Rereading Is Like Falling in Love Again

I recently began rereading John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath — right after finishing John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things for the second time in three years. Of course, this isn't the first time I've reread something. I've read John Irving's The World According to Garp numerous times. (And what is it I seem to have for books written by people named John?) But it's interesting to go back to a world, an era, a setting that was familiar once and becomes even more detailed and nuanced again.

In the case of The Book of Lost Things, I had been singing the book's praises so much that I initially worried it might not be as good as I'd remembered. But I loved it once again. A coming-of-age tale set against well known fairy tales and laced with grim battles that would keep young children stocked with a month of nightmares, TBOLT vividly traces the path of an angry boy through a world of his fears and fantasies. Connolly, a gifted writer, can choose words that linger like a scar. And when one faces man-like wolves and crooked men that personify evil, that gift gets ample use.

Steinbeck was one of my first "adult" loves as far as literature goes. While some teens were discovering J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, I was getting enwrapped in Steinbeck's simple declarative sentences. I'd forgotten where Grapes began; in my mind it was the scene of the "land turtle" that gets flipped onto its back, a symbol of the traveling Okies struggling to survive both the Depression and the Dust Bowl. And while I've been reintroduced to preacher Jim Casy, I'd forgotten how he recalled his trysts with the girls after preaching them into a fervor. (After all, it's been decades since I read this work.) But it's still the same gritty, difficult era that I remember and which still catches me surprised.

Perhaps saying that rereading a book is like falling in love again is going too far, but it's certainly enough fun that such dreams and sentiments are within the realm of possibility. And that's what good fiction provides.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Just in time for the long holiday weekend, there's a nice little piece in the Washington Post about one's favorite gift books. I've actually never thought about such a qualification before, so I'll need some time before I include my own favorite gift books.

One that I know will be there, however, is John Irving's The World According to Garp. If you read my other recent post about favorite books, you know that I hold that tale dear to my heart. But how I first discovered the book is a different story. I don't know if I'd seen the movie or not. But a high school friend and I exchanged items: she got my tape of Pink Floyd's Umma Gumma, and I took home Garp. I don't think it was meant to be a permanent exchange (though I eventually bought the Umma Gumma CD to replace what had been passed along), so I read the book right away despite having the usual array of high school classes.

I loved the characters, and I eventually rented the VHS (way back in the 1980s and even into the 1990s, there were things called video tapes, kids...) of the movie and fell in love with that too.

Anyway, I'll need to think about favorite gift books. But while I do, I invite you all to share your favorites. You don't need to share five; any number will do. Just say what it is and, if you'd like, why you love it. Or email it to elephantsbookshelf@gmail.com if you'd prefer to stay anonymous online.

I'm Almost Ready to Start Procrastinating...

Anyone who knows me is aware that I'm a fan of John Irving. Earlier this week, I began rereading one of my favorite books, The World According to Garp, which I haven't read in at least fifteen years (though I've seen the movie several times since then). Understandably, I recall the movie better than the book. But this is one of those rare situations where I enjoy both -- perhaps equally.

So I had to laugh when I found this article in Slate. Apparently, the online publication is doing an homage to procrastination. As any fan of Garp knows, his first novel was called Procrastination. (And I'd completely forgotten that it was a highly symbollic piece set in Vienna and based on the time Garp lived there with his mother.) Again, this is T.S. Garp I'm talking about -- the character -- rather than Irving, whose first novel was Setting Free the Bears. To be honest, the Slate article is fairly boring. Even skimming it was tedious. But if you're looking for relatively unknown writers who've written about writer's block and procrastination (and who isn't!), then it's worth giving it a look see.

But I'd recommend you first pick up your copy of Garp and remember that life is wonderful, albeit occasionally odd, and the only justification for putting off that great American novel you're writing is to gather a bit more experience from which to write. Be careful with the baby sitter.

Literary Discovery

I think I've become a literary snob. Perhaps I already knew this but chose to ignore it. What has struck me is how I now distinguish between "good" literature and "mediocre" literature (forget "poor" literature, which is a contradiction in terms).

For instance, during the past two days I've started and quickly stopped reading two different novels. Two nights ago it was John Irving's Until I Find You and yesterday afternoon, Marly Swick's Evening News. I usually love Irving's work. The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany are two of my favorite books (well, Garp and Owen are among my favorite characters). But within the first few pages of Until I Find You, I found myself in a maze of ill-constructed paragraphs; this is an 800+ page novel! Sorry John, I don't have time for that.

And Swick's work. Well, I can't say I enjoyed the creative writing-class style of introducing characters, but I could have gotten past that if the subject weren't so disturbing. I started reading it because my novel is about a family in a difficult situation; hers is about a family coping with the death of a small child. But in her novel, a young boy and his friend from next door are playing with the friend's dad's handgun, which mom keeps hidden in a Kleenex tissue box. A few predictable moments later, BANG! and the little baby sister is bleeding out into her inflatable swimming pool while mom's reading a book. I'm sorry, I don't have much patience for idiots in real life, I don't need to read about fictional morons. Here's a life story for you: Kids, don't play with guns! Parents, don't leave loaded guns where your kids can get to them, especially if they don't know what the hell they're doing!

Now I'm reading Whitney Otto's Now You See Her. Heading into the story is a nice little acknowledgement page. She thanks her family and friends and her editor and agent. All good and proper. But then within the first couple pages there's a subject/verb agreement problem (i.e., the subject is singular, but the verb used was plural). This is basic, grammar school English class red-pen stuff. Ok, if it only happens once, we can chalk it up to an amazingly odd snafu (though you don't usually find these things on page 3). But then, another couple pages later, there's something even more egregious. The protagonist lists things she has: Gainful employment; three good friends; two living parents... Four short paragraphs and a few lists later, the protagonist has telephoned her mother, "now a widow..."

When did that happen? In the past 100 words? Did mom dump dad in a bitter divorce a few years ago? Who knows, it hasn't been mentioned.

I think I'd thank this agent too, because she hooked you up with an editor who can't read. Since this book was published in 1994, I presume these flaws have already been pointed out and I'm simply slow on the draw. And considering I received this book for free through a book exchange, and its Barnes & Noble discount price of $5.98 is still attached to the front cover, I don't think too many people are overly concerned about who's going to fix it.

To be fair, since I didn't have any other books with me and I'd already read the One Story item I did have with me, I decided to read further in Otto's book. [Nota bene, One Story has a new address and it hasn't been corrected on their Web site -- so if your renewal was returned because the Post Office can't find them, don't fret, they've not gone out of business.]

And what I found is a story with promise. From what I can tell, it follows through on the fanciful "What if women over 40 actually do become invisible." I'll give the book a second chance. When there aren't glaring grammatical or continuity problems, it reads easy (well, actually, she seems to have a love affair with annoying fragments; not the literary types that are easily comprehensible), and if I hate it after tomorrow, there's always a Friday crossword puzzle to piss me off.

Oh yeah, I discovered another thing tonight on the train: I really love pizza. A man on the train was eating a slice and I couldn't help but wish I had one too. Again, this may be something I already knew. Sometimes life is cruel.