Tag Archives: Being a reader

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Saturdays @ the South: Comfort Reads

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Today is the last day of Banned Books Week, which we’ve been celebrating here on the blog daily, in various ways and from various perspectives because it is a broad topic to consider. You would think that since the South kicked off the Banned Books Week-bonanza last week that I would have something to say in summary or to end the discussion. However, I’d prefer not to have a finale for Banned Books Week, because, despite the well-deserved celebration discussions shouldn’t end just because the advertised week is over. They should be ongoing and I highly encourage that. So I’m going to leave banned books open-ended and start fresh with a new post….

Autumn is when the leaves begin to turn, the evenings become chilly while the days remain warm, foods turn into a pumpkin-fest and thoughts begin to turn to things of comfort as we steel ourselves for the upcoming winter. To me, the fall is a season for comfort: the foods that warm me as I take out my soup pot (temporarily retired during the steamy summer days), the sweaters and boots that keep me cozy, the blankets pulled from the cedar chest and the books that seem to encompass all of these things.

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I don’t mean books that depict fall in a certain way, mention autumn in the title or feature the season prominently. The books I’m talking about are what’s affectionately referred to as “comfort reads.” Most regular readers have books that fall into this category, and they’re more than just favorite books. Comfort reads can take many forms, but generally they refer to those books that give you a type of emotional support. The ones that you can pick up and feel like you’re being welcomed to a familiar place by people you feel know you well. It’s the book equivalent of a friend you haven’t seen in years, but somehow, no matter the time that’s passed, you pick up just where you left off and start chatting away. It can make you feel better when you’re stressed or sympathize with you when you’re depressed. A comfort read doesn’t have to be great literature, it just needs to elicit that feeling coming home.

Our awesome librarian at the West Branch talked a bit this week about her favorite books to re-read and I’d bet that at least a couple of those book fall into her “comfort reads” category. As a matter of fact, two of the books she listed happen to be at the very top of a Goodreads list of comfort reads. Authors have comfort reads as well. Perennial librarian favorite Neil Gaiman gave an interview to Reading Rainbow recently (which, despite not being on air anymore is still going strong to promote child literacy and encouraging early readers, much to my inner child’s delight) where he talked about his comfort reads:

We avid readers have “comfort books” the same way other people have “comfort foods”, do you have any “comfort books” that you turn to when you’re sick, or stressed, or depressed?

I do, actually, and they’re an odd little bunch. I can’t really say why I turn to these books. Bleak House by Charles Dickens is definitely one of them. When I was in my twenties Glory Road by Heinlein was my go-to book. I have no idea why, it was just a place I liked to go when I was sad. R.A. Lafferty writes places I like to go to. Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light is another wonderful place to go.

Like Gaiman and our West Branch librarian, you may go to your comfort reads time an again. Others might be books you’ve read once or twice, but you take comfort knowing that they’re there to welcome you back whenever you need them.

I have a bit of an eccentric list comfort reads list myself. Here are a few books that I go to whenever I need them, for whatever reason:

3554442Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I’ve lost count as to how many times I’ve read this book (and for that matter, watched the BBC adaptation). P&P is what I read whenever I’ve got a book hangover and don’t know what to read next.  I get swept away in the wit, romance and Regency country dancing and all feels right with the world again. Somehow, this book always guides me back to my reading list.

3237118Hamlet by William Shakespeare

There’s a good chance that you’ll stop reading here thinking I’ve lost my mind. I’m willing to run that risk. When I’m feeling sad or depressed, I’ve turned to Hamlet because my problems seem to pale by comparison. Sometimes you feel the need to commiserate and books can do that for you. This one makes me feel like I’m commiserating with a cousin and Shakespeare’s poetry makes it sound as though Hamlet is commiserating right back.

1504665Middlemarch by George Eliot

I’ve only red this book once, but every time I picked it up to get further into the story, I got this warm feeling washing over me like I was visiting a small country town where everyone knew everyone else and the people there welcomed me into their little community with open arms (It’s kind of like the atmosphere at the South Branch, actually). The stories are compelling, the prose is beautiful and this is one where I know ithat if I ever want to go back to Middlemarch, it will be there for me, with the same folks and the same town waiting to welcome me back again.

1912752Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

Lest you only think I read classics for comfort (though I admit I do find the most comfort in classics) this book is one I go back to whenever I feel the need to escape. Not the kind of escape that a beach read offers. This is a curl-up-under-the-covers and take-me-away kind of book. It’s dense and rich with themes that envelop me like a warm blanket. I always feel immensely satisfied after reading this book, even though the ending somewhat ambiguous.

