Traumatic Reading

Au Booking Through Thursday:

Which is worse?

Finding a book you love and then hating everything else you try by that author, or

Reading a completely disappointing book by an author that you love?

The latter has happened to me too many times to count.  As I've mentioned before, I can hate just about anything if I'm in the right mood.  It also seems like some authors have split personalities, so sometimes they write books just up my alley, and other times they write books that to me seem laaaaaaame.



Sherrilyn Kenyon is one of those writers to me.  Actually, I can pretty much predict whether or not I'll like her latest book based on whether or not I liked the previous one:  it seems to alternate fairly regularly.  Since I'm used to it by now, I'm not really that upset when I don't like one of her books.



Then there are other authors that I usually just adore.  When they publish something I dislike, I get really upset.  For example, Sandy Hingston (who of course isn't writing anymore because she actually wrote books I liked) was one of my favorite writers.  But she wrote this one book, The Lover's Charm, that I absolutely hated.  So I wrote a scathing review of it on Amazon.  Then, one time I met her and I was like, "I've loved every single book you've ever written, you're my favorite writer eva!" etc. etc.; and she said, "Wasn't there one book of mine you didn't like?"  <----GASP!  How did she know???

So that's another example of why one should think about censoring one's remarks when writing book reviews.



Anyway, I think being disappointed by an author you love is worse than finding a book I love by someone and hating all of their other stuff.  You have more invested in an author you love--you get excited about their new release, you bump all the books in your TBR pile so you can read their new release next, etc.  You go out of your way to read their books, so if the book is disappointing, it's more of a let-down. 

I haven't had all that many authors write just one book that I liked, except perhaps Neil Gaiman.  I loved Neverwhere, but when I went to read Stardust, I hated it.  That was a bit of a let-down, I have to admit, especially since Stardust seemed like it would be right up my alley.  I have to admit I haven't picked up a Neil Gaiman novel since; whereas I did continue to buy books by Sandy Hingston--and Sherrilyn Kenyon--after their books disappointed me.  So maybe I'm actually wrong and finding a book I love, then hating everything else by that author, is more traumatic for me.  I just block those instances out of my mind and try to move on.

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Thursday Tea

Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by Anastasia at the Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog. To play along, all
you need is some tea, a book, and the will to answer some very simple
questions: what tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together.

Well, it's not technically Thursday anymore, but close enough.  Right now I'm drinking The Republic of Tea's Earl Greyer (decaf, since it's 2 AM) with lots of milk and some vanilla extract and honey.  Basically it's my homemade version of a Starbuck's London Fog Latte.  Not as good, but it's decent.  I also suspect it's healthier.

My tea definitely goes along with my book, Drood (yes I'm still reading it), which takes place mainly in London.  Plus Earl Grey is a very traditional English tea. 



I am liking Drood.  I'm really enjoying the dark play between fantasy and reality that both Dickens and Wilkie are going through, and the glimpses into the "hidden" parts of British society that are being revealed in the house of Dickens and Wilkie's search.

What are you drinking and reading this not-anymore-Thursday?

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Reviewer Responsibility?

In the blogs o books lately, there has been a lot of talk about reviewers' responsibilities--to their readers, the author, the publisher, and themselves. It all started (at least as far as I was aware) when KatieBabs published this post about an online reviewer who can no longer get free books from the publisher because they don't like the tone of her reviews. Here's the excerpt of the e-mail republished on Katie's site, which was sent to the reviewer (one Emmy) via the review site she writes for (separate from her livejournal account):

