Boots and shoes!
Sep. 29th, 2008 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sheenaghpughWhenever a novel starts with the character of a writer sitting in a Hampstead kitchen. struggling to finish a novel, I throw the book straight in the bin
- Mark Ravenhill: The Guardian
Oh, me too, sir! I've been thinking lately about what hooks me, in a poem or a novel, for two reasons: (i) I've been judging a poetry competition and (2) when I left work, I left my colleagues a bunch of books to give as presents/prizes to students, and a lot were modern novels I had read once and simply knew I would never read again. And that wasn't necessarily related to writing quality. Julian Barnes' Arthur & George was well written; it certainly wasn't a waste of my time but it didn't hook me enough to make me re-read it either. Ditto Orhan Pamuk's Snow. Whereas Will Self's The Book of Dave, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Pamuk's My Name is Red are no better written, in fact all three have factors that annoy me - Self's is Riddley Walker lite, Ishiguro's plotting is laughable even to me, the worst plotter in the universe, and if you're going to do futuristic science and politics it helps to have a basic understanding of both, and My Name is Red is marred for me by what seem inappropriate Americanisms in the translation. But all push some button or other that means I shall re-read them.
It may be partly the fact that I react better to historical or futuristic settings,and to places that are unfamiliar to me - I want literature to be a window, not a mirror, hence my aversion to anything set in a contemporary seat of learning - perhaps, now I no longer work in one, that'll change! But that doesn't always work. I am a sucker for Polar settings, which is probably why the only novel of Magnus Mills that I re-read is Explorers of the New Century. But Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (Peter Hoeg) doesn't cut it for me, despite my Arctic obsession.
With the poetry competition, in fact, I could feel myself setting the bar higher for poems that looked as if they were about to push my buttons; there was a danger of expecting more of one with a form, theme or setting that was congenial and then being unreasonably disappointed. OTOH, button-pushing does get an entry noticed as you go through the pile. I honestly believe the winner I've chosen was the best poem in the comp, but it did have a title that, for all sorts of reasons the writer can't have known about, would appeal to me. (The comp was of course judged anonymously, but I know who the winners are now, and have never met them, that I know of. I only recalled having met one person on the shortlist, even.)
Apart from the Ravenhill quote, this one from George Eliot's story "Janet's Repentance" says a lot about what hooks me in a novel. Mrs Linnet likes biographies of famous preachers, but reads them quite selectively;
"Wherever there was a predominance of Zion, the River of Life, and notes of exclamation, she turned over to the next page; but any passage in which she saw such promising nouns as 'small-pox', 'pony', or 'boots and shoes', at once arrested her."
- Mark Ravenhill: The Guardian
Oh, me too, sir! I've been thinking lately about what hooks me, in a poem or a novel, for two reasons: (i) I've been judging a poetry competition and (2) when I left work, I left my colleagues a bunch of books to give as presents/prizes to students, and a lot were modern novels I had read once and simply knew I would never read again. And that wasn't necessarily related to writing quality. Julian Barnes' Arthur & George was well written; it certainly wasn't a waste of my time but it didn't hook me enough to make me re-read it either. Ditto Orhan Pamuk's Snow. Whereas Will Self's The Book of Dave, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Pamuk's My Name is Red are no better written, in fact all three have factors that annoy me - Self's is Riddley Walker lite, Ishiguro's plotting is laughable even to me, the worst plotter in the universe, and if you're going to do futuristic science and politics it helps to have a basic understanding of both, and My Name is Red is marred for me by what seem inappropriate Americanisms in the translation. But all push some button or other that means I shall re-read them.
It may be partly the fact that I react better to historical or futuristic settings,and to places that are unfamiliar to me - I want literature to be a window, not a mirror, hence my aversion to anything set in a contemporary seat of learning - perhaps, now I no longer work in one, that'll change! But that doesn't always work. I am a sucker for Polar settings, which is probably why the only novel of Magnus Mills that I re-read is Explorers of the New Century. But Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (Peter Hoeg) doesn't cut it for me, despite my Arctic obsession.
With the poetry competition, in fact, I could feel myself setting the bar higher for poems that looked as if they were about to push my buttons; there was a danger of expecting more of one with a form, theme or setting that was congenial and then being unreasonably disappointed. OTOH, button-pushing does get an entry noticed as you go through the pile. I honestly believe the winner I've chosen was the best poem in the comp, but it did have a title that, for all sorts of reasons the writer can't have known about, would appeal to me. (The comp was of course judged anonymously, but I know who the winners are now, and have never met them, that I know of. I only recalled having met one person on the shortlist, even.)
Apart from the Ravenhill quote, this one from George Eliot's story "Janet's Repentance" says a lot about what hooks me in a novel. Mrs Linnet likes biographies of famous preachers, but reads them quite selectively;
"Wherever there was a predominance of Zion, the River of Life, and notes of exclamation, she turned over to the next page; but any passage in which she saw such promising nouns as 'small-pox', 'pony', or 'boots and shoes', at once arrested her."
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Merciful Buddha, Send Me a Plague, a Pony, and a Plastic Rocket
Date: 2008-09-29 01:21 pm (UTC)2. Perhaps the uninspiring novels should be used as punishments rather than rewards.
3. I've often thought that it was a shame that stories (professional or amateur) that start off poorly but improve are less likely to be read than ones that start off with a bang and then dribble off.
Re: Merciful Buddha, Send Me a Plague, a Pony, and a Plastic Rocket
Date: 2008-09-29 03:34 pm (UTC)stories that start off poorly but improve
That would be Wuthering Heights!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-29 02:13 pm (UTC)I'll be reading that in a week or two. I bought a copy of Scenes from Clerical Life from a charity shop and it has just reached the top of the heap of books I'm really going to read.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-29 03:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-01 01:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-01 06:57 am (UTC)OTOH, if a writer wanted to fire Someone Like Me (or one of my more, err, academic academics) into space... I'd read that.