Science fiction in all it incarnations steps outside of the usual and presents us with a fresh look at some things that are actually quite familiar to most of us. Star Trek is a classic example: all the issues and conflicts in the far-flung future make-believe were actually very relevant to the modern human audience. Class battles, racism, government, love and/or lust, culture clash, inequality ... those are all issues that you and I deal with in our everyday lives.
[Classic] authors spent a great deal of time addressing the evils they saw in society. Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo attacked society’s treatment of the poor. Tolstoy’s meditations on serfdom speak to economic inequality in modern society. Dostoevsky addresses political oppression. Jane Austen and the Brontes all critique society’s treatment of women.
Finally, Biblioklept has a wonderful write-up about one of my all-time favorite books (A Wrinkle in Time, discussed here and here) in honor of the fiftieth anniversary edition:
Wrinkle endures also because of its handling of complex themes of conformity, idealism, faith, and science. It’s a book that challenges a youngish audience to read in new ways.
Her laughter was never more to peal in the United Principalities or anywhere on this earth. Her sufferings had dissolved in a place of greenness and tranquility. Her face was no longer rosy, but thereafter, at least in the month of May, the color of the peonies would recall her cheeks. Now the human language, as many as she had learned, crumbled to dust in Paradise, where the children learn a single language, that of the Heavens.
Much like the very concept of SAFL, I'm stealing this idea directly from Space Station Mir. For those who may have forgotten (due to my disappointingly sporadic updates regarding this "project"), SAFL (Science and Fantasy Literature) seeks to name 20 powerhouse sci-fi and fantasy books that deserve to be ranked as straight-up Literature. I was naive at first, convinced that I'd be able to name twenty such books easily, without too much effort.
I was wrong. What I took on as a slight, light challenge, turned into an almost vicious determination to find books that qualify. My goals shifted as the project grew - I decided to minimize the number of young adult or kids books to be included in the list, I decided to try to find as many original proposals as possible, and to pick books that could be universally viewed as worthy recipients of the "Literature" stamp.
When I started seeking out SAFL, I was more open to including young adult or kids books in my list. Seeing as A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver are the first books that come to mind when I think of quality science fiction that has stood the test of time, these both made the early cut. The fact that both books are geared towards children and helped shape my perception of literature and science fiction in particular is only an asset, in my mind. The two books are intelligent, entertaining, well-written and truly timeless.
Among the adult books, though, there's a slight divide regarding my own definition of SAFL. On the one hand I have straight-up science fiction - books that undoubtedly belong to that genre but transcend it due to higher quality or classic status. These are books like Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End or Stanislaw Lem's excellent Solaris. On the other end there are books that incorporate fantasy or sci-fi within their more standard stories, books that perhaps have an easier time appealing to audiences unused to sci-fi and fantasy. Here I recommended One Hundred Years of Solitude (literature by anyone's measure, fantasy by mine) and the sadly underrated The Day Lasts More than a Thousand Years. And then Flatland just lives in a world of its own.
In the space of a year, I have managed to name and justify only seven books that I feel belong to the Literature camp. But there are a lot more, I'm just not posting about them. Some, it's true, don't fully deserve to be called literature, but are worth discussing for their shuffles between the two worlds. Others are classics I greatly enjoyed, but read so long ago I feel uncomfortable writing about them now that most of the details have faded from memory (Dune and The Lord of the Rings come to mind...). Furthermore, it's easy to notice my personal skew towards science fiction as opposed to fantasy, something both unintentional and misleading.
I'd like to fix these problems. I'm still searching for twenty SAFL titles, still searching for books that maybe don't get the readership they deserve because of their genre, still looking for books that incorporate science fiction or fantasy into an otherwise "literary" story, still looking for sci-fi and fantasy that makes my mind bend in a way only quality literature can. I just need to make a point to discuss my findings a bit more periodically.
I've waited a few days to write about The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It hasn't been very easy to collect my thoughts. For starters, it's the most recent book by an immensely popular author, a book that many, many people have been eagerly anticipating (anticipating far more than I have, to be honest). But more to the point is the fact that Green's latest novel is a bit perplexing in a way I've grown to associate with his works.
