Reading

Television on Books

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There was an article in yesterdays Daily Telegraph entitled: “BBC must have a show about books”.

The article went on: “The BBC’s lack of books coverage is  ‘an absolute disgrace’ according to Robert Harris, the novelist and chairman of the Costa Book Awards judging panel.

 

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Robert Harris

Announcing Helen Macdonald’s memoir H is for Hawk as the £30,000 Costa Book of the Year, Harris used his speech to criticise the corporation.  He pointed out that in the 1970’s, when the prize was launched, the BBC had two dedicated book programmes on its main channel.  Now it has none.  ‘It is an absolute disgrace that the BBC, a publicly funded organisation shouldn’t do a bit more to help our books business’, he said, to cheers from authors and publishing industry figures.  ‘Come on, Tony Hall, if you’re watching this on BBC news.  Do a little bit more for the books trade, please.’  He added, ‘In the 1970’s there were two book programmes: The Book Programme with Robert Robertson and Read All About It with Melvyn Bragg.  Both were running at the same time when we only had three channels.  We now have 300 channels, but we don’t have any dedicated book programmes.’

The Book Programme was dedicated to ‘books, authors and the literary life’.  From what I can tell it ran on several BBC regional radio stations, as well as on TV.  My search on Google failed to find a reference to Read All About It as a BBC programme or as a reference under Melvyn Bragg.  Perhaps the BBC’s archive does not go back far enough.  The BBC does, however, give full coverage to Robert Harris’ remarks.

As I think about media coverage of books, I tend to agree that more coverage of books and the literary world would be desirable – provided that the coverage is targeted at the right audience, through the right medium.  It seems to me that television is most effective when it presents changing or moving images.  If the programme were to feature books, the images would mostly be of authors talking, presenters commenting or book covers.  Radio could be nearly as effective as TV in presenting literary subjects.  To justify its cost as a medium, television needs to attract a mass audience, but is there a mass audience for literature? Given the many genres, styles, authors, and critics, it seems to me that attracting a large audience to books, in general, would be difficult.

My conclusion is that a weekly radio show of, say half an hour, in the early afternoon, could be quite interesting.  It would feature trends and developments in literature (including writing, publishing, marketing and distribution) as well as brief, stimulating interviews with authors, publishers and critics.  And, of course, the presenter would have to be both knowledgeable and a good entertainer.

What is your view?

Mark Zuckerberg on reading

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James Walton has an article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph which is entitled: ‘Reading Books is not a duty, Mr Zuckerberg’.

 

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Walton begins by saying:

“Books,” according to the chick-lit author and  former Member of Parliament Louise Mensch, “were what we used to do before the internet.”  Now, though, it seems that these ancient artefacts may be making a comeback.  No less a figure than Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, has declared 2015 “A Year of Books” and is inviting his website users to join him in his New Year’s resolution of reading and discussing one a fortnight.  His first choice is Moisés Naim’s The End of Power, which explores the growing power of ‘anti-political’ movements such as the Tea Party and Ukip – thanks, as luck wold have it, to their use of Facebook.  Zuckerberg launched his project by announcing, with what sounds almost like surprise, that books are “intellectually fulfilling” and “allow you too explore a topic . . . in a deeper way than most media today”.  For old school book lovers, the literary reference that springs most readily to mind is “no —-, Sherlock”.

Walton continues: You might also be tempted to imagine a world in which there had been 700 years of internet, before, in the Nineties, somebody invented books.  It would surely seem a miracle that, instead of trawling acres of semi-reliable information, you could have a guaranteed, portable and inexpensive source of knowledge from someone who knows both how to write and what they’re talking about.  But it appears that in his shock discovery of books potential, Zuckerberg is not alone.  A recent article in The Wall Street Journal praised a new campaign of “slow reading”, whose members meet once a week in a café, turn off their phones for a whole hour and read in silence.  Such quiet reading, the headline declared, can “benefit your brain” (again, not a revelation that would have startled Sherlock Holmes.)  While today’s bibliophiles might want to pounce on anything that smacks of good news, I can’t help wondering if using books purely as a means of self improvement – with elements of self-congratulation thrown in – misses the point of reading.