As I mentioned to you sometime ago, a number of authors have written me requesting that I do not send you their books to review since they didn't appreciate your style of reviewing. Recently the publishers have gotten in on the action and several of them have written within the past couple of weeks requesting that I give their books to other reviewers. Basically what they have said is that they will not give their books to a reviewer who trashes them. Their main objection is the tone of your reviews and I'm paraphrasing here - your reviews come across as extremely snarky, not just in the reviews themselves but in the comments following the reviews .... they don't have any issue with reviewers posting negative reviews of their books but they feel that your reviews are unprofessional. The bottom line is they are not prepared to offer their books to a reviewer who calls stories she doesn't like "craptastic" "suckage" and makes reference to gouging her eyes out, is disrespectful and cruel, especially following up on reviews she has posted of stories she doesn't like. Some of us have problems writing reviews on books that we don't like for whatever reason. As you know, I hate writing negative reviews but I do them more frequently now and I always have to find the right words to use and try to be helpful. So we have a problem with few options. Since I'm rapidly running out of books for you to review I could do what I did originally when you agreed to post your reviews here - I could cherry pick your reviews from your Live Journal and suggest the ones to be posted here. Obviously I can't select those from some publishers, which makes it difficult. Honestly, I'm at a loss here. I like you on a personal level, I enjoy our discussions, I think you're funny and we have fun together and I don't want this to affect our relationship. I don't know if you have any other suggestions of how we can work around this.You'll probably be angry when you receive this email but I have no option since basically I have been given ultimatums by several publishers who supply the books to be reviewed.

Wow. That'll knock a girl down a peg. So basically--or at least as Katiebabs argued--Emmy is being blackmailed into changing the tone of her reviews or she will no longer receive books from the publisher.

Then Bbexlibris posted an entry asking what makes a good review. Although this doesn't seemingly have anything to do with Emmy's problem, it actually does--the publishers are refusing to lend her books because they don't think she writes valuable reviews. They want her reviews to be "helpful," or something. But should reviews, of books or movies or anything, really be helpful? Should they be entertaining? Most reviewers (re: yes, I mean myself) don't get free books to review from publishers. But if you do get copy from publishers or authors, do you enter into some sort of unspoken contract with them not to be as harsh?

There have been more posts discussing this topic, my personal favorite being the one on RomanceNovelTV--basically the equivalent of STFU. "Criticism is not a one-way street," Marisa (the author) says, so don't dish out what you can't take.

I think this is a great point, and why doing reviews on the internets is different from doing them for, say, the New York Review. Also perhaps why it's better. In ye olde timey days, you got reviews from newspapers or magazines, and some were more prestigious than others. Did those reviewers interact with publishers and writers? They probably did, to a certain extent, but they couldn't get too buddy-buddy with them due to journalistic integrity and all that; and the reviewers definitely didn't interact with the masses of readers that authors and book sellers were hoping to sell books to. Basically, for the Waldo Lydeckers of the world (he was a critic, wasn't he?), criticism was a one-way street.

With the interwebs, you've got a completely different situation. Writers, reviewers, readers, publishers, and editors are all on Twitter or on blogs, talking to one another, reading reviews, commenting on websites, and basically communicating to an extent they never have before. If you write a review, be it harsh or favorable, chances are not only higher the author and editor will read it, but respond to it.

Does this improve reviews? Do you think reviewers are selling out if they pull punches just because they know the author of the book might read their review of it? Is it even a reviewer's job to be "helpful" to a writer in improving his or her books?

Personally, there are only two kinds of reviews that I really love: ones that lead me to great books, and ones that add to my understanding of books that I've read. Neither instance requires wit or a snarky attitude, or being helpful to the author for that matter. Someone who writes a review that is meant to show off their own cleverness and intelligence more than discuss the book being reviewed (something that happens in academia all the time, just fyi), tends to scream to me "Frustrated Novelist." Then again, one does want one's reviews to be interesting so that people will read them....

It's an interesting conundrum. I'm not going to promise my reviews will never be snarky, but I do have to admit that every time just before I hit the submit button, I ask myself, "What if the author reads this?" It's not so much pulling my punches as watching out for my karma--what goes around comes around.

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Symbol or Fraud

A painting is a symbol for the universe. Inside it,
each piece relates to the other. Each piece is only answerable to the
rest of that little world. So, probably in the total universe, there is
that kind of total harmony, but we get only little tastes of it.
~Corita Kent

The Chasseur in the Forest by Caspar David Friedrich

From Booking Through Thursday:

My husband is not an avid reader, and he used to get very frustrated in college when teachers would insist discussing symbolism in a literary work when there didn’t seem to him to be any. He felt that writers often just wrote the story for the story’s sake and other people read symbolism into it.

