Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

William Dean Howells’ My Year in a Log Cabin, a very short book - really more of an extended essay - about the year in Howells’ boyhood when his family lived in a log cabin in southern Ohio in 1850. What really struck me is the sense that he and his brothers had that they were almost engaging in a living history reenactment: they had the delicious sense of having moved into one of their father’s stories about his own childhood, when log cabins were the common domicile, even though by 1850 log cabins were out-of-date and the Howells only stayed there till they got a more modern house built.

It’s easy to generalize airily about the 19th century - I know I myself am guilty of it on occasion - so this was a good reminder that daily life changed enormously over the course of the century, just as much as it did in the twentieth. Sometimes the exact decade really matters.

But also, conversely, newfangled devices don’t instantly sweep all old things out of their way. The log cabin era in Ohio ended long before 1850, but here’s the Howells family living in a log cabin, and poor Mrs Howells reduced to cooking on a crane over an open fire rather than using a stove.

I also finished Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, and I stand by my thoughts last week: it’s a good book, but not as good as The Handmaid’s Tale, although honestly making comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale would set most any book up to fail. I think it would have been better if Atwood hadn’t tried to build suspense by having the characters withhold information from the reader: I guessed all the major twists before they happened. And it really added nothing to the book: the best parts by far are the moments when Atwood fleshes out the world of Gilead, and these would have been entirely unchanged if, say, Daisy had kicked off her first chapter by saying something like “I’m still mad that no one told me I was Baby Nicole till everything had gone to shit.” By the time she’s recording her testimony, she’s obviously aware of that fact, so why withhold it from the readers for chapter upon chapter?

I know I’ve complained about this before with other books. In general, I feel that if a character knows something, they ought to share it with the readers sooner rather than later - unless they have a very good reason to withhold it, like an in-universe audience from whom they must conceal the truth. And anyway, you can build just as much suspense by telling the reader the gist of what will happen, and leaving them hanging about exactly how or why that event will occur!

What I’m Reading Now

I began William Dean Howells’ Suburban Sketches, but the first essay is a comical piece about a black cook whom the Howells employed for a while, and it is pretty much what you would expect from that description, and I decided to give Suburban Sketches a break for a while.

This is particularly depressing because in Benjamin Brawley’s The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States (first published in 1918), Brawley (an African-American educator) singles out Howells as unusually thoughtful and sensitive on this subject for a white author: “Such an artist as Mr. Howells, for instance, has once or twice dealt with the problem in excellent spirit.” That only serves to drive home just how absolutely dire was the field as a whole.

I’ve been reading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch in a desultory manner, interested without being deeply invested, but this week I finally got to the part where Theo meets his best friend-who-he-occasionally-hooks-up-with Boris Pavlikovksy and my investment immediately quadrupled… and then Theo and Boris lost touch, and now I’ve slowed down again.

Oh! And I've begun Don Quixote! evelyn_b, I'm thinking I might do a Thursday Don Quixote post, like I did about The Count of Monte Cristo back when we were reading The Count of Monte Cristo.

What I Plan to Read Next

All of a sudden I’ve got LOADS of holds coming in all at once. The one I’m most excited about is Bessel A. Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, but I’ve also got Eva Ibbotson’s The Reluctant Heiress if/when I need something less heavy to read.

Comments

[asakiyume]

In general, I feel that if a character knows something, they ought to share it with the readers sooner rather than later

To your mind, would "I have an idea, and I'll explain it to you shortly" be an okay way to signal to the reader that yes, something's being withheld, but you'll find out soon? ... Asking, as they say, for a friend.

[osprey_archer]

I guess it depends how soon shortly is? Withholding something for a few paragraphs or pages is much more understandable than withholding it for chapters and chapters. (Also, withholding something for chapters and chapters creates the added problem that very few reveals can live up to the buildup after being teased for chapters on end.)

[asakiyume]

*nodding*

Food for thought.

[missroserose]

ooo, The Body Keeps the Score is a favorite of mine. It's definitely some heavy stuff, but van der Kolk manages the trick of keeping enough of the focus on the things we're learning and potential new avenues for treatment while simultaneously not downplaying the seriousness of the subject matter and its implications for people's lives. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

[osprey_archer]

We'll see when the library gets it to me! Also if I survive reading The Goldfinch, which just keeps mashing all my feelings buttons at once.