Walton goes on to make the point, via Nick Hornby, that people should read books for enjoyment and should not bother to finish the ones they don’t enjoy.  “Every time we pick up a book from a sense of duty, we’re reinforcing the notion that reading is something you should do, but television (or, presumably, surfing the internet) is something that you want to do.”  He makes the further point that Zuckerberg has fallen into the philistine idea that books should be relevant to your life.

I certainly agree with Walton, but I’m surprised that he doesn’t mention that Goodreads is owned by Facebook.  All the more reason for Zuckerberg to promote reading.  And I agree that it’s good for us to expand our intellectual horizons by reading something entirely new to us.  My wife recently finished reading Do No Harm, a book by neurosurgeon Henry Marsh about his life and practice.  She recommends it, and since I know nothing about the subject, it’s at the top of my To Read list.

Review: Favors and Lies

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I decided to buy and read a copy of Mark Gilleo’s novel, Favours and Lies, because it received an award at a recent book festival. (One always wants to understand what other successful writers are doing.)

The brief biography at the back of the book says: “Mark Gilleo holds a graduate degree in international business from the University of South Carolina and an undergraduate degree in business form George Mason University. He enjoys traveling, hiking and biking. He speaks Japanese. A fourth-generation Washingtonian, he currently resides in the DC area. His first two novels, Love thy Neighbor and the national best seller Sweat were recognised as finalist and semi-finalist, respectively, in the William Faulkner-Wisdom creative writing competition.”

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This photo appears on his website.

Favours and Lies concerns Dan Lord, a private investigator with a law degree and a selected list of clients. He works in the DC area on ‘the blurred line between right and wrong’. When his brother’s widowed sister-in-law, Vicky, and her son, Conner, die under very strange circumstances, Dan takes a particular interest. Vicky dies in an apparent suicide and Conner dies of what seems like a drug overdose. Neither of these deaths make sense to Dan. Then the detective who was investigating the deaths of mother and son is killed, as is the son’s girlfriend. Dan finds that the records of several key phone calls have disappeared, and Dan engages a computer wizard to find out what happened to the phone call on-line records. There is a secretive company, the address and phone number of which are unlisted. There is a high class madam, a Russian intelligence officer, a medical doctor, a barber, a martial arts trainer an assistant district attorney, a night club owner, with whom Dan exchanges favors and lies in order to find the killers of his relatives. Some of these people end up dead; Dan, nearly so on several occasions. Toward the conclusion of the novel, we learn the reason for Conner’s death, and of the illegal conspiracy which lay behind it. The motivation for Conner’s death and those responsible is quite a shocking surprise. Fortunately, the favors given to Dan by those friends who remain alive are repaid.

Favors and Lies is a fast-moving book, which is difficult to put down: one wants to find out what happens next. The characters are distinctive and interesting, but they are ‘on stage’ for such short periods, in many cases, and described in terms of their appearance and history more than in terms of their values. One feels little empathy for many of them, the exceptions being Dan and Detective Wallace. The dialogue is clipped and punchy, fully in keeping with a fast-moving detective thriller. The locations of the various scenes are described is such detail that one senses the author’s pride in his familiarity with the streets of the US capital. There is some technology on which the plot for Favors and Lies depends, but it is pretty much understandable. For me – a very literal-minded person – the difficulty I have with Favors and Lies is the credibility of the plot, taken as a rapid-fire whole. But, in the genre of gripping, no-holds-barred detective stories, there are few better.

 

More: Amazon vz Hachette

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My last post mentioned the dispute between Amazon and Hachette (the fourth largest US publisher) in which Hachette has refused Amazon’s insistence on paying Hachette less for its books, and in which Amazon is delaying the shipment of orders for Hachette’s books.  Now 900 authors have entered the fray, as this article in yesterday’s New York Times states, in part:

Douglas Preston, who summers in this coastal hamlet of Round Pond, Maine, is a best-selling writer — or was, until Amazon decided to discourage readers from buying books from his publisher, Hachette, as a way of pressuring it into giving Amazon a better deal on e-books. So he wrote an open letter to his readers asking them to contact Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, demanding that Amazon stop using writers as hostages in its negotiations.

The letter  spread through the literary community. As of earlier this week 909 writers had signed on, including household names like John Grisham and Stephen King. It is scheduled to run as a full-page ad in The New York Times this Sunday.

Amazon, unsettled by the actions of a group that used to be among its biggest fans, is responding by attacking Mr Preston, calling the 58-year-old thriller writer “entitled” and “an opportunist” while simultaneously trying to woo him and his fellow dissenters into silence.