It does seem like modern fiction just “tells the story” without much symbolism. Is symbolism an older literary device, like excessive description, that is not used much any more? Do you think there was as much symbolism as English teachers seemed to think? What are some examples of symbolism from your reading?

First of, your husband isn't an avid reader? How does he live? (LOL--kidding) I definitely believe that writers in the past--and the not-too-distant one, at that--used symbolism deliberately in their novels all the time. That was the style, not just in writing but in the visual arts as well. For example, Caspar David Friedrich is probably the most well-known German Romantic painter. He painted what most people today think of as "pretty landscapes," but his paintings were more than just scenic views. They were full of symbolism, expressing Friedrich's religous, philosophic, and political viewpoints. A Chasseur in the Forest is a painting that's all about the Napoleonic Wars and the expulsion of French troops from Germany. The lone figure is a French dragoon lost in the impenetrable forest, which symbolizes Germany. His ultimate fate (and the fate of the French army), death, is represented by the black crow on the tree stump--a symbol often used by Friedrich for death. Other symbols Friedrich regularly employed were colors to represent God or theological ideas, ships to represent human souls, and ruined churches to represent death (Friedrich was kind of obsessed with the whole death thing).

Mademoiselle Lange as Danae by Anne-Louis Girodet

Friedrich wasn't the only artist to use symbolism in his work, and symbols weren't used to only represent religious concepts. When the newly-married courtesan Mademoiselle Lange didn't like the portrait Girodet painted of her, he replaced it and hung a painting of her as Danae in the Paris Salon, instead. Danae is a mythological figure often used in allegorical paintings depicting courtesans, because Jupiter lured her into making love to him by appearing in the form of a shower of gold coins (don't ask me how that works, it's just the story). In this painting, Girodet was not just implying that Mlle. Lange was a prostitute, selling herself for the gold owned by her rich (and old) husband, but that she was cuckolding him (see the huge cock on the left staring at Mlle Lange's genitals?) with a young and handsome actor--you can see his portrait in the Bacchanalian head underneath Danae's seat, with gold coins stuck in his eyes. There are loads of other symbols in this painting, all of which were immediately apparent to the Parisian public, and all of which were completely insulting to Mlle Lange, her husband, and her luvah.

How could all these symbols, which seem relatively obscure to us today, be readily apparent to people at the time? Because viewers in the 19th century were trained to read the symbols in painting, just as I'm sure they were trained to recognize them in literature. Now, I have been known to say that art historians make stuff up, I admit; but by that I mean that some of our educated speculation is backed up by less proof than other theories. I don't know much about literary theory, but I imagine it's the same way. English teachers don't just pull this stuff out of their ass; they rely on things like letters, contemporary criticism, rough drafts, and so on to give them clues as to what the writer intended when he or she wrote the work. Sometimes, admittedly, they take this a bit farther than hard, irrefutable proof would support; but that's the fun of it. If I wanted to justify my every idea with irrefutable proof, I'd become an archaeologist. Or a police... person.

Most people today, however, are not trained to recognize symbols (unless they're part of a completely anachronistic profession like me :P). That doesn't mean that modern literature still doesn't use symbols--Animal Farm is obviously not just a story about animals that live on a farm, and The Great Gatsby isn't so much a novel with a traditional story as it is an allegory or modern American myth. Both books are full of symbols, like the T. J. Eckleburg billboard that symbolizes the eyes of God looking into Tom's soul.

However, the proliferation of symbolism in literature--and really all the arts--is only a fraction of what it used to be. Why? Because we no longer view the world in a symbolic way. We don't see spirituality in nature as Ralph Waldo Emmerson did, God in the power of Niaga Falls as Thomas Cole did, or think witchcraft causes bad dreams. Our world today is one of realities (so-called) and science and facts, not of symbols, signs, and mystery; and neither, for the most part, is our literature. Perhaps it's anachronistic to force people to continue thinking in those terms when they study art or literature, but that is the way the people who created those works understood the world they lived in.