The reason I've stuck with John Green over the years is because I like his style as an author. Back when I first read Looking for Alaska (and was thoroughly underwhelmed), I was struck by how easy-to-read his writing was. Green writes like he talks - a bit pretentiously, a bit unrealistically, but intelligently and with a lot of wit. Though I didn't really like the plot or characters in Green's debut, I stayed up until two in the morning to finish reading it, concluding that it just wasn't my style. And so the following year, I read Green's second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, which I quite enjoyed. In my growing, adolescent mind, the differing approaches of the two books made John Green an author worth reading, even if aspects of his writing were bothersome.
I only read Paper Towns, Green's third novel for young adults, after becoming well acquainted with Green's prolific online persona, as I reached the end of adolescence. The fact is that he truly writes like he talks - within the context of his personality, the way his male protagonists behave and the way things happen make it easier to forgive him for common young-adult novel transgressions (like the fact that all of his characters are unreasonably clever and witty and often sound very similar to each other).
Green Green signature
Which leads me back to The Fault in Our Stars, which is both very similar to every other John Green book I've read until now, and markedly different from all others. Like everything Green writes, the characters in The Fault in Our Stars are pretentious and clever and witty and thoroughly self-aware. It should be annoying, but unlike Paper Towns (where I did ultimately feel annoyed but managed to ignore it...), I wasn't even bothered. Maybe it's because The Fault in Our Stars is narrated by a girl (a first for Green), maybe it's the fact that it's such an emotionally charged book, and maybe it's just that it's better written. On a technical level, I knew I could be bothered... but I wasn't.
The Fault in Our Stars does a very good job of breaking free of its expected realm. It may be a love story, but it works as well for young men as it might for women. It may be about teenagers, but adults will find as much to relate to as their younger counterparts. It may be a bit too clever, but anyone can feel the powerful emotional punches this book throws. It may seem like a simple story, but the simplicity is deceptive - The Fault in Our Stars runs a lot deeper than would appear.
The Fault in Our Stars is the first book by John Green I've purchased, having checked out all others from the library. I'm glad this is the one I bought. This is his best book so far and though my thoughts are still formulating, I suspect that I'll be coming back to reread it sometime soon.
One of my favorite movies is without a doubt Fiddler on the Roof. Everything about it - from the score, to the songs, to the wit, to the cinematography, to the story - makes it one of the most powerful and amusing films I've ever had the pleasure of watching. So it makes a lot of sense that I'd eventually want to read the original Tevye the Dairyman stories by Sholem Aleichem.
I started reading the complete collection, but for now I've stopped. Stalled, even. Tevye's character is somewhat silly - a man who consistently misquotes everything, views the world through a narrow scope, and is one stubborn fellow. Tevye is somewhat loud in tone, a bit jolly and comic-relief for my taste. There's wit, yes, but it's of a dryer, more sly nature than that used in the movies. It's subtle, and apparent that Sholem Aleichem was teasing both his character and the reader with every passing page.
And it's all a bit too much.
I have no doubt in my mind that I'm going to keep reading Tevye the Dairyman. One of my greatest literary goals remains reading the Tevye stories in their original Yiddish (this may take some years of study...), and in the meantime I'll continue reading them much in the same way I read essay collections, or many short story collections - sporadically. This is a book that will remain on my bookshelf, but will not be dominated by it.
I don't like to do end-of-the-year posts, but I do have some quick comments about my "official" 2011 reading year (even if I still think that it's a weird way to measure reading). Mostly, that I'm feeling fairly relaxed and calm about the way I read and the conclusions I've been reaching about literature. It's not just a numbers things, but more in terms of diversity. After years of feeling that I'm not reading right, along comes a year in which I read what I want, how I want, and without feeling like I owe anyone anything.
For starters, I've continued my trend of reading more books in Hebrew. Though a native speaker, reading in Hebrew has always been significantly harder (and slower) for me. Three years ago, I read only two books in Hebrew. This year, I read 19 books in Hebrew. Overall, only 58% of the books I read were originally in English: taking into account the fact that I read more science fiction and fantasy this year (genres almost exclusively dominated by English language books), this is a pleasantly surprising number. The remaining 42% is spread out over 19 other languages. Once books in Hebrew are taken into account, this means 35% of the books I read were in translation - not a huge statistic, but not an embarrassing one either.
