A specific element that is easy to trace is humor: stuff that makes me and my friends laugh made ancient Greeks laugh also. I have never thought of a sense of humor as being an evolutionary choice. However, in my travels around the world, it seems to me that every culture pretty much has the same fundamental sense of humor with less variation between cultures than within cultures--there are still lots of humorless folks. If my sense of this is true, then I cannot think of a good reason to exclude it as an evolutionary choice. And if humor has an evolutionary purpose, then I would say all emotions would also have an evolutionary purpose and, as you point out, anything that is only 2500 years old would be pretty much the same as today. Still, how many of us think of the ancient Greeks and anyone else in our ancient past as ‘just like us?’
Best, Roger
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frodolf
climber
Sweden
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Apr 13, 2008 - 03:54pm PT
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Roger, if you're interested in literary forms and structures, check out John G. Cawelti's book Adventure, Mystery and Romance. It's a few years old but has some very good ideas and is still "modern". He recognizes five different archetypal story patterns in, basically, all literature and traces them to different fundamental needs that is inherent to human life. It's mostly about, what he calls, formulaic literature, such as the western, the detective story, romance and so on. But it broadened my understanding of literature as a human phenomenon and I think you'd find it interesting.
F.
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Doug Buchanan
Trad climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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Apr 13, 2008 - 03:59pm PT
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Stop reading.
Start writing.
Therein you will learn much more of what you seek, if you question what you write to insure that it does not contain what you too often find in what you read.
The suggestion is as abhorrent to most readers and teachers as a suggestion that politicians question their own contradicted actions and words rather than everyone else's, so question your reaction to this that you are reading rather than writing. Write your questions.
And have entirely too much fun doing that.
Fun day on the ice tower in Fairbanks yesterday.
DougBuchanan.com
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 13, 2008 - 06:30pm PT
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Unless you’re on an information gathering junket, there are basically two things that make readers sit up in their chairs: humor and vividness. Craft, truth and insight, emotional depth, transcendence, fluidity, erudition, et al, are good and fine but unless a story (or article) is vivid, funny, or both, readers will generally be left wanting.
JL
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 07:39pm PT
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I am not so sure, John. I found Roth's 'American Pastoral' vivid--and even humorous in a macabre way--but still jarring in an overly loose structure. Roth writes well enough, but I was surprised at what seems to be a willful slackening of storyline. (I did not like his repetitive mental conversations, but that was clearly part of what he wanted to do.) There are other newer novels that I have read that seem to be cut from the same idea.
I have vivid recollections of Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" a few years ago. Wolfe had great scenes that were stitched together well enough, but at the end, his story has no resonance. It simply fell apart in contrivances. He would have been better off having all his characters board a bus and then drive it off a cliff.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 08:08pm PT
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Roger
I agree that a distaste for many "classics" does not make you an imbecile, but I also think you have the right idea in pursuing these masterpieces. Your disappointment in modern literature is understandable; the example I will use (at the risk of inspiring much wrath) is Toni Morrison. She can write exquisite paragraphs, but her books do not take me anywhere. After reading one of her novels, I respond the same way as I do with so many other contemporary writers: "So what?"
The truly great writers have have two things in common: 1) a belief in something greater to which their art aspires; and 2) a respect for those who came before them. Bloom's book "The Anxiety of Influence" discusses the way so many modern artists reject/scorn the past. The meaning of "creativity" has been so distorted that modern artists think they must produce something totally new; the result is blank canvases hanging in national museums, silence hailed as symphonic, and any mishmash of words considered poetry. Bloom does require a PhD, which I don't have, but his book "Why Read" is very accessible.
Another problem is that so many talented modern writers fall victim to their own success. Their books make so much money that nobody can edit them.
The tough part is that the masterpieces require (and deserve) time and effort...two readings, at least. I suggest you find some essays that extoll the virtues of these masterpieces to help you see the things that modern literary education has hidden from you. David Denby has a couple of books that should help. And talk to somebody who has read (and is genuinely excited by) the books. The problem with taking a class is that you'll probably be subjected to lit crit or theory rather than a close reading of the text.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 13, 2008 - 08:10pm PT
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Roger wrote: "I am not so sure, John. I found Roth's 'American Pastoral' vivid--and even humorous in a macabre way--but still jarring in an overly loose structure."
Now you've opened up the entire po-mo (Post Modernist) can of worms. Some would say that a nice, tidy structure is a total contrivance as it orders/structures (falsely) the chaos and disconnectedness of our lives. The "jarring" feeling you got from the dissoloution of Swede Levov's life in American Pastoral was quite possibly the desired effect and according to more than a few Po-Mo hardliners, a truer existential statement than, say, one of Hardy's hefty sagas or the glib, sequential renderings of most any of the 19th century yarn weavers.
Personally, Roth clowns too much for my taste, whereas Twain was just flat out funny and a much better story teller to boot, even if he had no idea what Po-Mo meant. Joyce and Beckett did, but aside from Dubliners, there wasn't much genuine story telling going on with either dood.
But don't get me started. I'll just ramble . . .
JL
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 09:16pm PT
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I believe that Roth wrote exactly what he wanted to write and I agree that a tidy story is not very interesting in modern times. But given that, did Roth mean for me to start skimming his paragraphs. Did he mean for me to start composing my jokes, at his expense, for my book group a hundred pages from the end--I tell funny and vivid jokes, but they don't mean anything.
The Swede's twists and turns in his life made for real drama--I have two daughters and a beautiful wife too. I cared what happened and what the characters said. I can relate to the pain.