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Proof That I Do Write Creatively... Or At Least I Try

A few nights ago, I was really bored, so I decided I would go through some of my older posts and start retroactively tagging all of them. The bad news is, I got tired of doing that after about 10 posts (out of five-ish years of blogging). The good news, I found this little gem, which was supposed to be a first chapter to a book whose purpose, plot, and premise I do not recall at all. This is as far as got with it. However, I thought the excerpt was cute. It's about a messy, anti-social vampire named Steve and his annoying friend who is trying to get him to date. Voila:

Chapter One

The sun was just setting when Steve woke up to the refrain of Bach’s 5th Symphony, playing shrilly and slightly off-tune from his phone.

“Yessssssssssss?” he growled into the receiver, keeping his face half-buried in his pillow. There was a short silence until the phone rang again, this time right into his ear, and he realized he had forgotten to push the “talk” button.

This time he lifted he head off the pillow and snapped, “Yes, what do you want?”

“A little grumpy, are we?” a familiar voice teased on the other end—Tom, Steve’s terminally cheerful friend.

Knowing he wasn’t likely to get out of this conversation without Tom stating his peace, and then some, Steve sat up in his bed and placed a hand on top of his aching head. It had been a tough weekend. “Why are you calling me so early?” he demanded, his voice still rough from sleep. He could see the golden reflection of the sunset on the wall as the sun sank behind the tall skyscrapers covering the city.

“You hadn’t left your apartment for the last decade until two nights ago, and I know it didn’t go well, so I decided you needed some cheering up in the form of… women!”

It took Steve several moments to process this information. When it finally dawned on him what Tom was saying, he pushed aside the covers and got out of bed. Knowing Tom, he was probably standing outside his door at this moment.

“First of all,” Steve ground out, reaching for a pair of boxers, “it has not been a decade since I left my apartment; and secondly, I don’t need cheering up. Even if I did, I don’t need you to procure female companionship for me.”

“I beg to disagree, friend,” Tom returned, sounding like he should be in either a laundry commercial or The Music Man.

“I’m disconnecting my phone. You will now only be able to contact me via e-mail.” Having pulled on a pair of black jeans—the closest thing to him on the floor, and somewhat clean—Steve walked out of his bedroom, through his living room and to his front door. He glanced through the peephole, and sure enough, there was Tom, grinning at him while holding his cell phone to his ear.

Without a word, Steven hung up and pulled open the door. “There had better not be a stripper behind you.”

“Would I be so crass?” Tom shut his phone and stepped past Steve, into his apartment. He gave his friend’s living room a long, despairing glance and said, “So I see you’ve been cleaning the place.”

The room was not only cluttered, but filthy. Bookcases crowded for space on every available wall, stuffed with books layers-deep. In front of the bookshelves, cardboard boxes were stacked waist-high, and in front of the boxes, on the floor, the end tables, the coffee table, the top of the television—basically any flat surface—were piles of books, puzzle boxes, stacks of clothes, swords and other assorted weaponry, hats, papers, and CD and DVD cases. Where there wasn’t a pile of something, the surface was covered with a layer of dust, a tissue, or a liquor bottle. The black leather couch was the only clear space in the room.

Steve shut the door and turned back to face the room. He swept his hands forward, palms out, and a wind blew through the apartment, pushing the dust, tissues, and the smaller bottles to the back of the room. “Happy now?”

“You don’t have to clean up on my account,” Tom replied. “Now, about this woman thing… I have an idea.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Online dating!”

Tom looked at him as if he had just announced he’d invented electricity. Steven rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen.

“Aren’t you even interested?” Tom asked, following him and sounding not in the least defeated.

“I can’t say I am.” Steve reached into his refrigerator and pulled out a beer bottle, passing it to Tom.

“But you love computers, and you hate leaving your house. It’s perfect.” Tom pulled the plastic wrap off the top of the bottle and paused to take a long drink while Steve took out his own bottle.

“What’s the point?”

Tom put his bottle down on the kitchen counter with a thunk. “You’re depressed. I understand that. But you need to get out more, see new things, feast on some pretty pieces of flesh.”