This pleases me. I know it shouldn't - I know there's no reason it should - but something about the fact that I read books translated from languages I'd never read before makes me quite happy. It makes me feel as though I'm finally doing what I've always sought to do: broaden my horizons, learn about other cultures, step outside my "comfort" zone, and read what interests me. But I know that pushing myself further will ruin everything I've achieved until now. The fact that I read so much science fiction this year was a joy. The fact that I let myself read some sillier young adult books this year made it more relaxed. The fact that I didn't spend all year long counting and measuring what books I was reading meant that I was reading only for pleasure, never once telling myself that I have to read something specific.
I know it won't be easy to continue with this type of reading. Even though it's far more rewarding, I sometimes still fall back on the "reading is a race" mentality. Even this week, I found myself thinking that I was doing something wrong by not finishing a book I'd started last week and doing other things instead of reading. It's a gradual process, but at least it's happening. And I'm gaining so much more from reading this way.
I decided to read In the Sea There Are Crocodiles based this review from BookSexy, mostly because in that review, Tolmsted mentioned that Fabio Geda's book had been marketed for both a young adult audience and an adult audience. Intrigued by the fact that a translated, fictionalized memoir could possibly be marketed as young adult fiction (which has almost no world literature), I made a mental note to look into In the Sea There Are Crocodiles. Of course, when the time came and I checked the book out of the library, I'd forgotten my original reason for reading it. In fact, it never occurred to me that In the Sea There Are Crocodiles could be marketed as young adult fiction. I'm not sure what I think about it, now that I've finished reading the book.
Like with most memoirs, I had trouble cutting the real-life person - Enaiatollah - out of the story. The closest comparison to In the Sea There Are Crocodiles is What is the What by Dave Eggers. That was also "based on a true story" and had a very confessional feel to it (though In the Sea There Are Crocodiles felt a lot more like a transcript, or a direct-to-print record). Both books flirt with the fiction-memoir line in a way that mostly just ignores the standards of both genres and creates something new and different. The thing is, Eggers managed to distance himself from the story fairly well. What is the What almost felt like a novel - there was a bigger story and there were characters we got to know and care about. In the Sea There Are Crocodiles is - by definition - not that kind of book. Enaiatollah presents his story in the most simplistic and stripped down manner, sometimes even childishly. There's no embellishment, nothing of what we would expect to see in a novel. He even says to Geda at some point:
Facts are important. The story is important. It's what happens to you that changes your life, not where or who with.
I can't begin to explain how that sentence skewed the way in which I read In the Sea There Are Crocodiles. Maybe it's because I completely disagree with statement in terms of my own life, but the moment Enaiatollah said this to Geda (and repeatedly insisted that the characters were interchangeable and that it didn't matter who did what and why, just that they did), I started to see In the Sea There Are Crocodiles in a very different light.
As a story, I cannot fault In the Sea There Are Crocodiles. It's cleanly written and presented, and very interesting. It's the kind of story that takes you to new and unfamiliar places and will put your emotions through a meat grinder. It's hard not to get involved in the story, just like it's hard not to want to know what will ultimately happen to Enaiatollah. His life, his observations, his horrors - they all come alive through Geda's crisp writing. But as a book? Even as a memoir, In the Sea There Are Crocodiles falls behind. It's vaguely like a children's book in that regard - you're given the story, but not the feelings. Enaiatollah never fully came to life and at times it was hard to imagine his world because he repeatedly insisted that it was irrelevant.
The truth is that perhaps it is irrelevant. To him. To the person telling the story, I can easily imagine how there might be little need to talk about the children who died or what kinds places he was at. But for me as a reader, it was hard to read a book that feels and tastes like fiction, but let it slide on things I normally wouldn't let slide.