But in the end it was just pretty writing with no engine. (Bookworm raises the same complaint with Toni Morrison, which makes me nervous since I am about to start "Beloved.")
What I cannot grasp is the writerly purpose of spending the first 90 pages with Zuckerman to set up the story and then just end with a drunken fork that missed Lou's eye. I finally concluded that Zuckerman made up the whole story about the Swede and Mary and Dawn. That is fair enough, but why didn't Roth start on page 91? How could I care about the Swede if it was just Zuckerman ranting in his own head?
I am convinced that there is a reason why Roth wrote it the way he did. If it were a one off, I wouldn't care, but I have read other novels by good writers who seem to share the same idea. I am reminded of my kids, when they were little, telling me long stories in which every sentence began with "And then..." and the final sentence ended in the middle of a thought as some new distraction caught their attention. Charming in kids, if they are your own.
So the name of this is Post Modern? When did Modern end? When does New Post Modern begin?
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 09:28pm PT
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Roger
If you want to read a 20th century masterpiece that depicts the horrors of slavery/racism, it ain't Beloved. Read Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! It's his most challenging novel (and if you know Faulkner, you know that's saying something), but the payoff is worth it.
I read Morrison's Song of Solomon because everybody (big fans) told me, "it's her best" (I mean a near unanimous consensus)...eh.
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jstan
climber
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Apr 13, 2008 - 09:35pm PT
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Absolutely fascinating thread! I took a look at Garfunkel's list. He himself and not an assistant is keeping it. Data is missing which an assistant would never have been allowed to omit. He has been reading extensively in the Greco Roman period. I kick myself. A month ago I passed up a half price book with both the translated and the original from that period. I am an idiot! A certified idiot.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 09:41pm PT
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Part of being in a book group is that you have to read what other people think is interesting. Most of the time, I have no complaints, but we still schedule our meeting far enough apart that there is plenty of time to read one or two other books. It is always interesting to hear what other members have to say--it is rare that we raise the same points.
Personally I would rather read Faulkner. But I can't get anyone else interested.
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kwit
climber
california
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Apr 13, 2008 - 10:45pm PT
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Hey Roger,
I don't post here so much but for this one I can't resist--I'm finishing a PhD in literature right now, but I teach undergrads and I have no patience with erudite and difficult (and, as you say, *old*) theory written for its own masturbatory sake.
There's a book out by Oxford University Press--I think it is from 2006--called "How Novels Work" by a person named John Mullan. He's a professor at University College, London but his book is not designed to be an hermetic academic book. He covers everyone from Daniel Defoe to Jane Austen to Joyce to J.M. Coetzee to Philip Roth to Donna Tartt. You should check it out.
And let me know how it is.
If you haven't read J.M. Coetzee's *Foe* you should revisit Robinson Crusoe and then read Foe--an incredible (and postmodern) reconception of Defoe's novel.
Kara
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Big T
Trad climber
Running Springs, CA
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Apr 14, 2008 - 12:11am PT
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A personal definition of "post modernism":
Most of the "so whats" have already been expressed in previous works, and those remaining are basically inexpressible using the same methods that have been used in the past.
This is how I understand it, although it doesn't make the term any less annoying. One has to wonder what terms we will use to refer to future literary movements. I teach my students that movements tend to react to previous movements. Thus, Romanticism was a reaction to rationalism (or the Age of Reason), Realism and Naturalism were movements reacting to Romanticism... But then it gets a lot harder to support this theory when you get to Modernism, and even more so with "Pomo."
EDIT: I Think this is evidence that the world will end soon. (;
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Apr 14, 2008 - 03:24am PT
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To largo's point on vividness.
I think vividness only comes from being relatable and relateability comes from motive. The inner workings of the mind. So if a story doesn't further the plot that shows the motives that then shows the 'reveal' or in po mo the very lack of a 'reveal', then it sucks.
Po Mo is better thought of as a suspicion of metanarratives. i personally think this implies in it's basic form a. self reflection, and b. a story (critical?) about the story, which can be either about the full story, or not.
Those that understand po mo, will understand that last part. Think matrix.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 14, 2008 - 07:00am PT
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Roger
Just a thought on how you might persuade your book club to give Faulkner a chance...I'm sure they all admire Cormac McCarthy (Oprah, you know), well, inform them that Faulkner was a huge influence...and maybe give them a few short stories to try: "A Rose for Emily", "Barn Burning", and "Dry September".
McCarthy's Border Trilogy is well worth the time, too (though I hated The Road).
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Apr 14, 2008 - 11:13am PT
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Roger, The Rhetoric of Fiction is a classic work of criticism, but there is no single text that will help you decode the modern novel. Serious literature of the last century or so has developed hand in hand with changing styles of literary criticism, and "serious" novels now tend to be written primarily for critical and scholarly audiences.
If you want a primer to the various schools of literary criticism that emerged in the 2nd half of the 20th century, Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory is still probably the best intro. Terry has his partisan moments, but is a better writer than most folks who are deep into theory. Gerald Graff's Professing Literature is a good, readable history of the development of literary criticism and scholarship in the 20th century, that gives a useful intellectual context for the shifts in styles of literature. And Vincent Leitch's American Literary Criticism from the 3os to the 80s is usable.
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KuntryKlimber
Mountain climber
Rock Hill, SC
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Apr 14, 2008 - 11:29am PT
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Joseph Campbell, the power of myth
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Apr 14, 2008 - 11:40am PT
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Vividness and humor. Succinct, Largo. And nice.
