Time and Perspective

There is something wonderful about finding a really good review of a book I've written and published, especially since it was my first self-published effort. I have had my share of awful reviews from people who "couldn't get into the book" and a few toilet reviews from people who didn't read the book at all, something that was obvious from what little they did write. After my shock and anger at the latter reviews and wanting to engage the reviewer in a discussion of what they hated so much about the book, I decided it was best not to publicize or even mention the awful reviews.

The urge to take on reviewers is strong. Writers want to prove that what they've written has value and the negative reviewer made a mistake. That kind of attitude serves no one, least of all the writer. All I need do is remember Anne Rice's meltdown when someone trashed one of her novels on Amazon, a review I saved and posted, to keep the dander down and the baser urges in check. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, even when the writer thinks the opinion is way off base and wrong.

Keep in mind that Dances with Wolves won several Oscars and I have never been able to get past the first 15-20 minutes of the movie without falling asleep. I like Kevin Costner (mostly) and I love movies about cowboys and indians, but didn't care for that particularly movie, though I rented it several times and slept through it every single time.

In a way, it's rather like wine. In my younger days, I preferred sweet white wines to deep, rich red wines. My tastes have changed and the reverse is now true. During those same younger days, I didn't like reading Robert A. Heinlein; I found him peurile and uninteresting. In my 30s, that changed to the opposite side of the spectrum. I love Heinlein's stories, especially Stranger in a Strange Land, and enjoy his writing, having devoured most of his books when I discovered how wonderful Heinlein was.

The same was true for Jane Austen. I couldn't get into her novels, mostly because of the language, which was rather like wading through hip deep sucking mud. Then I saw Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle and decided to give the books another shot. I was transported and found myself quoting passages to friends and family. I reread Austen's novels every year or two, including the unfinished Lady Susan. Too bad Austen didn't finish the novel, or at least the end of the novel hasn't been found and published. It is a meaty piece of domestic drama of fraud.

I do live in the hope that the same writers that have put their thumbs down to my novels will give them another try and change their minds. The one thing I won't do is fret about it.

I will, however, bask in the glow of the good reviews, especially the one I read this morning. The reviewer got what I was doing with my novel, Among Women, and, while she didn't like one aspect of the book at first, she kept reading "just one more chapter" until she was completely immersed in the experience. The review was short and the result was a definite thumb up for me, but what really pleased me was that she understood the theme and meaning behind the story. I did what I set out to do, connected with at least one reader -- one person -- at a fundamental level. That makes all the negative reviews, and there really haven't been many, fade into the background.

To borrow from Austen, there is a truth universally acknowledged that an author with a list of novels must be in want of readers and is the rightful prize of some reader or other. All I can suggest is to try again with a book you weren't able to get into 5 or 10 years ago. Time and experience may have seasoned you sufficiently to change your perspective and your views.

Persuaded

Have you ever heard someone speak about a book or see a movie based on a book and wanted to read the original? I do. All the time. That's the case with The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, also author of Day of the Triffids, which I've already read.

I don't know if it's curiosity (mostly, what Beanie calls my nose problem) or lack of sales resistance. I prefer the former. Basically, it's like someone suggesting books and me deciding which ones I want to read. That's how I finally began reading Jane Austen and found I actually liked it. Before watching the BBC series with Colin of the wet shirt, I began reading Austen but just could not get past the ponderous language. Hearing it spoken gave it life and sparkle and I had to read the books, books I continue to reread year after year. Austen is a place of beauty and romance that still touches my old heart and I do so love the scene between Anne and the captain when he reaches out one very large gloved hand and she places her small hand in his. That is true romance. I see it every time I read Persuasion, which is why I suppose I also enjoy The Lake House because of the connection to Persuasion.