2260048Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

You thought you could get away from a mention of this one, didn’t you? It keeps popping back up because this book had a profound effect on me. I was utterly pulled into the world Clarke created as completely as any book I’ve ever read. This is one of the books I know I will turn to for comfort when the real world just seems a bit much and I’ll journey with Jonathan and Arabella Strange, Gilbert Norrell and John Segundus as though they were members of my own circle of friends.

Clearly my list of comfort reads (and there are many more) aren’t for everyone, but I do believe that everyone who enjoys reading has their own list of books that they turn to for comfort, in their own way. Till next week, dear readers, pull out the blanket, make a cup of cocoa or tea and cozy up to a read that gives you comfort.

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Banned Books Save Lives

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.(Oscar Wilde)

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There are any number of topics one can address when one sits down to write about Banned Books Week.  We can talk about who bans books, why they want those specific books banned, or how librarians, booksellers, and educators respond to those reasons.  But for now, I want to take a slightly different tack, and focus on the books themselves.  If banned books are so dangerous, so threatening, so incendiary…what is the good of them?

Butler University’s website has a pretty good breakdown of the most common reasons books are challenged or banned, including some interesting graphs about which parties are doing the challenging.  Among the reasons provided are “racial issues”, “sexual situations or dialog”, and “violence”, all topics that are difficult sometimes even painful, to discuss.  It is a natural human reaction to want to shield ourselves, and especially our children, from painful and difficult things, and protect them from the pull of the tide for as long as possible.

But the truth of the matter is that the tide can’t be stopped.  And the truth of the matter is that banned books save lives.

3473469164_bb0534ec75For many people, reading books that were challenged or banned offered them their first opportunity to identify with someone like themselves.  In a heart-breakingly honest article for the PEN American, Lidia Yuknavitch (author of The Small Backs of Children) talks about growing up in a troubled family, and silenced by a loneliness so profound that it nearly drove her to suicide.  She also talks about how a novel called Blood and Guts in High School offered her hope:

The novel is about how being born a girl is always already a death sentence, because the body of a girl is colonized by culture the moment she arrives.

That likely sounds bleak.

What was the opposite of bleak, was this. The girl in this story had more agency and voice than any girl I’d ever read or would read in my entire life, and more than any girl I knew in real life. And this: I identified with her story.

This particular tale is a triumph, because Yuknavitch was able to break through her silence, and see the world around her differently with the help of this book (which, to date, has been banned in at least two countries).  But how many people have been deprived of that chance?

2599847A similar story can be found on the website of the Human Rights Campaign regarding the 1982 publication of Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden.  The book itself deals with two high school girls who fall in love, come out to their friends and families, and, ultimately, learn to accept who they are.  The book was headline news when it came out, particularly because there were no YA books about homosexual relationships.  in fact, Nancy Garden “repeatedly told reporters that her desire to write young adult books with LGBT characters stemmed from the lack of such books when she came out as a young lesbian in the 1950’s.  She wanted to make it better for new generations of LGBT youth.”   Garden also contributed to Awake,  an anthology published by the Trevor Project, an organization dedicated to ending teen suicide among the LBGTQ community.

Annie On My Mind was sent as part of a package to 42 Kansas and Missouri schools by a homosexual activist group that wanted to ensure that accurate information about homosexuality was available to young people.  In response, a fundamentalist minister led a ground of protestors to the Kansas Board of Education and publicly burned copies of the book on the front steps.

Thankfully, the publicity generated by this action actually produced a backlash of support for Garden’s book, and libraries across the country began stocking extra copies–in case students who weren’t comfortable checking out the book for fear of stigmatization just slipped it into their backpacks to take home.  Since then, the book has been listed as one of the School Library Journal’s 100 Books That Shaped the Century, for offering younger readers honest answers and a real sense of hope.

 

bannedbooks11-226x300But banned books aren’t just saving readers; sometimes they even save their authors.  There is no doubt that Judy Blume, author of the seminal Are You There, God?  It’s Me, Margaret, Deenie, and Superfudge has offered generations of readers guidance, companionship and hope–despite being one of the most challenged authors of the 21st century.  Author and songwriter Amanda Palmer actually wrote a song for Blume that includes the lines: “You told me things that nobody around me would tell … I don’t remember my friends from gymnastics class, / But I remember when Deenie was at the school … Margaret, bored, counting hats in the synagogue … All of them lived in my head, quietly whispering: / “You are not so strange.”