Brings to mind many, many of your ledes.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Apr 14, 2008 - 12:47pm PT
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Roger, we've veered toward fiction here, ignoring (except for writings about structure, and criticism) the non-fiction half of your reading.
I like the comments that have been sweeping up the 2500+ years of literature, just a few score genertions, and they remind me of the excitement of a new book that goes a bit further into the backstory of that. Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade is brand new (2006) and summarizes current knowledge and speculation about steps toward becoming human. (Are we there yet?...) Wade is a NY Times science writer, so it's well done.
Two points excited me.
One is the leap of Homo Sapiens from the Horn of Africa across the neck of the Red Sea to populate the rest of the planet. It was likely a single migration, with as few as 160 people, about 50,000 years ago. They (we...) ended up in "the long contest with the Neanderthals for the posession of Europe." Maybe more of a battle of wits, hinging on tools, than hand-to-hand combat. We are all descended from that group, as told by the power of modern genetics. Full literary value: those straits are called Bab el Mandeb, the Gates of Grief.
The other exciting event leads more directly to that horizon of literature. Two genetic mutations have surfaced, one 37,000 years ago and one a mere 6,000 years ago. It seems "likely that each conferred some cognitive advantage." Wade traces language from there, and from language it's...jeez, I was about to say "a short step." More like "one giant leap for mankind" to literature.
I have a couple of other non-fiction recommends, but since I got carried away on a surge of cognitive advantage (just an excitable boy...), I'll sit back a moment, let this cool and settle in.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 16, 2008 - 05:29pm PT
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Thanks for the comments, education, and good ideas. I put two suggested literary critisism books on my purchase list, one from Kara (kwit) and one from klk—I’ll post book reviews.
There were lots of suggested readings. Here is my list of recent reads and the current list of open books and next in line. It covers about 14 months.
Book Club reads:
An Artist of the Floating World Ishiguro
River of Doubt Candice Millard
The Reader Bernhard Schlink
Thirteen Moons Frazier
The Name of the Rose Eco
Three Cups of Tea Mortenson & Relin
All the Kings Men William Penn Warren
American Creation Ellis
The Nine Toobin
American Pastoral Roth
Personal reading during the same time
1776 McCullough
Fooled by Randomness Taleb
The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions: A Philosophical Adventure with the World’s Greatest Thinkers Nicholas Fearn
The Science of Wine from Vine to Glass James Goode
Reading Like a Writer Francine Prose
The Beethoven Quartets Companion Winters & Martin
Hell Dante (Sayers translation)
Purgatory Dante (Sayers translation)
Othello Shakespeare
The Mahler Symphonies Hurwitz
Don Quixote Cervantes (Edith Grossman translation)
You’re in Charge, Now What Neff & Citron
Only a Promise of Happiness Nehamas
Postscript to ‘The Name of the Rose’ Eco
The Key to ‘The Name of the Rose’ Haft, White & White
Currently reading
Paradise Dante (Sayers translation)
A History of the World in 6 Glasses Standage
The Western Canon Bloom
Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human Bloom
A Garden of Bristlecones Michael Cohen
The Canon of American Legal Thought Kennedy & Fisher, Editors
Greek Myths Robert Graves
On the Shelf:
Beloved Morrison (Current Book Club)
Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra Sophocles
Plays and Sonnets Shakespeare
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha
The Oxford Bible Commentary Barton & Muddman, Editors
How Novels Work Mullan
Literary Theory: An Introduction, Second Edition Terry Eagleton
Thanks, Roger
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 16, 2008 - 06:37pm PT
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impressive list...way to go!
I love Bloom, too, but I don't understand much of what he says (but I have heard him speak a few times and envy his students). Here's a few other Shakespeare scholars that are more accessible:
Stephen Greenblatt (Hamlet in Purgatory, Will in the World)
Harold Goddard (The Meaning of Shakespeare)
A.C. Bradley (Shakespearean Tragedy)
Ron Rosenbaum (The Shakespeare Wars)
Dover Wilson (What Happens in Hamlet)
and Bloom (Hamlet, Poem Unlimited)
more general: David Denby's Great Books
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Anastasia
climber
Not here
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Apr 16, 2008 - 06:44pm PT
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That is the whole point of the ClimbFest that is happening in a few days. We are in the process of introducing to the public a collection of good art, literature and photography that best depicts mountain adventure and environment.
I'll give you a list of the winners once they are announced. So far the books and articles I have read have been excellent. (Please note that I am not a judge, we have a panel of literally experts, editors, etc. doing that.)
Smiles,
Anastasia
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irregularpanda
Trad climber
Reno
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Apr 16, 2008 - 07:10pm PT
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sounds like you want a great book that redefines the boundaries that confine literature: The amazing adventures of Kavalier and clay by Michael Chabon. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.
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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Apr 16, 2008 - 08:19pm PT
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Buzz! Knock it off with the reading, dude, it's keeping you offline.
Speaking of which, this is the literature resource you are seeking:
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/
*giggle
Edit: Wait, what's the lowdown on that Thirteen Moons? Biggest setup for the Second Novel Curse in the history of second novels. Cold Mountain was splendid, I thought, because of the voice, and the whole way through I kept thinking, A) this is gonna be a crappy movie someday, and B) homeboy's gonna have trouble on that next book.
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Ouch!
climber
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Apr 16, 2008 - 08:30pm PT
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It doesn't much matter what you read if it doesn't grab you and hang on. If you have to work at developing interest, it is no more than a laborious exercise in brain crunching.
