Do You Re-Read?

I find it difficult to read a novel more than once. Usually, it feels like working the same crossword puzzle a second time. The first time is magical and full of discovery, but after that, you know all the secrets, all the rabbit trails. Not much new to discover in your average novel the second time around.

But there are a few . . . stories that beckon me away from new reading.

Just this week, I picked up The Thirteenth Tale for the third time. I resisted the call for several weeks—the writing must come first, I’d say. It’s a haunting story told by a woman obsessed with “story” to a woman obsessed with books. I’m only on chapter two this time around, but instead of knowing what’s coming, I find myself anxious to enter the world I remember which doesn’t come into play for another thirty pages or so.  And I’ve already found new perspective on the characters.

One fascinating item about this book is the ambiguity of time and place. It seems like a gothic/romantic novel, but certain details suggest it could be modern. The story within the story takes place in a further distant past, which also could be gothic, or modern because the setting is pastoral. The author never tells the reader “when” the story takes place. This may sound like a definite mistake, but it works for this novel because the ambiguity serves as transport between my world and the world in the story.

And I want to go back . . .

What novels have you read more than once? Why did you? Click on “comment” below and let’s chat.

What Can a Character do to you?

Do you have a favorite character? Have you ever read a character you wished you could become? The first character that struck me like that was Sarah Crew in A Little Princess. I think I was 10. Her unique ability to escape her difficult life into a world of fantasy via storytelling helped almost every girl around her. She didn't let adversity change who she was. It’s a riches to rags to riches story. Who can resist the allure of Cinderella in any form? Frances Hodgson Burnett remained my favorite authoress for most of my childhood.

Then I discovered Josephine March in Little Women, created (of course!) by Louisa May Alcott. When I closed that book I swore I’d name my first child Josephine and call her Jo. Funny how time and husbands change those sorts of ideas . . . But Jo’s confidence and her triumphs made me think I could do anything. And she made me want to write. And she gave me the guts to cut my hair short too. 

Can a fictional character make us better people in the real world? Click on the comments below and tell me what you think . . . 

More character talk next time.

Do seasons matter?

Have you read a book set in a winter wonderland while you lie on the beach in August? Can you read a book about summer when you’re curled up by the fire in February?

I read Winter Garden in May this year. Incredible mother-daughter story. Powerful. I was so happy I read it near Mother’s Day, because that holiday makes me think of my mom so much and it felt so poignant. But much of the book occurred in winter. Dual storylines in freezing, difficult times laced with internal struggles. I know I would have enjoyed reading the book anytime of year, but the season I was living in, sweetened the mother-daughter theme in my mind.

I read The Help in summer. I think part of me actually sat in Aibileen’s kitchen, sweating in the late night heat with the sound of the typewriter click-clacking behind me. I tasted the lemonade and sweet tea served on porches and as I wished away our summer heat, I rejoiced when Skeeter’s father installed their first window A/C unit.

Have you ever enjoyed a Christmas story outside the months of November and December? I couldn’t bring myself to pick up such a book unless it’s cool enough outside to drink hot cider, and only before January first.

Tell me what you think: does it really matter when you read a book? Novels provide an escape from your real world. But tell me, how has your environment enhanced or detracted from the setting in a novel you’ve read lately?

(FYI: While I recommend the story, Winter Garden contains some foul language.)

Scenes in The Forgotten Garden

I'm still pondering settings . . .

Kate Morton’s The Forgotten Garden, struck me hard. I think the story packed a walloping punch because of her intense storyworld, and the severe contrasts between settings.

I consider the parched, oppressively hot summer in Australia, where everything struggles to grow in the garden and a little girl hides beneath the house to escape the heat . . . and then we travel to a cold, dark mansion on the west coast of England, drenched in rain and surrounded by an enormous verdant green lawn and formal garden. The constant pounding of the sea on the cliffs below fails to soothe it's inhabitants. Ms. Morton takes the reader to a dirty, tiny attic room in grey London serving as a refuge of sorts for an orphan, but later we find the same orphan imprisoned in a quaint cottage perched on a cliff above the ocean with an extraordinary walled garden attached.

These juxtapositions and clearly detailed settings are etched in my mind. I close my eyes and stand in an unfriendly London street shrouded in fog and the stench from turn-of-the-century city-life, or lift my face to the sun and imagine the garden Makepeace planted, an apple tree and its spring blooms.

Thank you, Kate Morton, for your vivid sense of place, and for creating places my mind can wander back upon. Read her book and you will see what I mean.

Favorite Escapes

The setting in a novel is huge. It’s the silent character. Readers may not pay close attention, but without setting, you are literally nowhere.

When I read the last page of a great novel, I often close my eyes and remember the most distinct places the author took me in the book. I want to take a few posts to talk about my favorite escapes in fiction.

I will start with the side of a cliff in A Soldier of the Great War by Marc Helprin. There’s a scene where the protagonist, a professor of aesthetics and a soldier, must climb a cliff using very little equipment. He does not know what he’ll find at the top, but describes the air and the light as it ricochets off the rock from his unique point of view. I almost felt the coolness of the mountain, welcome warmth from the sun on his back and I saw all the scenery around him. I still see it.

Helprin also took us to a WWI foxhole in the same novel. I see dust raining on the soldiers under attack. The low ceiling, everything looks gray, covered with dirt and fear. Men crawled across the unforgiving floor, yelling at one another as the walls crumbled around them. The tension and fear pulse in my gut even when I remember the scene, because the setting is so vivid in my mind.

That’s the beauty of good description. If I can go back to a scene in fiction years after I read the book, the place has become real to me. As real as any other memory.  

This is great fiction.

What we're doing here . . .

 I know, I know. Another blog. Just what you need, right? Well, I’ll be up front with you. On this blog, we’re just talking about books.  Not reviewing them, not slamming them, not selling them (until I get published, then I may suggest you buy one).

Instead, I’d like to duplicate the magical thing that happens when you’re in the middle of a conversation and you realize that one or more participants have read the same book. What follows is an entrance into an alternate universe, time or place. You teleport back into a story that changed you and compare notes with someone else who visited the same story, and came away changed as well. I’m convinced that moments like these (and the books that provide them) are one reason I’ve avoided therapy all these years.

Have you had a moment like this? If not, come back to this page! I hope we can discuss specific books, books in general, themes in fiction, scenes in fiction and a host of other things. This blog is for readers. Before I became a writer, I was a reader. It’s in my DNA. I love reading and I love to interact with other readers.

Even if you only read billboards these days, you’ll find suggestions to improve your repertoire. If you’re over the top well-read, then I invite you to teach us what you know. And if you’re like me and you love to read, you’ll find yourself in good company.

More than anything, this is a place to chat. And I will promise not to be too wordy. But I do love words, so . . . I’ll do my best.

Blog Premiere

In general, if there’s something “everybody’s doing,” then I try my best to avoid that thing, unless of course, I manage to be one of the first. However, on occasion I find I must do that very thing which is in itself distasteful, yet frustratingly tempting. And so I blog.

Since I must do what I might not wish to do (because everyone and their brother is doing the same thing), then I will endeavor to do said dreadful and lemming-like thing in a different way.

Sunshine and Little Debbies make me happy. But true happiness strikes like lightening. You might be expecting it, but you cannot predict which moment it will hit. Or where. Or how.

I wish you a moment today; a moment of happiness, whether caused by Little Debbie snack cakes or a lotto win or a smile flashed just for you. Look for it. Seriously, look for it.

And look for my next blog post—I’ll start in earnest then.

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