Blume herself is very open about the fact that writing these beloved–and contentious–books also saved her, as well.  In an interview with the Guardian, she recalled, “”I talked to my own private God the way Margaret does. I would plead, ‘Just let me be normal'”.  During the writing of Iggie’s House, a story of a black family moving into an all-white neighborhood, Blume noted, “It was the most traumatic time of my life…and then I started to write.  Writing saved my life.  It saved me, it gave me everything…”

So when you think about banned books, don’t just think about those doing the banning.  Think too, about the readers; about the people these books could save, people who feel alone and silenced.  Think about the people who aren’t marginalized or lonely who can learn to empathize through these works, and become allies and supporters.   Then think about coming to the library and checking out one of these, or any number of other banned books.  Because, as Banned Book Week makes us realize, you never know which book will be the next to change–or save–a life.

Continue reading Banned Books Save Lives →

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When books turn on you…finding the good in a bad book relationship

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Just like our interpersonal relationships, there are times when our relationships with books can be fulfilling…and sometimes they can be disappointing, unhelpful, or downright unhealthy.  And it’s just as important to be aware of these moments, and have ways to handle them.

I have read a number of books in my time that seduced me with false promises; spectacular descriptions or glowing reviews that convince me that I can’t live another day without getting my hands on it, but which don’t speak to me as they spoke to those other readers.  And that is fine.  Most of the books that have changed my life are ones that friends and fellow readers couldn’t stand.

But the ones that really hurt are the books that lull you into a false sense of security…the ones that promise so much…and then turn on you with an unexpected plot twist, a sudden death, or a shift in perspective or a character, leaving the reader floundering, lost, and desperately trying to recapture the magic they once felt.  There is an enormous sense of loss when this happens, as if a personal relationship has gone bad, because so much time and energy and imagination has been devoted to this book–and it just doesn’t seem willing to conform to the reader’s plans or wishes.

42ce1586f98cd2392f7bd3ebdffda324Perhaps my favorite example of this is a quote from Jason Momoa, the super-terrific star of such shows as Game of Thrones, and The Red Road (and who is heartily invited to visit our library any time he’s around), upon learning of the death of his character, Khal Drogo, in Game of Thrones: “[I] started reading the book… It took me four days. [When] Drogo died, I literally freaked out, set down the book, went to Barnes & Noble, bought the second book and I’m flipping through it because, of course, I’m [convinced I’ll be back] in it and I was so bummed [I wasn’t]”.

So what is there to do?  Other than finding another copy of the same book to ensure that our copy isn’t somehow ‘broken’, and that the same troubling section does indeed exist in all copies, of course.  Can we break-up with books over a difference of opinions?  We will be discussing the issue of ‘book-breakups’ soon, but for now, how do we handle stories that “bum us out”, to use the great Mr. Momoa’s phrase?  What good can we take from these moments?

My sixth-grade self would tell you to fling the book across the room and refuse to speak for three days (yes; this actually happened.  No, please don’t throw your library books across the room).  But my taller, ever-so-slightly-more-grown-up self tries to remember what drew me to a book in the first place, and use those moments to find new books to love.  Perhaps I didn’t feel that spark with the book in my hand, but I can learn from that in order to find a new book on the shelf that might just change my life.

So here are a list of some books with sensational moments.  Maybe they are not my ‘forever’ books, but they led me to great things…and maybe they’ll do the same for you…

2690922The Strain: The opening scenes of this trilogy about a modern-day vampire epidemic is one of the most eerie, disturbing, and thoroughly unforgettable that I can recall.  A plane lands in New York with all its window-blinds drawn, and sits silent and dark on the runway.  After all attempts to communicate with the place fail, agents are sent out to force the doors open–only to reveal that every person inside the plane is dead.  I’ll be honest, I never finished this trilogy, but this well-paced, utterly unsettling scene alone is a reason to recommend to someone looking for a thoroughly modern twist on some very old supernatural themes.   I loved the steady pacing and gradually building sense of dread, and ended up reading (and adoring) ‘Salem’s Lot and The Passage as a result.