I dearly loved The Source by Michener and Monte Walsh by Shaeffer. The Grapes of Wrath took me home again. I must be a simpleminded peckerwood.
When my rheumy eyes allow it, I read for pure fun. I'm not interested in great quantities of knowledge. Hell, I never made any use of what little I accumulated over my lifetime anyway.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 16, 2008 - 09:04pm PT
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Roger, what do you do with that?
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2008 - 08:18am PT
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Hi Ryan, Sam and Ed,
You know me too well, Ryan. I am a Cliffnotes kind of bottom dweller if there ever was one. I would happily pay for a Cliffnotes-life-is-easy-if-you-know-whom-to-ask. Just when I was about to feel really stupid for not thinking of this solution myself, I followed your link and found that when it comes to Roth and American Pastoral , Cliffnotes is shut down-they cannot figure out PoMo (NoPoMo), and everyone is refusing to help them. College kids are flunking. Curly white haired, netflex addicted waggles are flailing. “Where did all the answers go, long-time coming. The answer my friend is blowing on the Threads, the answer is blowing..."
Regarding Thirteen Moons, Frazier should have stopped at an even dozen. The voice was beautiful—took me right into my forbearer’s lives—but the story seemed forced into a full life. Lots of good storytelling in the beginning, then the publisher’s deadlines set in, like rigor mortise, and any story flow was replaced by set pieces, scenes for the next movie. Where is the hard nosed editor to whack the hubris and laziness of the author?
Sam, interestingly enough, most of the books I read engage me, even if they are not all easy. The climbing metaphor works pretty well. How are you feeling?
Ed, I am not sure if I understand your question? Do you mean what do I do with what ever I get out of what I read? It is circular—I read more. Like climbing. I get better at a particular style and push it a bit further. My bent is to search out 5 star books from long passed generations. Homer, Dante and Cervantes were all best sellers in their own times. One of the Pilgrims carried Homer to the new world and commented on the surprising immediacy of the emotions between Odysseus and modern wayfarers (the pilgrims)—now that is a cool thought. The gym is easier, but grunting up the Steck-Salathe has its special charms. Is this what you are asking?
Oh, Bookworm, I have read some of the Shakespeare books that you mention. Stephen Greenblatt is a great speaker if you ever get a chance. I recommend Will in the World to everyone.
My current reading of Harold Bloom are the only books that I have read (reading) of his except that he writes lots of introductions to other's books. So I have gotten used to him and his themes. I like what he has to say. Also, given that he could read serious text at 1000 pages an hour, he is hard to beat for commentary. (At 77, his current rate is 500 pages an hour.)
Got to go. Back to engineering and science papers, and the upcoming sessions fill up the room. Three hours is too long to stand.
Best, Roger
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 17, 2008 - 11:06am PT
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Perhaps it is just me... my reading waxes and wanes in a predictable pattern, sometimes just to satisfy a curiosity, other times to learn about something, still others just for pleasure. But usually as I "fill up" I am struck by an urge to do something with what I have learned in reading... to realize something out of it, to make something real, to create something new, or synthesized.
That's what I was asking, what do you do with all that reading. Conversing with people over the course of history is a wonderful gift that we have (inevitable, as more people live to day than all those before, or at least close to it, so our chances of existence are higher today than at any other time). But who will converse with you 2500 years from now?
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Apr 17, 2008 - 11:34am PT
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Clouds in a Glass of Beer: Simple Experiments in Atmospheric Physics
Interesting everyday stuff that nobody at a cocktail party understands - but still makes for interesting conversation.
Why do mountains appear grayer when more distant?
Why is there no frost under a tree some mornings when the rest of the lawn is covered?
Why does that little cloud comes out of your bottle of beer when you open it?
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emppeng27
Mountain climber
Denver, CO
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Apr 17, 2008 - 12:14pm PT
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One of the more interesting threads on here in a while; a good reason to pull me out of my posting hiatus. I may not be a Lit PhD candidate, but as a person who reads over a hundred books a year (a pretty even mix of literature/non-fiction) and who will be having his first book published next spring, my .02 on some of the topics covered.
For lit theory it is hard to beat Bloom (his Anxiety of Influence is spot on) though he is a dense read and if your background isn't so strong it can be hard to keep up with him. The Western Canon is a very good place for a general overview of western lit and is much more accessable than some of his other stuff. There is other stuff out there (trying to dredge up the names and authors would be too hard since very little sticks) but lit theory can be VERY dry and most books only require a good skimming and/or a thorough reading of the intro/conclu.
I am VERY selective with the contempo lit I choose to read since the wheat has yet to be separated from the chaff. Some of my favorites include David Mitchell, Ian Mcewan, Martin Amis (despite Yellow Dog), Michael Chabon, some of Lethem, William Vollmann (whose Europe Central is the best book published in the last three decades, rivaled only by Blood Meridian). For more established contempo authors its hard to beat the big five - Delillo, Roth, Pynchon, McCarthy, Updike - though I have to state that Roth I believe is not quite as deserving of his stature, his novels never matching the ambition of the other three (and, as an aside, when it comes to novels, greatness is most readiby dependant of the size of the authors ambition [ie. Gravity's Rainbow, Blood Meridian, Europe Central, Underworld - to name a few PoMo greats]). Much of Updike's writing can be pretty pedestrian as well though the Rabbit series is masterful. You notice that Toni Morrison is definitely NOT on my list. She owes her place to what she is - a black woman -, not what she has written (please do not take this as a racist comment; Marisha Pessl owes her current "it-lit" status as much or more to her attractiveness than to her overwritten Calamity Physics). This is not to say Morrison isn't a good writer - because she is - but even her "great" book Beloved doesn't hold a candle to MOST of the stuff written by the big 5.