Mr Preston, pictured, right, is un-swayed.

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“Jeff Bezos used books as the cutting edge to help sell everything from computer cables to lawn mowers, and what a good idea that was,” he said. “Now Amazon has turned its back on us. Don’t they value us more than that? Don’t they feel any loyalty? That’s why authors are mad.”

This latest uproar in Amazon’s three-month public battle with Hachette comes at a vulnerable moment for the Internet giant, which is rapidly transforming itself into an empire that not only sells culture but creates it, too.

Amazon does not want to be seen as hostile to content creators, one of the four groups it says on its investor relations web page it is expressly set up to serve. But it also has to price their creations cheaply enough to draw hordes of consumers, while at the same time making enough of a profit to satisfy investors.

It is a complicated balancing act. Some argue it is impossible. Amazon just surprised Wall Street by saying it may lose more than $800 million this quarter, potentially wiping out its profits for the last three years, partly because creating video content is expensive. The prospect of this unexpected loss has raised questions about whether Amazon’s money-losing ways are finally catching up with it — and whether that is the real reason it is making new demands on publishers like Hachette.

Amazon has been forced by the controversy to shed its long-time practice of refusing to comment on anything. Asked about the writers’ rebellion, it issued a statement that put the focus back on Hachette, bringing up the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Hachette and other publishers in 2012: “First, Hachette was willing to break the law to get higher e-book prices, and now they’re determined to keep their own authors in the line of fire in order to achieve that same end. Amazon has made three separate proposals to take authors out of the middle, all of which Hachette has quickly dismissed.”

Mr Preston pointed out it was Amazon that put the authors in the line of fire in the first place. Russell Grandinetti, Amazon’s vice president for e-books, has called Mr Preston twice in recent weeks, trying to get him to endorse the company’s proposals to settle the dispute, as well as to pipe down. The most recent proposal would have Amazon selling Hachette books again, but with Hachette and Amazon giving their proceeds to charity.

No thanks, Mr Preston said. A proposal that weakens Hachette by cutting its profits was not in the interests of Hachette’s authors. But he took the opportunity to ask Mr Grandinetti why Amazon was squeezing the writers in the first place.

His response, according to Mr Preston: “This was the only leverage we had.” Amazon declined to comment.

“It’s like talking to a 5-year-old,” Mr Preston said. “ ‘She made me hit her!’ No one is making Amazon do anything.”

No one is making Mr Preston do anything, either. He dismisses Amazon’s suggestions that he is a “human shield” for Hachette, one of the Big 5 publishers in the United States. He and the other writers say they are acting independently. Most, in any case, are not published by Hachette.

Mr Preston is not sure how he has found himself in charge of a group calling itself Authors United. “I don’t like fighting,” he said. “I’m a wimp. When the bullies in seventh grade said they would meet me in the parking lot after school, I made sure I was nowhere near it.”

Other writers who signed the letter include Robert A. Caro, Junot Díaz, Malcolm Gladwell, Lemony Snicket (the pen name of Daniel Handler), Michael Chabon, Michael Lewis, Jon Krakauer, Scott Turow, George Saunders, Sebastian Junger, Philip Pullman and Nora Roberts.

“We feel strongly that no bookseller should block the sale of books or otherwise prevent or discourage customers from ordering or receiving the books they want,” the letter states.

Some writers wholeheartedly supported the letter but were afraid to sign, Mr Preston said. A few signed it and then backed out, citing the same reason. The Times ad, which cost $104,000, was paid for by a handful of the more successful writers.

I’m sure there’ll be more to come!

 

Subtlety

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One of my learnings as I’ve been writing and reading other authors’ work is the importance of subtlety.  Rather than spell out what has happened or what is going to happen, it is often better to imply and let the reader draw his/her own conclusions, or guess.  Obviously, there are times when it is necessary to be explicit: for example, when an author wants to elicit strong  feelings in the reader.  But there can be a fine line between developing strong feelings about a character and the reader developing negative feelings about the book.

Sex is one area where I feel, now, that less is sometimes more.  Presently, I feel that the use of explicit words can interrupt the reader’s attention, and force him/her to develop an explicit mental picture of what is happening.  Depending on the reader’s reaction, the explicit picture may or may not be erotic, or enjoyable.