At the end of the day, the fictionalized memoir is one of the hardest genre to critique. I have no qualms with the story (obviously), nor with its presentation. It was with the presentation of the characters and the world that I felt was skewed, and with the vague attitude of the narrator that I struggled with. There's much to recommend in In the Sea There Are Crocodiles and as a story it works excellently. My personal disagreement with the narrator regarding the nature of storytelling may have meant that I enjoyed this book far less than other readers have, but I certainly came away from it knowing more about the world. I only wish that I could have known more about the boy behind the story.
It was almost a year ago that I wondered about the status of series as single entities or as comprised of linked, individual novels. Since then, I haven't given the matter much thought, possibly because going one way or the other doesn't actually influence my reading habits. But over at The Book Stop, the question of whether or not to even read books in series in the first place arose and I find myself with a lot to say on the subject.
Distinctions need to be made. After all, there are many different types of series*:
The stand-alones: These are series that center around a shared world that have no established, continuous plot from book to book. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is a great example - a reader can start with just about any book in the series and not feel like they're missing much. It's a series, yes, but each book is a stand-alone. The same for Émile Zola's Rougon-Macquart books - some characters may appear here and there, some locales are familiar, but there is no need to read L'Assommoir in order to enjoy Germinal**.
The character stand-alone: I find this for the most part with mystery books - a series will follow the happenings of a specific detective. Each book can stand on its own, but it helps to have read previous books, if only for the character development.
The continuous epic: This would be something like A Song of Ice and Fire, which can often feel like one supremely long book cut up into little (or, uh, huge) pieces. It's hard to distinguish one book from the next, and absolutely impossible to miss a book in the series. There is no single, contained plot within each volume - at times it seems like there's absolutely no justification for it to be a separate book other than length (A Feast for Crows/A Dance with Dragons, anyone?).
The planned series: A planned series is exactly what it sounds like - the writer goes into the story knowing exactly when and how the story will end. It's defined ahead of time as a trilogy (or a quartet, etc.) and sticks to it. Each book may blend into the next with cliffhangers, but there are still clear-cut boundaries between each volume. This is something like His Dark Materials - the books are individual and contained but are part of an undeniable whole. You can't read the second book without having read the first.
The contained epic: A contained epic would be something along the lines ofHarry Potter. There's an overarching story and you can't read one book without having read the previous, but each book still contains its own, individual story that doesn't really drag onto the next book (though the lines blur a bit with Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows). This is the the planned series taken to the extreme - a long, sometimes meandering and less defined series but contained nonetheless.
The popularity mess: Books that should be stand-alones or part of planned series and eventually degenerate into a continuous series because of poor planning. These go on until they fizzle and are an embarrassment to themselves. Please let's not raise examples. It's too depressing.
But beyond the simple breakdown of series type, you have to look at intent. Is this a series simply because of length (a story on such an epic scale that it demands multiple volumes)? Or is it something inherently episodic? If you're the type of reader who decides whether or not to get involved in a series, it's important to pay attention to these qualities.
Personally, I don't really care if a book is part of a series or not. It's never been a factor for me. While I don't like ditching series halfway through, I'm not entirely averse to it. There are a few series I've given up on after realizing that the books I'd already read within them stood alone fairly well and didn't entice me enough to keep reading. If the first book was bad and I don't have to read the sequels, I'm not going to go on. As I learn to abandon books, it becomes easier to stop midway through a series. And really, it doesn't matter if it's part of a whole or not... it just matters if it's good enough to make me want to finish the series.
* And yes, I did notice that almost all of my examples are from fantasy series. What can I say, that's what came to mind... ** But you should. Read both books that is, because they're excellent.
I just finished reading this post over at Ripple Effects from a couple weeks back about book trailers. Arti writes a few seriously thought-provoking passages:
Will you go and buy this book to read after watching the trailer, or, are you more likely to just add another view count to the video and a click on 'like'?
Book trailers are, at the end of the day, trailers. They're meant as a preview, not as a review. They might make something seem particularly impressive (or particularly unappealing), but that's because they're meant to. They don't aim to summarize the book, but rather present it in a particularly visual form to hook readers. Sometimes they work more effectively than others. For example, despite long believing that Lauren Oliver's romance-looking young adult novel Before I Fall was definitely not the book for me (not the style, genre or approach I typically enjoy), after watching the very sleek, very well-done book trailer, I want to read the book.
