Penelope Fitzgerald's The Book Shop

Fitzgerald's charming novella represents society's aversion for reading as it tells the story of Florence Green's efforts to bring books and a passion for literature to Hardborough, which is a hard borough, indeed. Mrs. Green loves books, and believes that every village is in need of a bookshop, if they know it or not. Yet, despite Mrs. Green's efforts, which include stocking tons of copies of the new and provocative Lolita, the town only becomes more hostile. Mrs. Gamert wants the building that Mrs. Green uses for the bookshop to be an artists center, and other people don't understand why anyone would want to open a shop in a haunted building.
The ending is not unexpected, and the story was a pleasant enough read, although it was slow at points. The atmosphere of the novel is close and prim, and the characters do not leap off the page. The most striking point, and one that resonates with me, as it seems to be true everywhere, was that the characters do not opt against books because they dislike them or do not read them, they opt against books because it's easy.

Turkey Day Break

I will return on Monday, Nov. 26. Until then, I'm eating turkey.

Most Americans Don't Read Books

In the same internet search, I happened upon the UK's Booktrust (brilliant brilliant) site and the NYT's article about lower reading scores' link to a "decline in time spent pleasure reading." Not that I'm surprised; it's obvious, and I knew it. However, the contrast is alarming between the way the US and the UK handle their book cultures. The US has little book culture, and the UK from what I've been able to gather is brimming.

Dana Gioia, in the NYT article, said, “we live in a society where the media does not recognize, celebrate or discuss reading, literature and authors.”

Only 1 in 4 adults will read a book this year. What is to be done?

What are they going to do next? Take away the alphabet?

Thirty years ago, the French did away with the author. Roland Barthes' 'death of the author' theory eliminated the need to think about an author's intentions. Now, Pierre Bayard, in his presumably infinite wisdom, is doing away with reading good books! In How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, Bayard argues that the importance of a work has more to do with its cultural impact than its actual plot, characters, setting, or themes. In other words, understanding Don Quixote's role in literature is more important than having actually read it. In fact, Bayard says that actually reading a book makes for bad 'readers'. All of you sound bite readers out there, you are in luck! You never have to read a good book again in order to look intelligent at a dinner party. Just read a few book reviews, understand its cultural significance, and you'll be better off than the bookworm by the bar.

Awesome! The pursuit of stupid and dull continues with this "smart" book that teaches you that reading is unnecessary for intelligence.

Perhaps I've misapprehended Prof. Bayard's points? Well, forgive me, I didn't want to risk stupidity and actually read it.

J.K. Rowling must leave Hogwarts

The recent news that J.K. Rowling might sue over the attempted publication of a Harry Potter encyclopedia on the grounds that she, exclusively, should publish all creations including Harry Potter so that she can handle the charitable donations of the proceeds, signifies an unwillingness to let her characters and books go. She sanctioned the creation of the encyclopedia for a free website, but when the author pursued book publication, she and Warner Brothers started legal proceedings.

Is this an issue of copyright violation, or is it? Disney has made countless appearances in court to protect their creations, yet this may not be directly analogous to Rowling’s situation. A character in a work of literature takes on a life of its own outside the text and outside the author, but as a character takes on independence, should s/he still be financially/legally attached to the original creator? Let’s put it more simply: if I decide to write a sequel to Harry Potter because I must know what happens, am I forbidden to do this because Harry Potter is solely owned by Rowling? What if I create a completely different plot, writing style, setting; does that still mean I’m forbidden? J.K. Rowling seems to think so.

One of the values of literature is that it talks with itself, meaning that ideas, motifs, characters, themes, raised in one work may be taken up in another. Allusion and homage are commonplace in literature. These are fancy words for literary theft, but they are condoned in the literary world because often these elements can highlight truths or ideas about the original work that were not apparent in the first form. Creating a sequel to Harry Potter could be consider a homage, or creating a novella about Dumbledore’s emotional past might be considered great fan fiction, but according to Rowling this is off limits. Can an author do this?

I was annoyed when Rowling provided critical information about Dumbledore after the publication of the Harry Potter series. This was the first time an author stepped forward to provide significant character information after the text was in the reader’s hands. Clearly, this information changes the interpretation of Dumbledore’s character, yet there is nothing in the text to help guide us. We are left relying on Rowling’s information, rather than the text’s. In this way, she has made the interpretation of Dumbledore’s character reliant on her verbal cues. J.K. Rowling is wielding control over a creation that may no longer be hers. Once a book enters the public sphere, it becomes public, and is open to as many interpretations as there are readers. When she eliminates, through legal precedence, the ability for authors to process Harry Potter through allusion, homage, reference, and revision, she is taking her texts out of the conversation of literature, disallowing them to breathe on their own.