Here is an example of the more explicit approach from my first novel, Fishing in Foreign Seas:

 

He stepped into the shower and closed the door behind him. They embraced, luxuriating in the delicious feel of wet skin against wet skin. He redirected the shower head so that it did not spray into their faces. They began a long, sensuous French kiss, their hands wandering over each other. Caterina’s legs had drifted apart, and his fingers found her black curls and then her secret cleft. “Oh, Jamie, don’t stop.” Her hand found his erection, and began to stroke. They moaned into each others mouths, their hearts racing and their breathing erratic, as they clung more strongly to each other, their eyes closed. She became rigid and stifled a cry of release.

“Oh, yes!” he groaned, and she opened her eyes to see his semen disappear in the streaming water.

They kissed slowly and lovingly, holding each other close.

“Oh, God!”

“What a beautiful way to start the day!”

 

And here’s a sample from my latest novel, which will be sent for final editing next week:

 

“Mary Jo, I must have tried to visualise you as you are now a hundred times.”

There was a slight giggle. “I didn’t try to visualise. I tried to feel your touch and smell your body. Now, it’s so nice to be real.”

He run his hand slowly and repeatedly from her cheek to her knee, pausing at her breast, her navel and her mound. “God, you’re a beautiful woman!”

“Well I’m not, but I’m glad you think so. Let me see your scars.”

She raised herself to a sitting position. She giggled again. “Rob!”

“What?”

“You know perfectly well what.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Nothing right now. Maybe later. How many stitches do you have here?”

 

Another area where caution is required is in descriptions of violence.  Violent scenes are sometimes necessary: they may represent an essential turning point in the plot; they may shed clarifying light on one or more of the characters, but too much clarity can turn the reader off.

Writing my latest novel, I discovered the importance of the use of ambiguity in the description of what has happened to a character, what she is doing, or what she is thinking.  Sometimes, if one paints too clear picture of these events, we are forced to develop a specific view of the character: strong approval, or disapproval.  What the author may want is a feeling of ambiguity about the character: I like her, but . . .  So,  for example, in my latest novel, one of the main characters may have become pregnant by her brother.  The circumstances and the symptoms are not clear.  What did she (and he) do?

Summer Reading

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There was an interesting article in The Daily Telegraph on July 8th which was subtitled: “‘I couldn’t put it down . . . Holidays are not the time and place to read books that you think you ought to read’, says A N Wilson. So, yes, leave Thomas Piketty at home.”

Wikipedia informs me that “Andrew Norman Wilson (born 27 October 1950) is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views. He is an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail and former columnist for the London Evening Standard, and has been an occasional contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, The Spectator and The Observer.”

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Mr Wilson says that “there is a revealing and amusing survey that has been conducted  by a maths professor for the Wall Street Journal.  It is based on the ‘popular highlights’ chosen by users of the Amazon Kindle and comes up with a list of the summer’s ‘most un-read books’.  In the past when we only read books in book form, it was impossible to know, scientifically,  how far the average reader had penetrated into , say, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time – an impenetrable work, which it is sometimes tempting to believe that no one, except, perhaps, the book’s original copy-editor, has ever read to the end.  But now that so many of us read books on Kindle, it is possible to make an educated guess about how far the average reader has got.

“Each best-selling book’s Kindle page lists the five passages most highlighted by readers.  These extracts, designed to whet the appetite of other Kindle users, would – if they represented a thorough reading of the works considered – surely contain quotations from the whole book, and not just from the first few pages.  Jordan Ellerberg has come up with a playful ‘Hawking Index’ with which to estimate how much of a book most people have read.  The top five ‘highlights’ from Donna Tartt’s novel The Goldfinch, for example, all come from the final 20 pages of the book, which suggests that 98.5 percent of readers made it to the end.  Highlights from Michael Lewis’ page-turning analysis of financial sharp practice, Flash Boys, suggest most people only read the first 21.7 percent of the book.

“And how about the book we of the Chattering Classes are all supposed to be reading and talking about this year – the French economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century?  Here the quotes do not dig deeper into his 700 pages than a pathetic 2.4 percent – in other words, Piketty, the great economic sage of our time, is as unread as Hawking, our greatest scientific sage.