This is the rarer outcome. In my experience with book trailers, I find them to be supplements to books about which I've already made up my mind. They don't succeed in convincing me to a read a book previously disregarded... usually, only a very good review will do that.
Then there's the question of the "visual medium paradox", as I call it.
In this eWorld of ours, we need a real hardcover book to explain to children what a book is… or used to be, if you take the apocalyptic view. We’re told a book isn’t something you scroll, tweet, or text, and no need to charge up. But the fact is, those are the very functions you do to view and share the trailer. And it’s a book trailer, with all its visual images and special effects, uploaded and viewed online and hopefully gone viral, that helps boost book sales. Another mash? Or simply an inevitable paradox nowadays?
In modern literary culture, the use of a visual medium to present a story is considered an upgrade. A book is deemed successful if adapted into a movie, and the other way around: a popular book will inevitably make it to the big screen (or even to the small screen - look at A Song of Ice and Fire). This is nothing new, obviously (look at the sheer amount of movies based on plays and books from sixty, even seventy and eighty years ago), but it still serves as an indicator.
I digress. The point of the visual medium paradox is that, well, it doesn't really exist. It's a conceptual thing. A book trailer isn't a paradox. It's just a use of a visual medium to blurb a book. Perhaps it's one that better captures a potential reader's attention, one that can give them tools to imagine the characters and the setting, and one that can use visual effects to enhance the image of the book. It's not like a movie, it's like a movie poster - a quick visual glimpse into the story, presented in a way that attempts to catch the reader's attention. But this is all - again - as a supplement. There's no need for the trailer - a reader can pick up the book, read it, enjoy it, and set it aside all without knowing that the trailer exists. The trailers may help boost sales, yes, but they are not the single factor determining the popularity of a book. The written word is much stronger than that.
On the other end of the visual medium paradox scale, I find myself thinking again about movie adaptations. Movie adaptations are reworkings. Much in the same way an adaptation of a play isn't exactly the same as the original, a movie or TV adaptation of a book takes advantage of its medium to tell the story differently. Yes, our culture views the visual medium to be more accessible to a wider range of people, but this doesn't actually mean that the adaptation is an upgrade.
And here I admit something I'm loathe to admit under any circumstance: I was wrong.
The book is not weakened by such visual reworkings, not by movie adaptations and not by book trailers. If use of the visual medium to supplement the written word is a paradox, so is a movie review that is not done in the visual format. Modern technology allows us to explore different mediums to express ourselves. I don't think it's necessarily ironic to use different mediums as supplements. It's inevitable.
I have a pretty simple rule regarding eBooks: I don't pay for them. This typically means I scour the internet for free downloads, worship sites like gutenberg.org, and will actively seek out publisher eBook giveaways. Back in the early days of my eBook downloading, when I was just beginning my searches, I realized that a few publishers offered excerpts (and occasionally whole novels) online for free download. About once every six months or so, I remember to check these various sites - Scribd, the Baen Free library, and others - to see what new offers they might have.
So it came to be that the other day I went on a short downloading spree, hitting various publishers' Scribd accounts. And there, on Harper's page, I had the opportunity to read the first few pages of Greg Olear's brilliantly titled novel Father-mucker. I'd managed to hear about the book here and there through the bookish-internet grapevine, but was put off by the witty title. It seemed like the type of book that might try too hard to be witty and clever but then fall flat. Yet when offered the chance to read the first few pages for free in a convenient manner, not through any browser but on my own time, I decided to take it.
See, publishers may always worry about offering books for free online and may worry about piracy, but there's really no need. Free downloads, teasers and offers of this kind serve only as an advertising tool for publishers. I wasn't planning on reading Father-mucker last week. Now I can't wait to finish it. If I had the ability to buy it on the spot, I probably would (unfortunately for publishers and luckily for my wallet, I live abroad). Harper - by offering a teaser download for the book - convinced even a jaded reader like myself to pick the book up.