[missroserose]

Interesting! I read The Goldfinch and while I generally appreciated it, with a couple of exceptions it didn't really engage me emotionally. (I did appreciate the portrayal of Theo's sense of helplessness, and eventual personality changes, when he went from a relatively structured and caring family environment with his friend's parents to one with no real supervision or emotional support in his father's house. But that may have been because it strongly mirrored an episode of my teens where I was supposed to live with my father for a while, who—not to be unkind—shares a lot of qualities with Theo's father.)

I'm surprised to hear that you've been reacting so strongly to it—I was getting the impression from your note here that you weren't all that emotionally invested. What is it that's speaking to you? I'm curious!

[rachelmanija]

I'm also reading The Goldfinch right now! I am disappointed to hear that Theo loses touch with Boris, because that is where the book really came to life for me. (I'm currently in the Theo-and-Boris hijinks and hookups in Vegas section.)

[osprey_archer]

Oh, it's not permanent. Boris will be back, and then he will mash even more feelings buttons than he does in Las Vegas. Something to look forward to (??) in the Boris-less chapters!

[rachelmanija]

he will mash even more feelings buttons than he does in Las Vegas.

How is that even possible.

Oh, man. I love Boris so fucking much.

[osprey_archer]

I DON'T KNOW. It really shouldn't be possible! Boris should have burned out all of my feelings the first time around! AND YET HERE WE GO AGAIN.

[osprey_archer]

Well, I read further and Boris came back, and so my interest quadrupled again.

[troisoiseaux]

I guessed all the major twists before they happened

This is largely what I meant when I said The Testaments felt like a much more conventional dystopian novel— of COURSE we all guessed who Daisy was immediately, because “reluctant teenage Chosen One” is such a recognizable trope!

[osprey_archer]

Right? The MOMENT that we start getting extra information about Baby Nicole, it's obvious that Daisy has to be her. That's just how this kind of story works!

[rmc28]

I recently finished "The True Queen" by Zen Cho, in which the main protagonist is stumbling around trying to figure out something which has been obvious to the reader from very early on, and it doesn't diminish their eventual realisation at all.

[osprey_archer]

So basically a completely different situation than the one I described, where the character knows something and refuses to share it with the reader without having any good in-story reason for it?

[rmc28]

I thought it was interestingly opposite to that situation, yes.

[evelyn_b]

Yes! I'll get D.Q. one way or another this week - though maybe not in time to post this Thursday; we'll see! Looking forward to it!

It's always good when writers remember that not everyone throws away their old furniture every five years and buys the latest innovation in music for the home as soon as it hits the catalogs - even in times of sweeping technological and cultural change. (Sucks to be stuck with open-fire cooking after getting used to a stove, though).

[osprey_archer]

I knooooow poor Mrs. Howells. W.D. comments that he thinks his mom may not have been as enthusiastic about living in a log cabin as the rest of the family and I can totally see why.

I can hold off on posting about DQ till next Thursday if you like? I'm only three chapters in; it might be a good idea to get a few more under my belt, get more of a feel for the book, before I start writing away about it.

[evelyn_b]

Don't hold off on my account! I shouldn't have any trouble catching up once I get the book.

Remember in By the Banks of Plum Creek, I think it was, where the Ingalls family moves into a dugout house made of literal dirt? Housekeeping for the chronically adventurous is no joke.

[osprey_archer]

Yes! Ma Ingalls had the patience of a SAINT.

[rachelmanija]

A friend and I were just talking about this. We concluded that Pa was probably very good in bed.

[osprey_archer]

My entire childhood just burst into flames at the thought of Ma and Pa Ingalls having sex.

...although honestly your explanation makes a lot of sense. He's playful and adventurous, and we know from his fiddle-playing that he has gifted hands....

[rachelmanija]

There is proof that they did it at least four times!

Those were the exact thoughts we had. Also, he's great at emotionally connecting with people in the moment.

[osprey_archer]

Pa Ingalls: secret sex god!

I am now a little afraid that someone will request this for Yuletide.

[ancientreader]

Oh, gosh, Bessel van der Kolk. I don't know that I can discuss him without getting heated -- my reasons are to do with the "memory wars" of the 1990s, and that was an ugly time -- but if you're interested I can reply with links. I, uh, am very much the opposite of an admirer.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, no. Most of the people I've seen talking about the book have thought very highly of it, which is why I put it on hold in the first place.

[ancientreader]

*sigh* I'm not looking to start a fight, and I shouldn't have phrased my earlier comment so personally. To put it in less inflammatory terms: many scientists who study memory dispute van der Kolk's views about how traumatic memory works.

Anyhow, if having read the book you have any further interest, I can supply journal articles on the subject of traumatic memory, and also there are at least a couple of (IMO) good histories of the memory wars. (There may be more recent ones than those I've read.)