3537128The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair: As I’ve said before, Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, is perhaps my favorite book of all times.  So when I began reading through Joel Dicker’s award-winning mystery/thriller, I was delighted to realize that it was, essentially, a re-telling of Lolita, told from outside the relationship.  Here, a young man discovers the story of his mentor’s relationship with a fifteen-year-old girl when he himself was in his thirties–but only after her body is discovered buried on his property.  The references, allusions, and conscious homage to Nabokov’s book in the pages of this novel made me appreciate both works even more, and I found Dicker’s use of the ever-popular Unreliable Narrator fascinating.  And while I still can’t wrap my head around the plot twists that begin around page 500, this story would definitely appeal to anyone who enjoyed the surprises in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  I personally loved the ways in which the various testimonies from the townspeople and friends of the main characters combined to make a story that was heart-wrenching, surprising, and, overall, completely convincing…until the very moment that it wasn’t.

3099383The Sojourn: As someone who studies the First World War, I was thrilled to learn about Andrew Krivak’s book, which focuses on Jozef Vinich, an Austrian-American who becomes a sniper along the Italian Front in the Great War.  The book is at once a close study of an individual caught up in a tidal wave of historic events, and an attempt to capture the war on a grand scale.  It was, by no means my cup of tea, but it did lead me to several non-fiction books about the Italian Front, such as The White War (one of the few book in English published about this particular geographic area during the course of World War One), and the fiction of Stefan Zweig, himself an Austrian who lived through the First World War, and captured not only the opulence of his pre-war Vienna, but the loss of faith and community that resulted from the war.

I hope this helps you deal with some troublesome book relationships in your own life, beloved patrons, and always know that we at the library are here for you, and ready to help you discover a new book to love anytime you need it.

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“Tom Cruise isn’t coming to steal your books”: A word about adaptations

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So because my birthday was last week, Stephen King made an appearance in Cambridge to moderate a discussion with Lee Child, author of the much-beloved Jack Reacher novels (at least, that’s what my dad told me–not because Lee Child just released a new book).  The event was a wonderful one for fans of Child and King alike, not in the least part because it turns out that Child and King are enormous fans of each other, and spoke together not only as colleagues and fellow wordsmiths, but as delighted readers who ad just met an author who had a profound influence on their literary life.

And, unsurprisingly, in the course of this conversation, the topic turned to issues of film adaptations and the perhaps misguided selection of actors to play certain roles (Cough–Tom Cruise!!–cough, cough!).  It seemed that, by and large, readers still had not yet come to terms with an actor who would never be mistaken for tall, or rugged, playing a character who is defined by his height and rough-hewn survival instincts.  King and Child, however, attempted to assuage the masses, in part by discussing the nature of film-making and casting, but also by offering one of the most fascinating pieces of counsel I have ever had the good fortune to receive.

“I want to assure you,” Child said, with a little British smile on his long British face, “that Tome Cruise is not coming to steal your books.  When it’s all over, the books will still be there.”

And after I overcame the urge to leap out of my chair and cheer, I began thinking…what is it, really, about film adaptations, that so upsets many devoted readers?  Because, truthfully, no one is coming to steal your books.  And when you come home from the cinema, the books, and all the words inside them, will still be waiting for you.

I think, in part, at least, it might have something to do with that sense of ownership we feel over the characters and scenes in books we have loved, which we’ve mentioned previously.  For someone else to tell us what Jack Reacher, or Kurt Barlow, or Edmund Bertram look like seems like heresy; we know what they look like, and sound like, and act like, because, in part, we brought them to life through the act of reading.

On another level, nothing is as scary/romantic/moving/surprising on screen as it is on the page, precisely because your own imagination is fueling those scenes of terror, or love, or reunion, or shock.  When you see the product of someone else’s imagination on screen, there is nothing for your brain to add.  This is precisely why no aliens are ever scary once they walk on-screen.

Actually, there are some superb adaptations out there; works that allow us to explore relationships that the author could not (for example, in the latest Brideshead Revisited film, where we could finally talk about the relationship between Sebastian and Charles with a measure of honesty), or to unpack issues that the book may have rendered obscure (like The Painted Veil did for Kitty’s feelings towards Walter), or show us flashy magic or grand explosions in a way that, perhaps, our imaginations can not (I, for one, can never imagine being as cold as Jon Krakauer was on Everest, so I look forward to the film showing me what a blizzard on the world’s tallest mountain looks like).  Adaptations also, occasionally, give authors the chance to revisit and re-consider previous works.  Douglas Adams stated that whenever he adapted The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for another medium, like film or radio, he always changed things up, not only so readers could see a different story, but also so that he could explore options that he didn’t when writing.  Though this doesn’t really excuse the poor production qualities and general lack-luster feel of the latest Hitchhiker’s film, it does, at least, make us that much more grateful for the book, I suppose.