It's like Neil Gaiman said back in the day: "Nobody who would have bought your book is not buying it because they can find it for free." Most people are introduced to their favorite authors through different means - a friend lends them the book, they check it out of the library, or in this day and age download it. Many readers will also feel as I do, that buy paying for a book they're supporting the author for writing something good. The amount of times I've bought a book after reading it for free via the public library is... high. Maybe it'll work better if we change our approach to supporting authors and publishing, but I think that publishers can do wonders to promote their authors and books by offering free eBook downloads for limited periods. It's the kind of hook that will work again and again, at least on readers like me.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see how I can get a hold of Father-mucker.
* Okay, okay, it was at Border's going-out-of-business sale so it wasn't full price. But it was still pretty expensive, so I think it counts.
Fads swept the youth of the Sprawl at the speed of light; entire subcultures could rise overnight, thrive for a dozen weeks, and then vanish utterly. -p.58, Neuromancer
While William Gibson is best known for coining the term "cyberspace", he should (in my mind) really be remembered for predicting our modern internet culture, as is evidenced by the above quote...
That is, if the month-long fast is a period of three weeks with only one book completed and little desire to read anything else.
I finally broke down yesterday and practically forced myself to start reading Child Wonder by Roy Jacobsen. It was a weird feeling at first, almost as though I'd forgotten how to read, or how to enjoy reading. I stumbled over the first few pages, unsure what I was supposed to be understanding from the story, but I then began speeding through the pages, devouring whole chapters in just a few minutes. In the space of some 45 minutes aboard my morning bus, I managed to go through almost 100 pages. And that was only the beginning. Throughout the day, I picked the book up repeatedly, constantly trying to read more and more, growing frustrated at the situations around me that demanded my full attention.
But today, finishing the book while waiting in line at the pharmacy, I was surprised at how empty the whole reading experience had really been. Obviously I'd read the book - and had even quite enjoyed it, for a time - but as I read the last, intentionally revelation-filled-yet-nonetheless-vague pages, it didn't feel as though I'd actually read the book. It was as though I'd eaten so fast I hadn't been able to taste what exactly I was putting in my mouth... a strange experience, and not one I'm particularly eager to repeat. I suppose this should be a lesson to me - never, ever, ever stop reading.
In continuation of what I mentioned yesterday regarding Amazon's dirty trick to snatch business away from brick-and-mortar stores, this is a thorough piece from Moby Lives on the backlash. Like I already said, this ploy by Amazon sinks lower than low and further emphasizes all that I've grown to dislike from the online retailer.
It also turns out I'm not alone in my method of looking books up on Amazon and buying them later in independent bookstores. From Shelf-Awareness:
Author Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)tweeted his own strategy: "I like to do the Reverse Amazon: hear about a book, read about it on Amazon, then go buy it at my local bookstore! It's fun! #ReadLocal."
I unfortunately can't remember the hat-tip, but someone linked to this article on the habit of book-browsing in corporeal bookstores and then buying the books online, which definitely qualifies as a thought-provoker.
According to the survey, conducted in October by the Codex Group, a book market research and consulting company, 24 percent of people who said they had bought books from an online retailer in the last month also said they had seen the book in a brick-and-mortar bookstore first. Thirty-nine percent of people who bought books from Amazon in the same period said they had looked at the book in a bookstore before buying it from Amazon, the survey said.
I know I shouldn't be surprised but I am. My own use of Amazon today is completely contrary to this one. As I've mentioned in the past, one of the first things I do before considering a book is check its Amazon reviews (negative first, then positive). This is not because it's Amazon, per se, but rather because Amazon has the greatest collection of user reviews (which is one of the only remaining advantages to using the site, other than the obviously lower prices but I'll discuss that at length another time). I look at a book, investigate it, learn about it, and then decide whether or not I want to buy it. From there, I have a few options. I can order the book online or I can go to a bookstore I like and buy the book. In recent years, the most likely outcome has been the latter.
But it's much easier to go about it the "normal" way. You find a book in the flesh, you want to investigate it, you go online. Once online, you make your decision. Then you're just one click away from buying the book. And it's cheaper... so why not buy it like that? Even this thing that you go into a bookstore, look up a book on your cell-phone, realize that it's cheaper elsewhere... I understand even if I don't agree with it (and certainly don't like it). Maybe if my situation was different, I too would be tempted to approach book-buying this way. Living abroad and having a yearly buffer zone between my book-buying sprees means I can afford to do my homework ahead of time. Today, Amazon is no more convenient to me than a bricks-and-mortar bookstore.