For a some international taste, Coetzee (Michael K is overated; Barbarians and Foe are very good), Naipaul (A House for Mr. Biswas is a great book), and Marquez (Hundred Years of Solitude is probably the best book of the last half-century, and this coming from a person who usually hates magical-realism) are a good place to start. Pamuk is also certainly worth reading.
As for when did PoMo begin: 1960s with Pynchon, Barth, et al.
The second wave of PoMo I would argue began with Foster Wallace in the late 80s/early 90s and is being carried forward by the likes of Franzen, Safran Foer (who I despise, BTW, for his squirm-inducing sentimentality and kitsch), Murakami and others.
Of the modernists, Beckett, Borges, Proust (I know its almost become a cliche to call him great since so many literary posers will automaticall mention him to confirm that they are indeed litterateurs) and Kafka stand above the rest in my opinion, and Ulysses is truly an astounding book when you compare it to what came before. Faulkner deserves his place, though Hemingway can be overated at times. I always thought Dos Passos, Steinbeck, and Thomas Wolfe were second rate writers.
Anyways, I don't need to go back through the history of literature but I will add that Moby Dick is a monstrously great book and Dickens was virtually without peer in the latter half of the 19th century. Right now I'm gobbling up a lot of epic poetry (read: Byron, Goethe).
Hopefully that offers up enough to keep this thread going:)
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 17, 2008 - 04:32pm PT
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Roger,
That list is too serious. You gotta mix in some trash to keep it all fresh and exciting.
JL
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2008 - 05:34pm PT
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Ever hear of SuperTopo, John?
I forgot to include it on my list.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Apr 17, 2008 - 06:15pm PT
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bookworm had a good list of critical studies. Another minor classic in that field is "Aspects of the Novel" (or something like that) by E.M. Forster, a book about novels by a novelist.
There's another work on the shelves in my old room at my folks' house called "The Triumph of the Novel: Dicken, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner" by Albert J. Guerard. Good stuff.
In short, if you want to understand the evolution of the modern novel, you have to read them: Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, Joyce (who, contrary to what Largo said, is a wonderful story teller--read Portrait of the Artist). Even "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson is a good example of the evolving modern American novel.
As Woody said, Conrad is great (especially impressive since English was his third language) but his longer books can be a significant investment. Never could get thru Lord Jim and still need to finish Nostromo. If you've never Chekhov's short stories, you really need to: The Lady with the Pet Dog or The Doctor's Visit, etc.
I think the BEST american novel, however, is Moby Dick. Few things even come close. It's just a pain to read through. Ray Bradbury, who used to write reviews for the LA Times put it well when he summarized his daughter rereading it for the third time. He commented that that was a lot of work, and she replied that after reading it a couple of time you know which parts to skip. His other novels like White Jacket and Typee are very good and much easier reads.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 18, 2008 - 10:33pm PT
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Have any of you read Gene Kira's "King of the Moon"? Ok Hemmingway was more screwed up than this author so maybe Hem has more depth to his writing, but I think this is a good read. I think it would make a great cinema flick.
After reading most of your posts I have to say, I read alot and I write and I have been published, but as my grandpa used to say, "You're to deep for me". But it is fun to read all your comments. Are gals allowed to participate in your forum?
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Apr 18, 2008 - 11:14pm PT
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I concur with the original post that the old-timers had to work harder at what they did (similar to the Wall climbers, BTW) and they were better than the more recent writers.
Vulgarity, shock and a nominal Don't-Let-Kids-Or-Grandma-Near-This-Trash genre seems to pervade the new literature.
I guess the National Attention Deficit Disorder has editors and publishers following the same philosophy that causes movie producers to fixate on explosions/car-crashes/wanton-murders.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Apr 18, 2008 - 11:27pm PT
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yeah great thread - all the opinions are really interesting
and you know, it's like "you're favorite flavor".
Got mine but haven't read prose fiction in years,
my multi year binge culminating w/ Nabokov...
after that, it all seemed so anti-climactic;
he's was flying so high and so fast, making it look easy.
A grand master, IMHO.
cool stuff everyone!
RE:
"Of the modernists, Beckett, Borges, Proust (I know its almost become a cliche to call him great since so many literary posers will automaticall mention him to confirm that they are indeed litterateurs) and Kafka stand above the rest in my opinion, and Ulysses is truly an astounding book when you compare it to what came before. Faulkner deserves his place, though Hemingway can be over-rated at times. I always thought Dos Passos, Steinbeck, and Thomas Wolfe were second rate writers. "
I'll go along w/ the part on Falkner and Hem,and Steinbeck.
Becket and Proust?
Not for me. No way. I tried.
Kafka?
Just couldn't go there...
Camus. Oh yes.
Celine. Some of the best ever.
Genet. Amazing.
What's cool, IMO is the short stories by
Jack London, way ahead of his time,
very sharp - nothing like reading a "natural".
Katherine Ann Porter, no one wrote better.
Kate Chopin, brilliant.
Don't forget Voltaire, he kicks ass!
My two cents...
I'm a Bukowski disciple, unabashed
so it's no accident I like a lot of the
stuff he liked, too.