I have to admit that I am a bit surprised that the very wordy Wyndham Midwich Cuckoos is so very wordy and most of what I've seen numerous times in Village of the Damned has not occurred, except for the town going to sleep and anyone coming within its confines dropping off immediately. At times, the book puts me to sleep when Dr Zellaby goes on and on in his philosophical vein. There are moments when he makes sense, like when he told his son-in-law to take his daughter away from Midwich without their baby so she could escape the compulsion that comes over every woman of a Dayout baby/cuckoo when she gets six miles from Midwich, as if tethered by some invisible cable that yanks the mother back. Several more educated and scientific-minded women have already figured out they can escape the compulsion by leaving Midwich without the baby forced on them by the Dayout and leaving the baby/cuckoo in the care of the town without regret or second glances. Only one mother out of the entire population of child bearing females in Midwich had a normal baby, and that is Dr Zellaby's wife, Angela. She was obviously pregnant when the Dayout occurred.

At any rate, I am moderately enjoying the book, but I doubt I'd be reading it at this time if not for Mrs Fitzgerald's mention of the book to her brother-in-law when she was talking about how her midlife baby Jimmy kept her tethered to the house when she had one grown son and a nearly grown daughter. Having a baby at the middle of her life was not in her plans and, as much as she loved him, she was sick to death of being tethered to home with a newborn. She talked about how any woman with a Midwich cuckoo was compelled to return to the "nest" and how it had to be a man writing that kind of hell because a woman never would -- be tethered or find it fodder for a story. I had to read the book then and there.

Mostly, I've been pleased and fascinated by the books I've been recommended in this fashion, but there have also been some dogs. Still, I wonder how many people buy books, not because a friend mentioned them or because of being drawn by the cover art or the author's name, but because a television character or movie based on a book put the idea into their heads. How do you find the books you read for entertainment and escape?

Maybe Beanie is right and it all comes down to my nose trouble. Stranger things and all that.

That is all. Disperse.

At a Slower Pace

My brain tells me that 87 degrees is not that hot. It's less hot than my body temperature and tolerable. Just try telling my body that. My body feels warm and uncomfortable and I'm considering another long cold shower. Anything to feel cooler, even for a few moments. Perception and reality don't always agree.

I recently read a book where the story took place at an almost glacial pace. At first, it was irritating and I just wanted the author to get on with the story; that was what I wanted when I sat down, a story that moved. As I got further into the book, I realized there was a point to the slow pace. The author was in effect demonstrating the time dilation effect (time carried by a iced snail) and how it appeared to the characters. To have moved at a different pace would have ruined the effect and the story. Some things you cannot race through, and that story was one of them.

At the end of the journey, I was satisfied with what I had read and the pacing, tone, and characters fit together perfectly.

Since I am curious by nature, and by temperament, I decided to check out the reviews on various bookstore sites. What initially irked me -- the pacing -- was something that irked many of the readers sounding off. They complained about how slow the book was and felt it was a strike against the book. The readers had missed the point of the pacing. The book was supposed to be slow so the reader could experience the endless hours with the character, and all the readers wanted to do was race through the book and get it done.

The perception was at odds with the reality of the situation. They perceived the book as slow when the story was told at the same speed the main characters experienced it, and was effect. Most of the readers didn't agree. I felt the same way about Heinlein and Austen when I first essayed their pages. I didn't see the point. Time and experience have given me a much different perspective and reality of both.

There are times when a really good book can't be appreciated because the reader isn't sufficiently educated about the style or at a point in his life when subtleties are lost. Subtlety is not a big favorite in a population where news is delivered in sound bites and movies are all about action, action, action, fitting the story in the brief (all too brief) pauses. Everything must move at the speed of sound, but the speed of light would be better. It seems that so few people understand or appreciate a more sedate pace.

Fast food restaurants, speedy oil changes, rushing to work -- fast, fast, fast. All we do is run. How many times do these high powered people mosey down the trail, meander along a lane overarched with trees budding, in full flower, or blazing with autumn colors, or simply stop and savor each and every bite of a meal -- even if it isn't a decadent chocolate cake so rich each mouthful is a sensual explosion of flavor? Gone are Sunday evenings in the park listening to the local band or taking a leisurely stroll in the garden or down the street in twilight or gathering dark. Gone are the subtleties of life, and those subtleties have been gone long enough that few people reember what it was like to stop and enjoy the moment.