Which brings me back to Child’s words of wisdom.  Movies aren’t coming to steal our books, or to take that experience of reading away from us–or from anyone else.  What they can do is offer us, at their best, is a new way of looking at characters or events, give us a chance to visually wallow in period details, or, at their worst, a chance to be grateful that we have those books to savor, and the pictures in our imagination to sustain us.

Here are some adaptations for your readerly consideration:

2426609The Painted Veil: As I mentioned above, I personally think this is one of the most successful adaptations I have seen.  It is pretty closely based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, in which Dr. Walter drags his adulterous wife, Kitty, to China, where he has been assigned to assist in a cholera hospital during one of the largest epidemics in Asian history.  While the book is a moving and engaging one, the film moves past Maugham’s inherent ambiguity about Kitty and Walter’s relationship, showing us the joys and tragedies of getting to know the person you married, wholly and completely.  It also delves into issues in Chinese history just after the First World War with a sensitivity and insight that Maugham was simply not in a position to do.  All in all, this is a visually stunning, deeply engrossing love story–between people and places–that is definitely worth checking out.

2421451Jane Eyre: Though there are aspects of Charlotte Bronte’s seminal novel that seem generally un-adaptable, this version seems to ‘get’ Jane’s quiet-but-steel-willed personality, and also captures the tension between her and Rochester in pitch-perfect fashion…and even allows us to see a few moments that Bronte couldn’t…this is no ‘bodice-ripper’ by any stretch, but by showing us Jane and Rochester touching and (gasp) kissing (!), it also allows us to realize just how powerful–and dangerous–their relationship was for the time period in which they lived.  I love the fact that the film makers weren’t afraid to allow the two main characters to look plain, ugly, and generally human, as it enhances the power of their performances and relationships immeasurably.

2414590The Prestige: This is a tricky one to discuss for those who haven’t read the book, but suffice it to say, this is one of those films that allows us to see what authors attempt to describe: in this case, magic, both the mystical and the technological kind.  Christopher Priest’s novel is a wildly complicated, deeply complex story of two warring magicians in the late 19th century, and the film embraces not only the heights of the Age of Invention, but also the depths that these two men are willing to go in order to prove their own superiority.  Plus, David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla.

3650525Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: Oh, I’m sorry, did you think you could get through a post on literary adaptations without this one getting mentioned?  Not going to happen this week, beloved patrons.  This adaptation not only captures the simply breath-taking quality of simple magic with simple tricks and angles, but the grand, awe-inspiring majesty of it, as well.  Truthfully, it was interesting to read reviews of this miniseries in Britain, which generally complained that the adaptation was too close to the book.  Which seems to be a different problem entirely, and one that we shall have to tackle on another day….

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Saturdays @ the South: Travel by Book

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When I was in college, my grandparents sent me an adorable “thinking of you” card with a cartoon cat in the clouds. Attached with perforation to this card was a bookmark with the same cartoon cat floating on a book, that said: “Travel by book… and never lose your place.” It was so sweet and it’s a bookmark that I still have and use. It’s my go-to bookmark when I’m reading a book that has an enormously strong sense of place or a book that describes traveling and is a sentimental reminder of how transportive books can be.

Traveling by book is not a new phenomenon, nor is it one that is particularly original, but it is a phenomenon that most readers can relate to. Anyone who has picked up a book and been completely transported into that book’s world (whether the places are real or simply a figment of the author’s -and thereby reader’s- imagination) has been able to travel by book. In the pages of a book, entire worlds can open up, whether it’s Wonderland, a hometown, Paris or the far-reaches of the globe. While you may not be able to come home with a camera full of pictures and a suitcase full of souvenirs, armchair traveling with a book does manage to leave you with memories and images of a place that can stay with you for a lifetime. Such is the power of words when combined with our supple imaginations. Plus, you don’t have to worry about navigating security checkpoints or what to pack.

But sometimes, traveling with a book can be far more literal, with much more tangible rewards. My new favorite example of people finding their way with books is the mayor of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, in conjunction with literacy advocate Victor Miron, allowing any person who was reading a book to ride the public buses for free during a certain weekend in June. They called the campaign: Travel by Book. Miron hopes to make this a regular event in Cluj-Napoca, where apparently books can really take you places!

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Ride on, ride free you literate Romanians!