Think Erica Jong is really great, BTW,
one of the more important of our time, IMHO.
Remember, if you go for Celine's
companion novels, you won't be disappointed:
Death On The Installment Plan starts off with a
masterful "surrealist" insight as Celine
wanders around Paris "tripping" on a malaria fever,
it's awesome.
You want exciting fun "modern" stuff?
Aleister Crowley, Diary Of A Drug Fiend.
Everyone I've turned on to that
book has thanked me, said it was
nothing like what they expected.
It rocks.
"Boredom Is Not Art"
hahaha!
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 18, 2008 - 11:48pm PT
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I have a great list of future reads thanks to you all. Has anyone read Ecclesiastes 3 lately? (The 7o's song Turn Turn
Turn?) If you read it, it too is a pretty impressive piece of Literature.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 18, 2008 - 11:59pm PT
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Plain Tales from the Hills, Kipling. For simple, personality-driven narrative, no one has ever surpassed this beauty.
Book of Sand, Borges. One of a kind.
Robert M's Tales of the South Pacific. Read it and learn how to craft character (his longer stuff bored me to death).
Romulo Gallegos. Uneven but masterful at his best.
And anyone who thinks Stenibeck is overrated, read Cannery Row very carefully sometime. There's magic in there.
Amado. For the big yarn, one of the best going.
Twain, Roughing it. Arguably the best natural American narrative and the granddaddy of the "ficumentary," aka, literary non-fiction (which is almost always cooked).
JL
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ty-s
Social climber
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:54am PT
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This is a fantastic thread. I think it's interesting to see what people choose to read, and why. Very few undertake the task of reading, especially in this easy age of TV movies and film "adaptations" of great books. Those who do clearly expect to earn something for their effort, which is why I think there is some frustration at having read through a few hundred pages with little payoff. I can understand.
I'm a master's student in creative writing, and I read so that I can write. When school and work pile up too high, I flounder. When I have time to read, I have time to write, and I get something out of bad books - I believe that I must encounter things I don't like in literature if I am to avoid it in my own writing. I'm not smart enough to know whether I'm making some mistakes without having encountered them before, and I hate encountering them after having let a story rest for six months and changing everything.
The best books, however, are those that inspire me to write. All are, as Largo suggests, vivid or humorous, but I think those traits can appear in different ways. A book that is startling in some way is a book that can make a person focus and think, on any range of topics. The four most recent books I really enjoyed are very different.
Camus's "The Stranger" is an amazing existentialist read - the philosophical bent made me sit, staring at the ceiling for the better part of an hour.
I enjoyed Hemmingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." The simplicity of the writing made me reconsider how well a story can be told, and while I know I will never achieve a writing style that powerful, it makes me want to try.
While "The Old Man and the Sea" is an example of how a simple story can be made brilliant by beautiful writing, Herman Hess's "Siddhartha" is a great example of how ideas can transcend style. The book I read is an English translation of a German book written about an Indian man during the coming of Buddha. It's awkward. It's amazing.
The "Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukav is an explanation of theoretical physics that attempts to explain without math. It is a fascinating read, and it made me rethink my role in my own world.
Each book is a favorite of mine, because each caught my attention ferociously, and each for a very different reason. I think that whatever reason a person has for reading a book, whether to learn, be inspired, be saddened, be forced to think - if that book creates a reaction, then it has succeeded for that individual. The preceding books were great reads for me, but my reading goals are different from anyone else's. That's the beauty of reading a variety: if every book we read is great, then every book is average. I enjoy being surprised by a particularly vivid book, but I have to slog through some less inspiring works, so that I'm aware of where my personal bar lies.
And... that's officially a ramble! One more recommendation, then I'm off to bed, looking forward to being hungover. If you have a few hours, read "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," by Brian Selznick. It's a kid's book that reads like an old film feels, and it's an awesome blend of prose and drawings.
-Tyler
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:22pm PT
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For those of you that write why don't you post a line or two it would be fun to check out your styles.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 19, 2008 - 04:07pm PT
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Guess since it's my idea I should take the lead. If no one follows it will just be a solo.
I am trying to put grief and loss into words so I can better understand it having recently suffered my first serious lifetime loss.
Mourning is a strange creature. It lives deep inside you with no way to get out. Likewise grief, a deep pool with no streams flowing from it to carry away the sadness. But when many friends, old and new, come to the pool and fill their cup, slowly grief drains away.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 20, 2008 - 03:20pm PT
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ok the transition from reading to writing was too big a leap. Just looking for something interesting to do. I had to work this weekend.
Final thread. Has anyone read The Bone People by Keri Hulme?
Fantastic imagination and able to craft the words to go with it.
If you like it you'll read it 'til it exhausts you or you finish the book.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2008 - 05:24pm PT
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Hi Lynne,
Welcome to ST. I don't think we have ever met, although I know some of the folks from the early 70s (in Yosemite) that are in the JT dino thread
I am sorry for the loss that you are working through--your word sense of friends removing the grief a little at at time seems apt.
BTY, of course you can play on ST with everyone else.
Best, Roger
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samg
climber
SLC
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Apr 20, 2008 - 05:57pm PT
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A few of my favorites:
Kobo Abe
Celine
Pynchon
Joyce
Kenzaburo Oe
Robert Musil
Svevo
Cortazar
William S. Burroughs
Mishima
Thomas Mann
Faulkner
Robbe-Grillet
Andrei Bely
Louis Zukofsky
Borges
Conrad
Kafka
Beckett
Pound
I'm sure I missed a few but they are all excellent.