Literature has followed and much of what is written today (thrillers, adventures, crime novels, etc.) are being driven by television and movies, by the blockbuster summer movies full of special effects and explosions and chases and by the holiday movies that contain their share of the same summer blockbusters trimmed with baubles and lights and people racing around trying to find the perfect toy for a child who has a house full of toys and games strewn everywhere. Short attention spans is what are being bred by this fast-paced world and they are so short people have lost the ability to appreciate a story that unfolds rather than races to a breathless conclusion. These are the people raised on time lapse photography that showed the birth and death of a flower or insect or storm in the space between commercials.

Many good books and authors are being remaindered and criticized for a slow pace when the pace is part of the style and tone of the novel. Maybe the readers just haven't reached the point where they can appreciate what these skillful writers have achieved, novels that will endure and continue to find fans who have not forgotten what it means to enjoy a book instead of race through it. They haven't reached the point I have so that Heinlein and Austen and even the often lethargic flow of Faulkner provide meaning as well as entertainment.

I can only hope that somewhere along this race track of life people get a flat or spin out and off the track with a broken axle so that they are forced to slow down and stroll back to the pits and just enjoy the sights, sounds, smells, and taste of life.

The lure of money and social position

No, I'm not contemplating a marriage of convenience or a chance to power up. I'm pretty set in my my single ways. I wouldn't say no to an affair or a fling, but not for a while. I'm too busy with writing. However, the topic remains the same: what some women will do to get money and social position. The book is Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen. Haven't heard of that? Well, take a seat and join in.

Many people think that Jane Austen really had to pull a rabbit out of the hat to make it possible for Elinor and Edward to marry. Lucy Steele had been engaged to Edward for years, a secret engagement (Look, your future bride. Sorry, wrong story.) that cost Edward his inheritance which his mother settled irrevocably on his younger brother Robert who was a fop and a dandy. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. When Edward's sister discovered the truth from Lucy Steele she threw a hissy fit, that's modern American slang for had an attack of hysteria and the vapors. She threw Lucy out of the house, told on Edward and ruined the rest of his life. It was Fanny's fault because she made Lucy believe that Lucy could have any man of prominent social position even without a dowry; she had other attributes that made her an excellent choice -- just not for Edward.

Lucy and Robert had been thrown together while Edward was away on business and Lucy and Robert recognized in each other a soul mate, two people who were interested in social position and lots of money. Lucy engaged Edward's affections when he was relatively young and very inexperienced, but she knew what she was about. Edward stood to inherit a sizable fortune and a prominent social standing. That's all Lucy was interested in. Edward was too kind and honorable to break it off when he realized he was in love with Elinor, but I believe he would have if Elinor had given him any inkling of her affection and attachment to him.

Did Austen pull a rabbit out of the hat to make things come out right at the end? No. She had already foreshadowed the outcome with the fortuitous meetings between Lucy and Robert and their obvious common interests, and she made it abundantly clear that for Lucy the lure was not Edward's love and decency, but his fortune in her sights. When Edward's mother disinherited him, in spite of Lucy's attempt to get Elinor to have Sir John Middleton give Edward the rectory living on his estate, all Lucy was interested in was finding a way to be near people with money and social standing. If she couldn't have them for herself, she would make sure she was in close contact so she would be wined and dined frequently in the style to which she had become accustomed. It was always on Lucy's mind to throw Edward over at the first hint that she could have Robert, and that is what she did. Austen knew Lucy Steele's character better than Edward obviously did. So, no, there was no rabbit pulling, just characters acting true to their natures.

What do you think? Did she plot it carefully or did she stick the right ending on the wrong circumstances?