A Second Helping of Updike...

When I got started on this reading list, I can honestly say that there were more than a few that I thought, "gee, that one's gonna suck!" As I've whittled down the ones I've done with, though, I'm finding more and more that I'm compiling not just a list of Pulitzer prize novels that I've read, but a list of my own personal favorites, books that I can say seriously that I'd like to read again.

That being said, anyone who knows me knows that a book has to be pretty bad in my estimation before I'll consider getting rid of it. Boring, dry, dumb. Yep. Off to Goodwill with them. There are a few that I'm finding are not just keepers, but perhaps books that I'll someday look for in nice hardcover editions for my "Library."

John Updike has become one of those authors. I never had time to think anything about him until Em got me started on this list, but he's rapidly become one of my favorites. True, it can be argued that when you start out reading what is considered the author's "masterpiece," chances are you're going to be a bit biased. The second of Updike's books that I'm in the process of right now is "Rabbit at Rest," a story that really seems to personify the end of the 1980s, waking up to the 1990s. I really can't say enough about the entire series, but I won't, because you'd be bored.

Truth is, what I really think about as I read through this list, and come across books like this, is the sort of literature that our kids are reading in school. Did you look forward to the reading lists that your English teachers tossed at you the first week of September? I never did. You see, I ended up stuck in a wide variety of basic English classes through high school. I had one teacher in 10th grade who asked me why the Hell I was in her class, and not the CP or AP course, and all I could do was shrug my shoulders and say, "I don't know. This is where they stuck me."

Something to do with poor grades in earlier grade levels, I'm sure, as though that were of the slightest importance...

But it has got me thinking - Maybe kids are being introduced to the wrong kinds of books these days. Perhaps high school reading lists are a bit too mundane. What if we actually let the kids read the work of John Updike, Junot Diaz, or Annie Proulx, where yes, there is sex, and drugs, and violence, but also along with those things are real consequences of those choices. AIDS, addiction and death, as well. As I recall high school, it was anything but innocent, so why do we, as parents (or they, as school boards) insist on prescribing the same stuff that was really only avant garde in 1969? Who knows.

The thing about "kiddie lit," is that though I make fun, its important that these kids read something for fun, but for crying out loud, once we're done assigning them homework on discussing the merits of Mark Twain's work in today's society, let's at least point them toward writers like Updike, Hell, even Willa Cather, or Pearl S. Buck when they graduate, so that once they're done reading what the state says is literature, they can see for themselves what REAL literature is all about.

Circus Days

The other day I was browsing the shelves at my Grandfather's house and came across The Circus Fire.  The title caught my attention after reading Water for Elephants a few years back. 

The Circus Fire is a compelling true story of the great Ringling Brothers fire in 1944, where 167 people were killed when the big top caught on fire.  As gory as the tragedy was, Stewart O'Nan wouldn't let me put the book down.  I found myself cheering on the crowd, hoping against hope that they would all get out, even though I knew they wouldn't.  I would encourage anyone who is interested in history to think about reading this book.  

But, to talk about one of my favorite books (and no, this one is not kiddie lit...)

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob Jankowski, a nonagenarian in a nursing home who is looking forward to an outing to the circus that has set up down the street.  The story is told as events in the home trigger flashbacks of his youth in the circus.  The juxtaposition of joy in youth and longing for the past in old age was poignant; even more so in the audiobook where two distinctive voices traded with the scenes. I found myself sympathizing with 90 year old Jacob in a way that I would have never thought about before, and mourned with him as he reminisced about the life that he had lost.  

I have passed this book on to many people already, and encourage all of you to read it as well, this blog post can hardly do it justice.  Will you read it if I guarantee that it's not kiddie lit?

Punk.

So, speaking of "speed reading,"  I just got finished with "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thornton Wilder. At a whopping 130-odd pages, it was a bit of a barn burner itself. It won the Pulitzer in 1928, and was the subject of a couple of movies. Good read all in all, but (and I'm just learning this, so give me a break here) It's considered a novella rather than a novel. What's the difference you ask? Well, as if you haven't figured out, I'm gonna tell you. A novella is intended to be read in more or less one sitting. It's not divided into specific numbered chapters because you're not really supposed to stop when you start reading it. It's sort of like an expanded short story.

That being said, it would have been an easier read had I actually had the time to swallow it in one big gulp. The narrative would have felt more cohesive, and I wouldn't have had to think back as often once beginning to read again to figure out what was going on. Huh. Whaddaya know, right?

It got me thinking that maybe some of these "pop" fiction novels are simply extensions of this somewhat Victorian-era ideal of being able to digest a book in just one day. Sure, Charles Dickens isn't exactly novella material, but by the same time, most of the folks who could and did read regularly probably didn't have a whole lot else to do with their time (the idle rich)

Like "Hunger Games" for example...

Now, I'm not going to knock my lovely wife for reading "Hunger Games" at all. Ok, maybe a little. This IS a competition, after all, and whereas my diversion was into "The Great Gatsby" last week, (which I'll go into later on...) hers was into the kind of teenie lit that publishers are churning out left and right with no sense of whether they'll carry or not. It just seemed like the sort of book that could be easily made into a movie for people too lazy to actually pick up such an immensely readable book.

I'm delving into imagery here, so bear with me... You know how when you read a really good book, and you're into it, and the story is carrying you along, when suddenly you realize that you've been "seeing" what's happening in the book in your mind's eye? That's imagery. Your brain turns the words into pictures, and it's one of the strengths of the written word - why books are so often more powerful than the movies. It's because our own imaginations supply the setting and the characters, and even the characters' voices. Cool, huh? (except I'm not sure what that's called...) Anyway, It's what makes "Hunger Games" so good. You're there with Katniss (sp?) as she goes through her trials.

The thing is, that sort of imagery is also available in a book written nearly a hundred years ago. Or two hundred years ago, but there's a backlash against literature in our society - sort of an "anti-renaissance." As high schoolers, we're taught to dread the assignment of novels like "David Copperfield" or "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," when really they provide a glimpse into life that history books can't provide on such a personal level. Our attention has to be grabbed at the outset, or we're not interested. Well, "Bridge" can still grab your attention, but are you afraid of it because it was written in 1927 and is called "literature?" think it won't grab you?

How about five people falling a thousand feet to their death? Does that grab you? Then "Bridge" might just do the same.  But, hey, at least you won't be reading Kiddie-lit, right?