Wilson goes on to observe that, for most of us, a holiday is a time of relaxation with the distractions of children, sightseeing, family and friends.  He says, “Many is the thick paperback edition of some supposedly ‘great book’ that either gets left behind in the rented villa or hotel, or comes back home with only its first 30 pages smudged with sun-tan lotion.  The idea that this should induce ‘guilt’ is absurd.  Although to be as well-read as possible is a sort of duty of any intelligent person, this does not mean that it is a duty to read Plato’s Republic on a beach, or Proust by the poolside.”

Wilson says that the best sort of holiday reading is short.  In this case, he would probably recommend taking Hemingway’s short stories along, and I would agree.  In my view, the best summer reading is something that keeps inviting us back, all the while keeping us interested.

Of my own works, I would recommend Sin and Contrition (there’s a different sin in every chapter, and a discussion with the sinners at the end).  Or Efraim’s Eye or The Iranian Scorpion (both are unique thrillers).

 

US Book Ban

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The following article from today’s issue of The Daily Telegraph caught my eye:

 

Michael Grove will regret the decision to divide literature into “nationalistic categories” on the GCSE syllabus, a Nobel Prize-winning author has said. Toni Morrison, an American, attacked the Education Secretary’s reported plans to drop classic US novels and plays from the school curriculum in favour of British works.  She also joked that the decision was “payback” for US universities replacing English literature with American literature  in their syllabuses.

Mr Grove has been criticised after reports that he wanted To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, John Srteinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and The Crucible by Arthur Miller to be removed from the curriculum.  More than 30,000 people have signed an online petition calling for them to stay.

Morrison, made a Nobel laureate in 1993, was asked about Mr Grove’s reforms when she appeared at the Hay Festival.  “I tell you [they] will regret it,” she said.  “When I started in grad school in the fifties at Cornell University, that was the first time there was such a thing as American literature.  It was always English literature.  American, what was that?  So now it’s just payback.  Just because we got  rid of English literature and moved to American, you’re going to fix it.”

Paul Dodd, of the OCR exam board, said at the weekend that it had left American texts off its English GCSE syllabus because of government guidelines.  “The essential thing is that in the new GCSE English literature you cannot do fiction or drama from 1914 unless it is British,” he said.

Mr Gove denied the claim, saying: “I have not banned anything.  Nor has anyone else.  All we are doing is asking exam boards to broaden – not narrow – the books young people can study for GCSE.”  But the OCR last night confirmed that it had dropped many American texts form GCSE English so pupils could study more novels and poems by British writers.  The new syllabus will see pupils study Shakespeare along with novels by George Orwell, Meera Syal, Charles Dickens and HG Wells.

 

My reaction to this – as an American – is that it’s all a tempest in a tea pot, and I doubt very much that there is any sort of “payback” involved.  Who cares about the nationality of an author?  Is there a distinctive ‘American Writing Style’?  While the characters and the settings of American novels will tend to be different than their British counterparts, does this make the appreciation of the work, as literature, in the mind of a fifteen-year-old different?  I think what a fifteen-year-old will notice is the unfamiliar settings and maybe the strange characters, but will s/he think, “this is a different kind of literature”?  I doubt it.  In fact, if what we want to do with fifteen-year-old students is to confirm in them a joy of reading, isn’t it sensible to suggest works that will seem more comfortable and familiar – rather than foreign – to them?

Review: Midnight Rumba

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Eduardo Santiago’s novel, Midnight Rumba, was runner-up in the New England Book Festival’s 2013 General Fiction category.  I decided to buy a copy and read it, because it is set in the 1950’s Cuba (Mr Santiago’s native country), and my wife and I were going to Cuba for a ten day holiday.

The principal characters are Estelita, the daughter and only child of Esteban, a charming, itinerant musician, who is part of a minor, travelling circus; Aspirrina, an inept dancer who becomes a sort of surrogate mother to Estelita; Juan Carlos, an orphan boy who makes good in the gaudy world of Havana casinos; and Lasky, the American who runs the casino where Estelita and Juan Carlos work.  There are other characters, as well: various circus performers, Delfino, a homosexual from a wealthy family. Maria, also from a rich family but now the mother superior in a convent, and Delfino’s two lovers.