Perhaps she would make the argument that an encyclopedia is not an allusion or homage, but a compilation of her work. She has a point; there is nothing original or enlightening about an encyclopedia; it is the essence of derivative, yet she may be setting a precedence to preclude other work with Harry Potter characters, and this is a shame. All things Potter should be allowed to permeate the culture, inspire artists, and influence writers; this is what great literature is supposed to do. Besides, if J.K. Rowling is as obsessed with creating original texts and keeping characters confined to first works, then why does so much of her work come from other literary places?

It’s time for J.K. Rowling to leave Hogwarts. She has created a wonderful world for us, and we are all grateful, but she is doing more harm than good when she tries to control treatment or interpretation of her characters. After all, she is not the only one who loves Harry.

I found this bit of trivia interesting...

Samuel Butler, the author of The Way of All Flesh, and Erewhon, believed that The Odyssey was written by a Sicilian woman, not Homer. According to Butler, The Odyssey takes places on the coast of Sicily, rather than Greece. Butler investigates this theory in the work The Authoress of The Odyssey. Interestingly, Robert Graves, the famous poet and author of I, Claudius agreed, and further investigated this theory in this novel Homer's Daughter.

Perhaps I'm new to this game, but I thought Homer was generally considered to be THE writer of his works, unlike Shakespeare, who, depending on the week, can be the Earl of Oxford, a woman, a Catholic, etc. Homer as a woman...who knew?

Reverte's The Club Dumas

The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez—Reverte is a mad dash through literature. Corso, the quiet, astute, and well-read rare book consultant, is the man you go to if you want to find a book that is rare and expensive. He comes across two manuscripts “The Anjou Wine”, a chapter from The Three Musketeers and The Book of Nine Doors, a demonic tract that, according to tradition, can lead you to the devil. As the plot carries Corso on two different, but at times similar, investigations of these two manuscripts, characters and events from The Three Musketeers crop up for excitement and drama. These are not the real characters, obviously, as Musketeers is fiction, but Corso, in the labyrinth of book sleuthing, finds the coincidence at times almost too much to bear. The explanation is realistic and simple enough, but the events position the reader to wonder how real fiction can be for the obsessed. The almost farcical treatment of Musketeers accents the dark, demonic search for the truth behind the The Book of the Nine Doors. The ending is wholly unexpected.

Fruitful visit to a new bookstore

Today, I happened across the new location for The Atlanta Book Exchange, a used bookstore that used to be in the center of Virginia Highlands, but is now located farther south on NH next to JavaVino. When it closed in the Highlands, I was afraid this bling obsessed city had killed yet another independent bookstore, but it was not the case; they just moved. It's a labyrinth of bookshelves in an old house, and it's a very charming place to browse. They have everything cool, and the big box feel of Borders/BN is very far away. Plus, all the books are half price. Charles, the owner, was kind enough to chat with me about books and direct me towards some real gems. Now the biggest challenge will be to keep myself limited to once a fortnight visits!

Added to the Red Room Library:
Edgeworth - Castle Rackrent
John Updike - Hugging the Shore
Ross Lockbridge, Jr. - Raintree County
Fontane - Effi Briest
Llosa - The Perpetual Orgy

A Long Conversation

This article at Millions Blog, and Scott's response on Conversational Reading has prompted a loud hurrah from the Red Room Librarian. Millions assesses an argument brought forth by Pinky about the "backwards" nature of the GRE, which posits that the GRE, and perhaps English criticism in general, is mainly stuck in colonialism, working within the confines of "monarchy." Millions response is deft and articulate, and I think spot on.

Essentially, as Millions describes, and as Adrienne Rich, in her poem A Long Conversation, partially explores, literature is an interlocking web of form, idea, metaphor, allusion, and, yes, conversation. As readers, we inherit a vast world of information that has been added to, expanded, qualified, and investigated. How can you read T.S. Eliot without reading Shakespeare? How can you read early Virginia Woolf without knowing her debt to E.M. Forster? How can you read Hemingway without understanding the Puritan plain style that he artfully translated into prose work? Answer: you can't. To be able to understand the current issues of post-modernism, or post-post-modernism, since post-modernism seems passe these days, you must understand the foundation. Writers, if they have something to say, never work in a vaccuum, and scholars shouldn't either. Argue with Milton, have a stern chat with Shakespeare, wonder at G. Eliot, but don't dismiss them. They have created your literary world.