Travel writing was particularly popular during the Victorian age when writers like Charles Dickens, D.H. Lawrence, William Dean Howells and Henry James wrote of their adventures abroad, but it has become it’s own genre now (and a personal favorite of mine) with anthologies published annually, edited by leaders in the field. Writers of all types, poets, essayists, memoirists and fiction writers can all take us on a journey without ever leaving the comfort of our bed, chair or whatever other favorite place you have to read.

If you missed out on being able to get away during the Labor Day weekend, or if all of this travel talk has given you a case of wanderlust, here is a tiny sampling of the many books that can take you places:

1259351Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes

The queen of Tuscany memoirs has created quite the franchise for herself, starting with Under the Tuscan Sun, but the popularity of her books is with good reason. Not only are they beautifully written (she’s also a poet), but the reader is immediately transported not only to Tuscany, but in the midst of Tuscan life, complete with quirky residents and idiosyncracies of living abroad through an American’s eyes. This one book in particular, has one of the strongest senses of place because Mayes had already fixed up the house which took up most of her first memoir, and allows herself to delve into Tuscan life.

2669089The Lost City of Z by David Grann

This book was surprisingly gripping as a middle-aged man goes in search of the Lost City of Z and answers to what happened to the explorer obsessed with finding it, Percy Fawcett. Hardly the first to seek an explanation of Fawcett’s disappearance, Grann gives the reader not only a solid background into the history of the mythical city, he also takes the reader alongside him as he plunges into the depths of one of the least explored areas on earth. I defy you not to be swatting at imagined mosquitoes during this read!

3551126Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

This book was delightful and gives the sense of road-tripping without having to fill up the gas tank of a Winnebago. Author Steinbeck takes his blue standard poodle, Charley with him across the US, visiting places and getting a sense of the locals wherever he goes. While it’s been disputed that much of this book actually happened in Steinbeck’s imagination and not real life (apparently he spent more time with the dog than with any locals), for me it doesn’t detract from the book’s charm. Whether or not the events actually happened isn’t really the point; it’s the journey, even if that journey was mostly in the author’s mind, especially since readers are journeying with him in their minds.

his_illegal_self_lg_0His Illegal Self by Peter Carey

Speaking of fiction, this book has a terrific sense of place even the  as the main character, Che, is thrust from relatively isolated privilege in New York into the depths of tropical Australia, living on the outskirts of the law. Che has to come to terms not only with his location but his place in life. The ending, I have on very good authority, is truly amazing.

2660316Drood by Dan Simmons

I forgot to mention this book in my Book Hangovers post, but I think it fits  into the “transportive fiction” category as well. (Actually, it fits a LOT of categories, including unreliable narrators because it’s just. that. good). Drood has earned its place here, however, because this is an incredibly well-researched account of Victorian London, proving that a good author can not only transport you into a place, but to a time as well. Plowing through this book you will smell the sewers of the seedy London slums, the gardens of Charles Dickens’ house, the fireplace in Wilke Collins’s apartment, the pubs of high-brow society and so much more. This book took me into London so completely that I honestly thought the author was English (he’s not; he’s American). Don’t let the bulk of this tome frighten you off; there’s a lot here to pick you up and take you away without even realizing how much you’ve read.

Till next week, dear readers, I hope whatever you read, regardless of what it is, takes you someplace you enjoy!

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“I’m sorry to have deceived you so much, but that’s how life is”: A Word on Unreliable Narrators

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As part of my first-year undergraduate orientation program, we were assigned Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, a book ostensibly about childhood and growing up, lies and the destruction they can wreak.  Though it wasn’t my particular cup of tea at the time, I could appreciate McEwan’s prose, his ability to capture the tension, fear, and bewilderment of teenagers facing the prospect of growing up, and the hollow despair of an unjust turn of fortune.  I also loved the twist at the end, in which we learnt that the narrator of the book is an unreliable one, and that what we thought was true…wasn’t.

The concept of the Unreliable Narrator is not a new one.  Really, for as long as people have shared stories, they have toyed with the idea of truth and lies.  Aristophanes’ The Frogs, first performed in approximately 405 B.C. is considered the first use of an unreliable narrator, when Dionysus claims to have suck 12 or 13 ships and his slave later states that it happened in a dream.  Numerous tales in the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights, feature lies, fabrications, and exaggeration in order to make their point.  Many of these tales, however, are fairly up-front about their deceptions, showing the lies for what they are in obvious ways throughout the text.  Other examples of this can be found in stories where children are the narrators, misinterpreting the events around them, or when the books are told through the eyes of ‘madmen’, such as Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman, which freaked me out so much that I have never been able to re-read it completely.