The plot is that  Esteban slides into helpless, violent alcoholism.  Aspirrina and Estelita escape to Havana, where Estelita becomes lead dancer in a casino and has a part in a minor Mexican movie.  In spite of the hedonistic world around her, Estelita retains her purity until she falls in love with Juan Carlos.  From the time she leaves her father in the hospital, Estelita is determined to retrieve her father from the hospital and make a home for him.  As the novel unfolds, Fidel Castro and his rebels close in on Havana.  Some of the characters side with the rebels, others try to remain loyal to Batista, the dictator.  At the end, Estelita reconnects with her now sober father and becomes a minor, provincial dancer.

The book does an excellent job in depicting Cuba at that time: the wild indulgence, the crazy glamour, and also the desperate poverty.  The brutality of the Batista regime (and of the rebels) is also clear.

The novel started off as an 800 page manuscript; as published, it is 414 pages.  At times the story-telling gets bogged down in detail, so that it could well have benefitted from another 100 pages of editing.  Eduardo Santiago’s writing style is clear, friendly, and innovative, but occasionally, one has the feeling that he is hurrying to tell the story, and then the language becomes too ordinary.

I enjoyed reading the book, particularly as I was in Cuba at the time.  For me, it fleshed out the history of the beautiful (but now crumbling) infrastructure of Havana.  I could better understand the people, as well.  But after I finished reading Midnight Rumba, I felt the absence of a message – particularly from a native Cuban now living in the States.  Perhaps it was just intended to be – without commentary – a very good historical story.

What Makes a Good Novel?

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In her blog, Words in the Kitchen Sink, Jane Heiress asks: What makes a good novel?

She got quite a few responses, some of which I have selectively included in quotation marks under the below categories.

Is it character development?  “This one is crucial. I tend to love characters that have similar personalities, ideals, or experiences as I do myself or someone I love. I don’t care nearly as much about plot or setting as I do about being able to love at least one character. Really, almost every other one of my preferences can be ignored, if an author can create a strong connection between me and a character. Maybe I’m narrow-minded, but I think most best-sellers find a trait or feeling that almost everyone can personally connect with.  Along the same lines, how does an author make me love a flawed character? One way is by giving him or her flaws that I have myself. I have many quirks that other people may see as “flaws,” but I consider ‘personality traits.’ Even when a character is truly flawed, I’ll give them more mercy if I can empathize with them.”

Memorable archetypes?  “I’m not too strong on archetypes, so I won’t comment on that one. I think the best fantasy novels use the archetypes in new ways, like what Tolkien did by making a hobbit a hero, or what Robin McKinley does with her awkward, misfit female warriors.”  Personally, I try to avoid archetypes.
Neat and logical plot?  I’m not sure a plot, to be successful, has just got to be neat and logical.  Slightly messy and somewhat illogical could make it captivating.  The plot is very important: it is the device which conveys the story and its meaning.  To my mind a plot should be believable, it should be original and it should be interesting.
Unpackaged realism?  “I think that realism has a place in a good novel, but to write a novel with the sole aim to expose reality is actually a very bad idea. If you want reality, you read the newspaper–though I guess it’s all about difference in taste, because journalists in general just can’t write, so if you want realism written in a coherent, logical, and truly unbiased way, you’re kind of up a creek. Anyway, the whole reason we read is so that we can feel like we’re not alone without actually surrendering our own sense of individuality (I stole that from C.S. Lewis). So there has to be enough of reality in a novel to help us feel that the characters might have the same sort of feeling we do when faced with tragic or happy life events.”
Societal issues?   “Societal issues are important if not too heavy-handed.  Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin as an expose on slavery in the South, and it was very effective, but have you read that book?  I would hardly call it good, except as an expose on slavery, and if you want that, you could read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, or other first-hand accounts of former slaves.  Much more powerful.”
Moral lessons?  “Moral lessons don’t belong in a good novel.  They can be part of a novel, but if that’s the focus, I put the novel down and read the scriptures.”  I agree except that I think that ethical dilemmas have a place in a novel.  Ethical issues are more uncertain than moral issues, and are more subject to interpretation of the situation.  They therefore tend to involve the heart and mind of the reader.
Richness of setting?  “Richness of setting is very important.  Novels with a strong sense of place and circumstance are usually good.  Even though sometimes reading through the descriptions can be tedious.”  I’m not convinced that a setting has to be ‘rich’ to add importance.  In my opinion, it is more important for a setting to be both credible and interesting.
Quality of prose?  “Quality of prose is essential.  I mean, really, the only reason anyone reads The Great Gatsby is because the words are sparkly and fluid and they practically float off the page.  Jane Austen has beautiful sentences; Charles Dickens plays games with grammar as part of his subplots; Chaim Potok paints murals with words, so reading one of his novels is almost like going to an art gallery; Geoge Eliot uses such quality of phrasing that you can’t help loving the words she chooses to describe something.
Suspense?  Dramatic intensity? “Suspense is important, but I get bored if there’s too much of it.  I don’t guess ahead, and if you pack in the action and tension too heavily, I disengage and go on to something that unfolds more gradually.  I’m going to combine this one with dramatic intensity and use a movie as an example.  I don’t like action flicks because sometimes they go too fast and too much happens at once.  It’s not that I’m too dumb to follow it, but the high-speed car chases and stuff are not the substance of a story for me, so if there’s too much of that, I’m finished. There’s also a book out now, by James Patterson, a new series for teens, that is non-stop action.  Kids like it, but I thought it was second-rate, just because there wasn’t any good character development and his sentence structure was severely lacking in quality.  Robin McKinley sometimes goes the other way and tries to turn her high-speed moments of tension into epic poems.  It doesn’t work either.  J.K. Rowling’s action scenes work very well, mostly because they’re short.”
Comedy?  No one commented on this. I think that if one is writing a serious novel, rather than a comedy, comedy can have a place: either as a device to relieve tension for the reader, or to shed light on a character.  If suspense goes on too long, as the comment above suggests, the reader can lose interest.  Or, if a character says or does something funny, one sees a new dimension of him or her.
Emotional response?  “As for emotional response, if you can’t get emotionally involved with a book, it isn’t worth reading.”  Agreed!
Expanding intellectual horizons?  “When you’re trying to expand someone’s intellectual horizons, that’s tricky.  Any book worth reading will not do that on purpose, because no-one likes to feel dumb, or to feel like they’re being taught something.  A book that expands your intellectual horizons will do it in a painless way–too many new ideas too fast will not make a lasting impression.  The important thing is that a book will set itself up on familiar turf, then take your ideas to the next level.”