Steve thought about this as he took a drink. “Have you done this?” he asked, looking at Tom cautiously.

“Of course! I just had a date last Friday with this amazingly delicious woman named Karen. A lot of them won’t put out on the first date, but of course my natural charm overcomes their objections.” Tom grinned and picked up his bottle again. “It’s so easy. You just put up a picture of yourself and a profile on the web, and women flock, my friend.”

“I’m sure,” Steve muttered. Tom was given toward over exaggeration.

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Book Zombie Quiz

Another reading meme from The Book Zombie:

1. What author do you own the most books by?
Well, I'm not going to count them.  But off the top of my head I'd say Christina Dodd and Lisa Kleypas, since I tend to read them obsessively and they've both written a lot of books.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?
I own three copies of Treasure Island.  Why, you ask?  I really have no idea.  I like the book, but I don't like it that much.  I also own 3 versions of the story on DVD.

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
The first one didn't bother me, but the second one really did.  That might be because I've just spent the last 5 hours grading essays, though.

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Haha, I have to pick one?  Hmm, Mr. Darcy is probably number one in my heart.  But there are really so many choices....

5. What book have you read the most times in your life?
Wellllll, I don't know.  It comes down to The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart, Here Comes the Sun by Emilie Loring, and The Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith.  The one that I've read the most of all of those is probably Here Comes the Sun, since I've read it at least once a year since I was 7.  That book is crazy, y'all (not really).

6. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
I loved this book called The Ghost Wore Grey by Bruce Coville when I was younger (I've always had a thing for stories involving the supernatural).  It was about a ghost from the Civil War who recruits two pre-teen girls to help him do... something.  It had this great line in it:  "What a hunk!  Too bad he's dead."

7. What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
There are so many to choose from.  Probably Dark Thirst by Sara Reinke.  That was book was terrible.

8. What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Year as in since January?  Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles has probably been my personal favorite so far.

9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Lord, I don't know.  In all honesty, I'd probably make them read Giorgio de Chirico's Hebdomeros, because I'm evil like that, and because I could use it to create my de Chirico zombie army.  Alternative reading assignment would Nadja by André Breton.

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
When I start reading "literature," I'll let you know.

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Well, I'm reading Drood right now, and I think it would make a great movie!  But you never know with that.  I used to really wish The Vampire Diaries would be made into a TV show (head writer would be Joss Whedon, natch), and now they ARE making it into a TV series, and I'm completely convinced they're going to fuck it up.  I heard the other day that they're changing Stephen and Damon's last names from Salvatore to Witcombe, or something really dumb like that.  WTH?  Stephen and Damon are from Italy, why would you mess with that (very important, trust me) part of the plot unless you're a total d-bag?!?!  Anywayyyy, /rant.  People are trampling on my childhood memories yet again. *grumble grumble*

12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Ha, just about any romance novel.  I really don't want to see most of that stuff on-screen.

13. Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
No idea.  I can't remember stuff like that (at least, nothing's springing to mind at the moment), although I have dreamed about Giorgio de Chirico, who is technically a writer.

14. What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Um, just about every book I pick up is considered "lowbrow" by some person.

15. What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Difficult how?  I'd have to say trying to read Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire in the original French was pretty damn difficult.  I'm amazed I survived that semester, in all honesty.

16. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I've never read anything by a Russian author, so I guess the French win by default.  Yay for them.

17. Roth or Updike?
I'd rather gouge my eyes out than read Updike again.  As for Roth, I honestly have no idea who that is, unless you're talking about the lead singer for Van Halen.

18. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
I've heard of David Sedaris.  I think I might have read one of his books.  So I'm going to vote... Sedaris.

19. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare FTW.

20. Austen or Eliot?
Austen, duh.

21. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I still have not read Tolkien.  And I have to admit I haven't read the entire Austen catalog, either.  I know; I feel bad about it.

22. What is your favorite novel?
Jane Eyre is my favorite novel of all time.

23. Play?
A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen--that play is amazingly good, full of drama and yet very insightful about gender roles and the way the sexes interact.  And the female lead has a great last scene.