Musil and Bely seem to have slipped under the radar when it comes to the canon of great modern works, but their novels are just as great as anyone's. Highly recommended. In fact, if you like modernist novels at all they are a must to read.
For a examination of postmodernism and postmodern theory, read Fredrick Jameson's Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 20, 2008 - 07:33pm PT
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Don't forget Willa Cather, who could outwrite just about all of them. And easily.
JL
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 21, 2008 - 12:13am PT
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Largo, I have all of W.Cather's books in my library ( had to special order them )and really enjoyed them, but The Bone People by Keri Hulme will work you. Cather can't work craft like Hume.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Apr 21, 2008 - 04:54am PT
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hey there ed... say, if you read the jake smith ranch series, you will have something quality to share, and very unique... i garentees folks will not forget what you have to say!.... :)
oh, say... and lynn.... i a very sorry for the loss you have recently suffered.... say, i do not know if this was an older person in your life, or younger.... but please:
if you email me, i will send you a free book... .one of my novels that deals with the parting of good buddies, and family memebers, by death, after the folks in the story have shared a life-time of deep friendship..... perhaps there may be something in there that will help you release more of your hurt and free you to press onward.... god bless--once again, i am feeling for your loss....
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Apr 21, 2008 - 05:05am PT
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hey there roger... say, perhaps you can get your reading group to give my JAKE SMITH RANCH SERIES a go.... one novel at a time, of course... here is a recent right up... also, after that i will add the press release....
FRUITPORT AREA NEWS (MICHIGAN) (APRIL EDITION)
Another Kind of Hero
By Mary Weimer
Muskegon author Lizzy Gonzalez has written several books which highlight “hidden” heroes: Those family members and friends who deal with a disabled individual, as well as the disabled person himself.
The author writes under a pen name, Neebeeshaabookway. Although the books are works of fiction, they provide insight into epilepsy, seizures, and head injuries as well as the inability to speak due to tongue loss.
The story is a fascinating case study of family and friends facing traumatic events with courage and determination.
The Jake Smith Ranch Series is comprised of four novels, JAKE (‘I’m thinkin’…’), Jake And Sofia, Jake Hugs Texas, Jake’s Ranch And The Second Gate. Another title by the same author, “INTRODUCING..” is a collection of short stories on a wide variety of subjects (all based on the novels).
Throughout the series, Jake and Jade Smith, who are twins, demonstrate a love-bond that should be the envy of every brother and sister, twins or not. Jake has lost his tongue to an accident with a bull, as well as suffering a head injury.
The endearing characters take on a personality which makes them come alive for readers. The obstacles they face may be different from yours, but the way the characters deal with them is inspirational.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Apr 21, 2008 - 05:12am PT
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hey there... here is the press release.... take the challenge... maybe on of you will dive on in and test the series out.... you will never be the same... and you will surely have something mighty different to share in the reading circles, and it just may get someone else interested in helping folks learn more about head injuries:
Neebeeshaabookway's Jake Smith Ranch Series Sheds Light On The Haunts Of Head Injury, Seizures, And Tongue-loss, And The Hidden Heroes That Live With Such.
The Jake Smith Ranch Series, done in modern-day cowboy theme, leads readers into a strong fictional look at a hidden hero, fighting the head injury trail and why this is a highly personal fight, yet, also one involving ones entire family. Even if you are in the winners circle, it takes more than guts to overcome such aftermath.
The Jake Smith Ranch Series, by Neebeeshaabookway, delves into the heart of the matter of overcoming head injury, siezures, or tongue-loss. Survivors sift through a vast array of feelings never even suspected by the public that so easily pass these folks by--folks that seem less than perfect by so-called public standards, in the way they fuction.
Being that millions of families are affected by head injuries, behind-the-scene knowledge is highly needed. This is a new and unique fictional family saga, portrayed by simple-living ranch folks, in Montana, who used to ride the rodeo circuit. Their tenacity and loyalty to each other are part of the main ingrediant to get their buddy Jake Smith, into trying to face a new way of life.
Major brain changes are all too common to head injuries (though all are seen at different levels of intensity, depending on the survivors) amd all too often success is too hard to grasp. One cannot just stand up and decide their past guts-and-glory will make their life exactly the same again.
Jake daily tackles lost spells, the possibility of having more siezures, and accepting that he is no more able to read, write, or use numbers, in any way that leads to success. Not only is his ranch life and work changed, but Jake's association with the public is, as well, since Jake did trail-rides for local youth groups, and he now can't talk, either. The bull that led to his head injury, ripped-up his tongue, and he now faces life without one.
Jake's twin sister, Jade, is the initial ingrediant that pushes her brother back out into the limelight by teaching him to use American Sign Language to communicate. Something he resist, until adversity with the law, due to his muteness, gets Jake moving.
After his first year of recovery, Jake begins to reach out beyond his ranch again, and then seeks to court a gal, and finally feels he can face his Texas roots, and another group of buddies that have not met the "new Jake". This series shows head injury and seizure aftermath (as well as tongue loss) from a perspective rarely seen in any other novels.
It is touching the heart through a writing style that will make you step aside, and think deeply on these issues, and spur you to more dedication to your friends, or family, that face these issues.
It can be found at http://stores.lulu.com/neebeeshaabookwayreadjakeanddonate and at the author website, http://neebeeshaabookway.com and, http://jj-ns.read-jake-and-donate.com
_
(royalties go to muskegon food bank) as--its hard, being hungry...