In graduate school, I was inundated with comments akin to Pinky's: " we shouldn't read the canon; it has nothing to say to us"; the canon is oppressive"; "all of western culture is oppressive (which prompted me to inquire if Physics and modern medicine were to be included in the censor); "there are other books that are better"; and so on. Delving deeper into the conversation, I discovered that none of these people had ever met literature as an interested reader; they had all assumed an excuse of colonialism and oppression because it was easier than saying it was too difficult to read. I wonder if Pinky would have had such a thought about the GRE if he had felt equal to the task of answering the questions?

In the English academy, we have assumed the role of the garbage man rather than the toiling farmer: if it is difficult, if it keeps people out because the view is limited or because it is too hard, then can it. We have become arrogant in our modernity: we believe that we are the smartest, most astute, most alive generation in the history of the world, and in many ways we are. However, we are still built on a mountain of words, ideas, and people, and without this foundation, we crumble.

Duke Reads

This is a shameless shout out about how cool Duke is, but that's the way we roll around here. I bleed Duke blue. Anyway, Duke has started a book club, which is just fabulous, and each month a different professor chooses a new book. The book is discussed online. It's a great way for the alumni to stay connected with the school, plus it feels a little like being back in college again.

November selection:

James B. Duke Professor Reynolds Price chooses Light Years by James Salter

There's nothing like a great bookstore to cure what ails you.

After reading The Yellow-Lighted bookshop, I was glum. Where I was going to go in Atlanta to have a nice tea, sit on a comfy couch, and leaf through a few books? The Red Room Library usually provides these creature comforts, but every once in a while you have to get out.

Yesterday, I discovered a bookshop in Decatur, Wordsmiths Books, that will be able to fulfill all of these needs.

For years, Atlantans have bemoaned the loss of Oxford Books, which closed, not because of the big box stores, but because of the owners mismanagement. I have very fond memories of riding my bike up Peachtree Battle to the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center with two dollars in my pocket. I would park my bike, go into the bookstore, pick a book, go to the cafe, order a blueberry muffin and sprite with my two dollars, and read the afternoon away.

Wordsmiths has this same atmosphere.

Well, it's happened: There is now a book blog guide, and I'm pretty sure the Red Room Library isn't in it because we're the new kids on the book block. Oh well.

Peter Sothard at TLS enjoys a moment of fame in the book blog book and pokes fun at the book about a blog about book.

Hmmm...will book blogs be considered viable sources of lit crit now that we have bookguide about us, or are we still relegated to second class citizens behind print?

Interesting fact for today...

The bookseller, now a rather staid, educated professional, started life in Ancient Egypt as a person outside the norm. In fact, the term profane, which means vulgar or irreverence for God or religious principles, comes from the Latin word profanus, meaning, literally, outside the castle walls. The good, reverent God-fearing ventures happened inside the hallowed walls, while the wild, uncultured, possibly shameless upstarts cavorted (and sold books) outside the castle walls.
(The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop)

Interesting stuff. I should have told my high school students that reading and buying books was anti-establishment. They no doubt would have opened Borders' accounts immediately.

Does anyone read short stories these days?

I was taking my daily stroll through the bookweb and happened upon an interesting article posted on the blog, The Reading Experience, which, among other points, stated that people just don't read short stories. (He then went on to say that people just don't read, which I think is overblown, but that's for another post.) As a former English teacher, I truly believe that many people don't know if they like something until it's put in their face. I can't remember how many times kids would tell me that they hated Shakespeare. By the time they finished Taming of the Shrew with me, they had a new perspective. Many had the same ideas about poetry or Edgar Allan Poe. The reason: they had never really been exposed. I believe that this is the way it is for almost everyone with almost everything.

I thought about this and then, ironically, came across Alison Macleod's list of Top 10 short stories in The Guardian.
Alison's list includes the known and the new, and it got me thinking about some of my favorites.

The Cloak - Nikolai Gogol
Shiloh - Bobbi Anne Mason
A Rose for Emily - William Faulkner
Winter Dreams - F.Scott Fitzgerald
A Temporary Matter - Jhumpa Lahiri
The Bet - Anton Chekhov
The Necklace - Guy de Maupassant
Araby - James Joyce
The Grave - Katherine Anne Porter
Death by Landscape - Margaret Atwood
A Good Man is Hard to Find - Flannery O'Connor

What are your favorites?