I know one thing, though. Indies will survive because they provide what Amazon never will - personal service, author readings, a type of convenience that can only be found in corporeal form, and provide customers with the joy of spontaneous book-buying. And I hope for one more thing: that for every customer who walks in, looks at a book and ends up buying it later on Amazon.com for a discount, there's another like me who first looks the books up on Amazon, and then goes out to the local bookstore to buy it. Because really, the feeling is much better this way.
Update: Oh, and while this "deal" in which a customer uses their cell-phone to scan the bar-code of a product and then get a discount on Amazon (instead of buying it at the store the customer is currently standing in) doesn't include books, it's still pretty despicable (via The Book Catapult). Just saying.
It's been a while since I've done a SAFL (Science and Fantasy Literature) title but I recently finished reading Solaris by Stanislaw Lem and my mind is sufficiently blown that it's quite obvious that Solaris is SAFL. And excellent SAFL at that.
I specifically chose to read Solaris in Hebrew right around the time I first heard of the book. More specifically, upon learning that this was a classic case of double-translation gone wrong. Solaris, originally written in Polish, was translated into French not long after publication. The translation into English, for some unknown, godforsaken reason, went through French and is by most accounts atrocious.
Luckily, I faced no such problem with the Hebrew translation (which is surprising, given the increasing propensity to employ double-translations into Hebrew... but that's a rant for a separate post). I bought the book back in June and it has been quietly awaiting my attention since. I don't understand what took me so long to get to it. It's the kind of book that you can't quite let go of.
Solaris can as easily be classified philosophical or psychological fiction as it can be classified sci-fi. In the finest example of sci-fi being used as a mirror - or even as a tool - for dealing with bigger, more fundamental issues than simply aliens or star-travel, Solaris digs deep regarding the definition of man and questions of identity. And communication. And even insanity. Yes, this is all within the framework of one of the most pulp sci-fi settings ever (hyper advanced black sludge alien, anyone?), but it transcends it incredibly. It's no surprise that even in Israel - where sci-fi and fantasy are genres typically marginalized and separated from the mainstream (to the extreme) - Solaris is marketed as straight-up literature and refuses to be boxed into an (unjustly) ignored definition. Hopefully this will lead to many more readers enjoying Lem's fascinating novel.
As for the English speaking world... I can only be thankful that there is, at least, the audio book. Solaris is a classic of sci-fi for a reason... I hate to think that this masterpiece is marred only by a notoriously poor translation. Here's to hoping for a quality Polish-to-English translation to be published sometime in the near future.
My memory isn't perfect. There are many books I read as a kid that I don't fully remember, and then there are those I remember vividly but can't quite recall their names. I often find myself browsing book sites and bookstores and libraries and stumbling upon a kids book that will raise a red flag: "Yeah, I read that one!" This is particularly common when I browse Goodreads, as I attempt to map out my history of reading.
But for the past few years, there has been one book I've been unable to recall (or rather two - book plus sequel). I've tried in vain to remember the book's name, but there was nothing there. I remembered only a few small pieces: boy named Will, a girl escapes from a castle (in winter), something with a rabbit, the girl becomes the focus of the sequel, widowed with a dead baby, the sequel is a crusade, and that these were good medieval books. I've tried a couple of times in the past to locate these books, but always unsuccessfully. Book lists typically called up the same results again and again. I gradually gave up, even as my desire to find (and re-read) the books grew and grew.
And then... this morning.
I was hanging out on Goodreads, finding all sorts of old historical fiction books from my childhood and it struck me - internet search engines are much better these days. Why not run another search? "medieval historical fiction kids" - let;s try. But though I found other lost treasures, the so-desired set remained elusive. So I tossed in two other keywords - "widowed" and "crusades". Option number two: Medieval YA. Search for widow, and...
VICTORY!
The Winter Hare and Peregrine, without a doubt. And now I can't wait to get my hands on these books to find out how they'll hold next to my memories of them...