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“Literary Misery Index”

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An article under the headline “Reading between the lines: novels are so last decade” appeared in today’s Daily Telegraph.  It said that the ‘literary misery index’ has demonstrated that  novels reflect accurately the economic hardship of the decade prior to their publication.

“The frequency with which downbeat words appear in more than five million books by authors including George Orwell, Graham Green and John Steinbeck was found too reflect economic conditions in Britain and America.

“Researchers  compared how frequently “mood” words from six categories – anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise – were used, and created the index by subtracting the number of sad words from the number of happy words.  Some periods, such as the 1980’s were clearly marked by literary misery.

“The lead author of the study, Professor Alex Bentley from the University of Bristol, said: ‘When we looked at millions of books published in English every year and looked for a specific category of words denoting unhappiness, we found that those words in aggregate averaged the authors’ economic experiences over the past decade.  It looked like Western economic history, but just shifted forward by a decade.  It makes sense if you think about authors who wrote sad books, like Steinbeck, that their choice of words would have reflected the economic conditions.  In other words, global economics is part of the shared emotional experience of the 20th century.’

“Co-author Dr Alberto Acerbi added: ‘Economic misery coincides with the First World War, the aftermath of the Great Depression and the energy crisis.  But in each case, the literary response lags by about a decade.’  Professor Bentley said: ‘Perhaps this ‘decade effect’ reflects the gap between childhood, when strong memories are formed and early adulthood, when authors may begin writing books.’

“The study, published online by Plos One, also found the same correlation in German novels.”

As I think about this study, it seems to make some sense.  The mood of an author will certainly be coloured by his/her experience of the world.  I’m not so convinced that the cause of the effect is just economic.  What about the effects of major wars – like the First and Second World Wars?  And what about the effect of the socio/political situation?  Would authors writing after the Stalinist period in Russia have a more pessimistic slant than those writing today?  And what about the ten year time lag?  To me it doesn’t seem right to correlate the ten year time lag to the period between childhood and authorship.  For most authors it is more like twenty years, and in my case it’s a lot more than twenty!  Perhaps the time lag has more to do with the aggregate effect of human memory: memories older than ten years begin to fade in importance, and memories younger than ten years haven’t taken their full effect.

What do you think?