24. Short story?
Don't have one.

25. Epic Poem?
Oh, yes, what is my favorite epic poem???  Well, I would say Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Byron, but I never actually finished it.  Or The Odyssey, except I never actually read it, just watched the miniseries.  Or The Epic of Gilgamesh, except I have also not read that.  So I suppose one can conclude from this that I don't read epic poems.

26. Short(er) poem?

Strephon kissed me in the spring,

     Robin in the fall,

But Colin only looked at me

     And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,

     Robin's lost in play,

But the kiss in Colin's eyes

     Haunts me night and day.

--Sara Teasdale, "The Look"

27. Work of non-fiction?
Hmm, I only read non-fiction for work.  I don't really have a favorite, since I don't read it for enjoyment.

28. Who is your favorite writer?
I really couldn't say.  I hate just about anyone's writing if I'm not in the mood for it.  LOL  Probably LJ Smith if I had to pick one writer.

29. Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
This question is funny to me, because I don't think there are many contemporary writers who are "rated" (by whom?) at the same level as Charles Dickens was in his lifetime--just to use an example.  I think Nora Roberts is really overrated, if you want to know the truth.  I have never seen the appeal of her books.

30. What is your desert island book?
Taking just one book to a desert island would be a torturous decision.  No matter what it was, I would get really tired of it.  I guess I'd pick Robinson Crusoe, because if you're ever going to connect with a guy who's stranded on a deserted island, it'd be then, amirite?

31. And ... what are you reading right now?
Drood by Dan Simmons

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A Letter to Wilkie Collins

From The Book Zombie (via buckeyegirl31--thanks for the idea!):

Time for another very cool mini-challenge. This time around Shannon from Flight Into Fantasy would like for us to write a letter to one of the characters from a
book we’ve been reading. It can be about nearly any topic we want, and
any character we choose.

The book I'm reading right now is Drood by Dan Simmons (and considering how long it is, the book I will be reading for a loooong time to come will be Drood), so I'm going to write a letter to the narrator of the tale, Wilkie Collins--author extraordinaire, laudanum addict, and close personal friend of Charles Dickens.

Dear Mr. Collins,

It may seem rather abrupt and rude to begin a correspondence thusly, but I would like to state first and foremost that I have read both your and Mr. Dickens's novels, and enjoyed neither; although The Woman in White did not, as my mother has stated for herself in reference to Mr. Dickens's literary efforts, "Made me want to kill myself." Therefor I was surprised at the relative clarity with which you wrote your manuscript on Mr. Dickens's obsession with the man named Drood, to be published 125 years after your and Mr. Dickens's death.

Your relationship with Dickens is quite curious, as you two seem to be very close friends; yet you find Mr. Dickens to be a careless companion, selffish, narcissistic, a terrible father, an even worse husband, and possessing of very little moral virtues. You also do not think much of his writing. It might be said that in your interpretation of Mr. Dickens's character, at least the one that you present here, he has absolutely no redeeming qualities. I wonder, then, why you spend so much time with him. Even if I were not aware of history and Mr. Dickens's failure to achieve immortality--outside of print, at least--I would guess that he is in for a Bad End.

During the course of your manuscript, you often address yourself to the readers of the distant future--this, obviously, would be myself. You wonder if we speak a language similar to your own, or if we have stopped speaking English altogether. You may be surprised, and undoubtedly relieved, by the fact that this letter is written in your English; but the truth, sir, is that I have led you terribly astray. We in the future do not speak as I am writing here at all; instead, we have been taken over by machines that instead speak in a code of ones and zeros. When we do bother to speak aloud, everyone speaks either French or Spanish. I am so, so sorry.

On the plus side, your novels are still in print and largely known to the general public (although many of them believe you to be a woman). I cannot wait to get back to your narrative of Mr. Dickens's self-destructive activities, and thus will conclude shortly, but allow me to say this, Mr. Collins: as bad as Victorian England is, the future is always potentially worse... or better.

Cheers,

Heidenkind

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