I spent the other evening browsing for books at the bookstore. This being a standard chain bookstore, the selection was limited (to say the least). I browsed through the books on sale, looking for one or two that seemed slightly more interesting than the standard. After about half an hour of indecisiveness, I decided to ask a bookseller for help. The young woman who came to my assistance seemed like she sincerely wanted to help the various customers in need, myself included.
I posed her a tough question: in a stack of predictable, popular choices, I asked for something a bit different. Something original. And I guess she tried. I mean, she spent some time trying to figure it out. The only problem was... she had no idea what she was doing.
Book after book was offered while she hurriedly glanced at the back, getting an impression of the subject matter before handing it off to me. When I asked her if she'd read the offered book, the answer was consistently, "No, not yet..." She had no idea if books were translated (and even less what language they were translated from...) and wasn't really clear on anything beyond the general, "Well, this one's a bestseller..."
Which got me thinking. How much should we expect our booksellers to know what they're selling us? Books aren't like TVs - you can't memorize a bunch of statistics and product details to spout off in front of a potential customer. To understand a book, you have to read it. You have to experience it. And this bookseller... she had no understanding of what she was selling, nor of what kind of reader she was selling to. In the end, I left the store without a single book, only deciding later (at home, with the aid of the internet and some reviews) which books I would get.
It's pretty disappointing, actually. I'm not saying I didn't stump her a bit (which is typically what happens when I ask for a bookseller's assistance...), but a passionate reader will know how to help. A passionate reader will understand and appreciate a specific customer's desire for something a little original, a little different and will do everything possible to find the right match. It won't always be easy, and it might even be impossible, but at least they'll try. They won't just rely on publisher blurbs and apparent popularity.
No, I don't expect every bookseller to have read every book in the store. It's impossible, I know. But I guess I'd like my booksellers to have a little more of an understanding of what books they're trying to push, and also of their customers. I'd like my booksellers to at least know as much about the newly published books as I do, and certainly not to simply recommend them to me based on the back-cover blurb. But sadly, it seems like more and more booksellers these days don't actually read the books and recommend only based on general information. A shame, really. Conversations with booksellers who know what they're talking about can be so much fun.
Mantel is now planning a Tudor trilogy: a new novel, Bring up the Bodies to be published by 4th Estate in May 2012, will focus on the downfall of Anne Boleyn. A third book will keep the title the author had already announced for the sequel, The Mirror & the Light, and will continue Cromwell's story until his execution in 1540.
I don't think I've wanted a book this badly since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And even then... I'm not certain it's on the same level. I mean, Wolf Hall was that amazing.
All right, the countdown to May 2012 begins. Who's with me?
Yesterday, I mentioned to a colleague that I'm a book reviewer and that I keep a book blog. She responded with surprise. I'm not sure why. People know of my affinity for reading and are also typically aware of my ability to ramble to no end. But particularly where I live, book reviewing is seen as a somewhat exotic hobby, and I find myself having to explain it at length. And it's not that easy to explain. What is it I do?
I write anonymous reviews on random book sites across the internet (in more than one language), I write about random bookish thoughts on my blog (forsaking the standard book-review blog format for a weird approach that's neither here nor there...), I'm a somewhat disloyal Amazon Vine member (rarely requesting books, often only reviewing the books months after publication), I don't get books for review via my blog, and I make a point to read, and write, and discuss.
That's what we're all doing here. We're building the literary discourse by comparing notes and comparing notes about important literary issues (like how to fix the increasingly stumbling publishing industry). Not everyone has the same calling and I wouldn't compare an English professor's blog about George Eliot to a blog geared to getting kids and young adults to read good books, calling one truly "literary" and the other not, but on the whole we do the same thing. We all read. We all write. We all discuss. And we all do it by choice, which I find to be incredible.
True, I write online reviews that get swallowed up in the mass of other online reviews, and true, my blog isn't particularly influential or prolific, and true, I can't actually make a living off this quiet hobby. That's not the point of this thing I do. The point is to learn and broaden my horizons, encounter new approaches to literature, guide the occasional reader to a good book (or warn them away from a bad one), and enjoy literature.