But there are times when things aren’t so clear-cut.  Other pieces use the Unreliable Narrator far more insidiously, guiding the reader into a false sense of comprehension and understanding, they whipping the proverbial rug out from under their feet.  Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger  is a classic example, taking the readers’ fundamental understanding about how mystery novels “work” and using it against them.  Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is one of the more heart-breakingly moving examples that come to mind, playing on the simple human desire to believe in the fantastic, especially if it offers a glimmer of hope, rather than the banalities of reality.

I personally love books with unreliable narrators.  It forced the reader to rethink the entire work, to rethink and re-conceive a narrative that, on the whole, seemed so simple.  I love that it re-emphasizes the beauty of fiction–talking about things that didn’t happen to people who don’t exist.  The unreliable narrator trope forces us to look at the man behind the curtain, so to speak, to see the puppet’s strings, to acknowledge that we are looking at a facade.  And, if it is done well, in realizing the un-reality of what they are reading, readers can often appreciate even more keenly the beauty of what they believed to be true, and to realize the depth of the relationship that can form between reader and author–people who, most likely, will never ever meet.

But, to my surprise, in a campus-wide discussion on Atonement, the president of my college talked about how genuinely angry she was at the revelations in the books’ final pages.  She felt cheated and painfully manipulated.  For her, and, indeed, for many, as I later learned, the idea of an unreliable narrator was seen as a betrayal of a fundamental trust; when they picked up a work of fiction, they trusted the author to tell “the truth”…even in the midst of a fabricated piece of work.  For many people in this discussion, the revelation of the Unreliable Narrator betrayed the basic premise of story-telling, and, on a grander scale, about why we tell stories at all.  It made me realize how powerful the bond between story-teller and audience truly can be; the act of reading a book implies, for many, an almost religious faith in the veracity of the story-teller, a fact which can often obscure the presence of the reader, their emotional or psychological investment in a story.  By exploiting that trust, the Unreliable Narrator forces us to acknowledge our own presence in the narrative, and our ownership of the characters, the events, and our feelings about them.  And while that isn’t always easy or comfortable, it makes us as a real part in the story…and that, I think is a pretty remarkable feat.

So, IF you who want to explore a few more tales from Unreliable Narrators, THEN here are some suggestions–along with those mentioned above:

2200907Lolita: Perhaps the quintessential Unreliable Narrator of modern fiction, Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert is a liar par excellence.  In desperately trying to exonerate himself, Humbert implicates the reader of his tale by sharing with them his love (love?) for the teenaged Dolores Haze.  Strictly speaking, Humbert is a delusional, controlling, homicidal psychopath.  But in the pages of his confession (but for what crime?!), readers find themselves forgiving him, excusing him, and empathizing with him in a way that is difficult for many to accept.  This is also one of my favorite books of all time, ever, ever, ever, so if anyone wants to discuss, you know where to find me.


2223181 (1)Oscar and Lucinda: Another of my all-time forever favorite books (because I am a book masochist, apparently), this story proves once and for all Peter Carey’s sublime genius.  Because he tells you on the first page what is going to happen, and still manages to dupe you into hoping, scheming, dreaming that the ending of the book will be different.  Oscar is the son of British minister, while Lucinda is the unexpected heiress of an enormous glass factory in Australia.  When their mutual love of gambling brings them together during a steamship crossing, the stage is set for one of the most understated and perfect love stories in literature, as well as one of the most awe-inspiring travel narratives you’ll ever read.

2754084The Turn of the Screw: A truly creepy is-she-insane-or-not type of Unreliable Narrator is at the center of Henry James’ seminal short story.  This is also an example of a ‘found manuscript’ story, as the narrator is presenting a text written by someone else, in this case a deceased governess who was hired to care for a young boy and girl at a country estate in Essex.  Though the job at first seems a simple one, the governess becomes haunted by the tales of the houses’ former inhabitants, and ghostly presences that threaten the children in her care…at least, that’s what she says happened….