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Apr 21, 2008 - 05:46am PT
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hey there all... say, i posted this for lynne... as she was curious how some of us writers write---i will leave it up for a bit, and then take some of it down...
NOTE---THE ITALICS DID NOT SHOW UP... JAKE DOES NOT TALK---HIS DIALOG IS THOUGHT
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Apr 21, 2008 - 07:58pm PT
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hey there lynne... would you like the free novel that deals with the older-years and death and passing on, after life? ... it is the conclusion, but it may still help you release your feelings, etc....
email me, if i can help in some way...
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 21, 2008 - 11:08pm PT
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Hey, Neebee I really appreciate your offer. I'm not really a reader when it comes to dealing with my life. People, places and writing have been my touchstones. You are kind and special to think of me.
Peace and Joy,
Lynne L.
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samg
climber
SLC
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Apr 25, 2008 - 05:51pm PT
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I never really got into Willa Cather, but I agree that it is good writing, in fact I'd say some of the best American writing there is.
I'm not sure about Cather being able to outwrite any of the other great authors, as all their styles are so distinctive and unique to themselves and the environments that they lived in. I enjoy them all.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Bump for Raydog. Bukowski, Hamsun, Doig, Chomsky, Carlin for comic relief.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 17, 2014 - 12:39am PT
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bump this.... too
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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May 17, 2014 - 08:07pm PT
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"His true Penelope was Flaubert"
 Ezra Pound
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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May 17, 2014 - 08:33pm PT
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there you go again, Ed, bumping stuff that's irrelevant
can't stop global warming. can't stop illiteracy.
my 401(k) is in good shape though. And my dog pretends to like me enough.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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May 17, 2014 - 09:13pm PT
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What an interesting thread. I'm a reading addict, myself. 2-4 books a week, on average.
One way to find new authors is the "Best American" series:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_American_Series
I had not read the series until one of my essays was published in "Best American Essays", and I was generally quite impressed with what I wrote by other authors.
Another place to look is the Pulitzer Prizes. While there is some stuff that is too obscure in meaning, I've found some astonishing literature. For example, Gene Weingarten:
In 2008, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his Washington Post story "Pearls Before Breakfast",[11] "his chronicling of a world-class violinist (Joshua Bell) who, as an experiment, played beautiful music in a subway station filled with unheeding commuters."[12] In 2010, he won a second Pulitzer for "Fatal Distraction,"[13] "his haunting story about parents, from varying walks of life, who accidentally kill their children by forgetting them in cars."[14]
these two stories are amazing, just amazing. The funny thing is that Weingarten is primarily a humorist, but neither of these stories are about humor. And you can read both online.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L'ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html
The defendant was an immense man, well over 300 pounds, but in the gravity of his sorrow and shame he seemed larger still. He hunched forward in the sturdy wooden armchair that barely contained him, sobbing softly into tissue after tissue, a leg bouncing nervously under the table.
In the first pew of spectators sat his wife, looking stricken, absently twisting her wedding band. The room was a sepulcher. Witnesses spoke softly of events so painful that many lost their composure. When a hospital emergency room nurse described how the defendant had behaved after the police first brought him in, she wept. He was virtually catatonic, she remembered, his eyes shut tight, rocking back and forth, locked away in some unfathomable private torment. He would not speak at all for the longest time, not until the nurse sank down beside him and held his hand. It was only then that the patient began to open up, and what he said was that he didn't want any sedation, that he didn't deserve a respite from pain, that he wanted to feel it all, and then to die.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 18, 2014 - 08:53am PT
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Not an expert, just a bookseller.
Who stared for years at collections of classics on the upper shelves where no one bothered them.
Two or three editions/bindings of the collection above.
The Harvard Classics.
The Everyman Library.
The list continues, of course, and not just in American versions.
Such a tremendous waste of paper and binding and it's because of what?
You tell me. I'm no expert.
I eschewed reading classics most of my life until my stepson sent me a copy of Heart of Darkness and A Tale of Two Cities.
I really enjoyed the dickens out of the French revolution, but my heart was not in Conrad's novel as it unfolded (confusedly).
I staggered through and felt ashamed to have continued when it was done. I was no more enlightened than when I had begun.
Then I read the Nigger of the Narcicuss (some writers deserve a second chance--he was Polish and became American and I know a guy...).
Not every novel of a writer will appeal, but try telling that to a lady who is buying her tenth John LeCarre hard cover for her library display in her living room (so American, so middle class, to display books in the living room and to not have a "library," so essential to middle and upper class in the last several centuries).
In in our ideal existence we humans must try to treat others by certain standards or we all seem to suffer. Classics function as such, providing whatever they may provide for the alert reader. It may be dull, but sometimes we must bend and read "something good for us."
The style content of an author either appeals or not. Don't concern yourself so much with this because you DON'T need to read a stylist who does not entertain. Remember, authors beg US to read their books, WE are in control here, and we are not students reading a "must read by end of term" list.
In this search for fit subjects for our limited time, it is important to realize that, as others here have said, YOU are the primary judge of a work, and that that author may or may not have a message for you.
I think this is why collections of classics are published, aside from the fact no royalties need be paid to dead men: If you find Pliny obsolete, turn that book in and go find another in your collection.
What often happens, too, is that a concatenation takes place, whereby you read one thing which leads you to another and yet more of the same. And this makes for enjoyment. The classics are but a stepping-off point for the rest of your reading.
I know that I don't care for Mr. Bloom. He's not Berkeley enough.
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