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Saturdays @ the South: Book Hangovers

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I know the feeling, kitty…

Book Hangover: (Buk Hang-ov-ur)

a) the inability to start a new book because you are still living in the last book’s world.

b) When you’ve finished a book and you suddenly return to the real world, but the real world feels incomplete or surreal because you’re still living in the world of the book.  (sources: urban dictionary and funsubstance.com)

In the wake of a long weekend giving many extra time to spend with a good book, I thought I’d talk about an experience that I suspect many readers have had, but few may have the term they can use to discuss it. If you’re on Pinterest (and if you’re not, you should be; you can get, among other things, the scoop on the library’s latest orders before they arrive) you may have seen this term pop up a few times. If you haven’t, allow me to introduce you to a new vocabulary term: book hangover. As defined above more formally above, a book hangover is when a book hits you so hard or gets you so utterly engrossed, that you have a hard time pulling yourself out of it. In other words, the book stays with you long after the last page has been turned.
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If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re in very good company! There’s something about a really good book that can often make you reluctant to turn that last page, or gets you so engrossed that you end up being surprised when you get to the last page (this happens a lot to me when I read on a Kindle, since there’s no real, physical indication that the pages are getting fewer). Or maybe a book has talked about themes relevant to your life that deeply resonates with you or it talked about something that completely opened up your eyes to a new way of thinking that you hadn’t considered before. All of these reactions (sometimes all within the same book) are not only parts of an enriched reading life, but can all be symptoms leading to book hangovers.
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Well put, Mr. Firth. See? We’re most definitely in good company.

While many people have their own cure for a regular hangover (a particularly famous one here) that may or may not work to varying degrees, a book hangover is a bit trickier. I’m not aware of any particular cure for a book hangover as everyone seems to have their own way to break it. Some dive right into another book.  Some wander around aimlessly staring at their bookshelves wondering if anything else will measure up to what was just finished. Some watch TV to try and get their mind off of it (bonus points for watching the show or movie made from the book you finished- sometimes comparing the two is enough to rally). Some prefer to wallow in the book hangover and ruminate indefinitely, considering the book hangover more of a spell that the book has cast that they’re afraid to break. Everyone has their own method, sometimes the same person might have several methods depending on the book.

While there is no “official” cure (and some who don’t want to be cured), if you are a reader who has experienced a book hangover, no doubt you will eventually venture into another book at some point. Maybe you’ll get that feeling again, maybe you won’t. That’s all part of the excitement of reading life. But regardless how to choose to move on from your book hangover, be gentle, both on yourself and the new book you read. Ease into it and know that even if this new book doesn’t immerse you in the story, it could still be a great, fun read.

Here are a few book hangover-inducing selections that may get you more familiarized with this feeling :

2260048Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

OK, I’m going to get the huge, pink, British elephant out in the open first.  For those of you sick of us singing the praises of this book, feel free to move onto the selections below. For those of you still reading: this book hit me hard. Despite having a solid outline of what was going to happen from watching the mini-series, I was still blown away. This was the type of book that kept me so engrossed I wanted to keep pushing forward, but also one that I wanted to take my time with and savor. Naturally, coming to the end was a bit of a heartache and despite having finished it a month ago and read a couple of books since, I’m still not sure I’m completely over it.

3546892The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell

Patron recommendation! A wonderful patron here at the South came up to me, told me how she was still thinking about this book and proceeded to describe the symptoms of what I was able to diagnose as a book hangover. In my mind, that makes it immensely worthy of putting on this list.

3614409Cannonbridge by Jonathan Barnes

This one caught me by surprise. The book read incredibly quickly, so when I was done, I wasn’t quite sure what happened. It wasn’t a life-altering book, but it was an extremely engaging one, particularly for those who like literary references in their fiction (Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Wollstonecraft and Edgar Allen Poe, among others all make cameos). The ending was a surprise and stuck with me for quite a while after I’d closed the covers.

3414400A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

This book had a profound effect on me and sucked me deep into the story and the emotions the characters felt. This was another tough book to come out of and led to many wanderings among bookshelves (both at home and at the library) trying to figure out what to do with my reading self next.

3563980In Search of the Perfect Loaf by Samuel Fromartz

I’ve added this book, in part, because I want to demonstrate how it isn’t just fiction books that can give someone a book hangover. This book made me want to buy a house with a big backyard specifically so that I could install a brick bread oven there. I had all sorts of resolutions about following a path similar to the author’s. Very little came from them, but for the week after reading this book, I was a touch obsessed with learning more about making good bread (or at least buying better bread), so not only did I get a book hangover from this book, but I got a bit of a starch hangover as well!

I’ve somewhat conspicuously left out summaries of the books I listed this week, mostly because, even though I know not everyone will get a book hangover from these selections, if others do, they deserve to arrive at it on their own terms. Books can reach people in myriad ways and I’m not about to dictate what the plot will mean to them or how they might interpret the subject.

Till next week, dear readers, I wish you good reads and safe times over the long weekend!