I'll pick the blue-striped spoon, thanks.
My sister wrote this in her book review of Under the Tuscan Sun:
This is the kind of writing I want to do. I find it difficult to write fiction because it is, generally speaking, used for entertainment purposes and lacks the power to motivate one's life or stir one's soul. I want to write to stir the soul.Now, I've never read this particular book, but I've read similar books. They were interesting, but I can't say I found that they had any impact on my life beyond simple entertainment. I certainly can't say they stirred my soul.*
Fiction, on the other hand, has had a profound impact on my life. Writers like Suzette Haden Elgin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey (and that's just what comes to mind in a without stopping to think about it) all wrote novels that made me think long and hard about the way I saw the world and how I saw myself in that world.
My favorite writers are the ones that provoke me to stop reading and start debating (silently - I do try not to talk out loud during those times) with the author. I might not agree with much of Heinlein's philosophy, but he sure made me examine the way I thought men and women should interact, and how technology fit into human relationships. Reading Sherlock Holmes and Kim made me think about the way I don't pay attention to the world around me, so I started trying to notice the details that would make me a brilliant detective, too.**
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings made me think about trustworthiness, loyalty and friendship. I found that I really didn't care for Bilbo Baggins. I wanted to be like Frodo and Samwise - not someone who fell haphazardly from mishap to accident, but someone who moved purposely to accomplish my goals, no matter what stood in my way.
Zane Grey's attacks on Mormons annoyed me and made me look more closely into the history of my church. Louis L'Amour wrote about strong, confident pioneer women and inspired in me a desire to be like those women. Norton's Octagon Magic was an 8th birthday present. It showed me how fear can destroy you, and how attempting to overcome fear can give you the strength to defeat it.
Elgin's Native Tongue series was pivotal in awakening the feminist in me. She got me thinking about stuff I'd never examined before. Things that I'd picked up when I was little, things I'd heard my father say over and over again, examples I'd observed while I was growing up - all of that came under the microscope, and I wound up deciding that being a woman meant something different than what I'd thought. I started thinking more positively about being female than I had since I found out that I couldn't join Little League because it was only for boys. I decided there was strength and power in being a woman, a decision that has impacted almost everything I have done since then.
I don't know why it is that non-fiction leaves me cold. Maybe it's the writer in me, thinking how I'd tell the story differently, that makes fiction such fertile soil, whereas true stories don't stir a desire to change the outcome. How can you argue with reality, after all? When I read memoirs and histories, I only find them entertaining, never soul-stirring. Very few real-life people have inspired me to change my life, but I would have a hard time coming up with a complete list of the fictional characters that have influenced me.
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*Which just goes to show that, although we love each other dearly, we really do see the world from very different perspectives. It's nice to have siblings who have such different points of view - it widens my own perspective. Left to myself, I tend to fall into a comfortable rut and stop thinking entirely.
**Says the woman who has been known to walk into walls because she was thinking too hard to notice there was a very large obstacle in front of her.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
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11 comments:
I just filled up Esperity's comment board with one of my blog-mments similar in vein to your blog. I too mentioned a list of books that have changed me...one was Octogon Magic by Andre Norton or Andrea Norton as I always called her. I bought the book the other year and read it again...it still made me cry and my scalp tingle. The Octogon doll house always resonnated with me for various reasons. The other thing it taught me is that the horrid things in life often push us in what seems the "wrong" direction but it wasn't the wrong direction...it was actually providential...that sums up my childhood! :) Lavender Green Magic...love it still. I think out of the two though Octagon Magic made the most impact. That's why as an adult I used to buy all those tatty octagon dishes...I wish I still had that glass one.
Did you read Heidi as a child? I loved Heidi...she was even poorer then we were...and when I was thirsty and there were no clean cups I used to use a bowl and as I was drinking out of the bowl I would imagine I was Heidi on some Swiss mountain side and I was momentarily spared the reality of that ugly kitchen in the Brown House. It's just as well I didn't know I had Swiss ancestors...I probably would have worn my hair in braids for years or something similarly daft! How does anyone survive without stories? Another friend once asked me, "Can you imagine a world without stories?"
I immediately said, "No!" Take away all the stories and what do we have left? A nothingness...
Yeah, I read Heidi. It was one of those books that I enjoyed, but didn't effect me too much.
I noticed in your list of books on Cannwin's post that only two of them were books I found important in my life - 1984 and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Although it was more The Last Battle from the Narnia series that got me thinking. That was the first time I realized that he meant it to be a Christian allegory. Once I realized that I had to go back and re-evaluate everything. :)
"Very few real-life people have inspired me to change my life, but I would have a hard time coming up with a complete list of the fictional characters that have influenced me."
Wow, I can now say that I've found something other than politics that we differ on. I can't imagine a more inaccurate statement for myself. I thrive on the moving stories of others in life. How they overcame impossible hardships to do great things.
I wonder if you have ever read "Profiles in Courage" by JFK. It's an incredible book about just those sorts of people.
Fiction is great, I'm never going to argue that. Tolkien and Lewis and half the classic authors will never, ever be in my classification of uninspiring. But you really need to see my clarification to cari to understand what I meant.
As for real people, I find inspiration in the real life stories of others and I find enjoyment from the fictional characters.
I've been thinking about it more, and I think part of the reason is that real people don't let you all that deeply into what they're thinking and feeling. Fictional characters tend to be very introspective - and if they're not, the writer lets you know what's going on inside of them, even if the character is unaware of their deepest motivations. Nonfiction tends to be very much of the "I did this, and then we did that, and I thought this but didn't tell him," style. Very rarely do you have a person who has the courage or the ability to haul out their guts for public inspection.
Good fiction writing involves exactly that, though. In the best writing, the writer is writing about the deepest themes in her own life . Maybe the fact that it's filtered through another mouth makes it a little easier to do. "Oh, no, that's not me - that's my character saying that, yeah ..."
Which is one of the reasons that I have such a hard time writing fiction for anyone else to read. I write it for myself, but it's too personal to show other people very often. It's too deeply a part of me, it makes me too vulnerable, and if I start thinking about future readers while I'm writing I freeze up and can't write another word on that project for months.
Profiles in Courage - Meh. It's OK. Interesting enough I guess. CYNICISM WARNING: Do Not Read Further If You Think Your Local Senator Is A Nice Guy *climbing on my cynicism soapbox* A politician writing a book eulogizing other politicians. Hmmm, I wonder if he wanted readers to associate his name with theirs, and to unconsciously link the good feelings they would have for his "heroes" with him? Maybe? Sorry, but the self-interest makes me gag a little. *putting soapbox away*
Oh Jen...you are SO good! What personality type is Esperity? I'll have to ask her if she's taken the test.
Writing is revealing...and I agree, those writers who say, "It's not me!" are either lying to themselves or idiots. I know even my worst baddies come from a part of me...having stepped into Morley's soul and been totally creeped out it does confirm something I've always believed; If I'd decided to take an immoral road I could have become very very bad! Saying that, I love all my characters, even if I don't like them. I recently started a short story where you get to see a more personal side of Mulgrave. I love him too...even though in real life I'd avoid him like the pox!
I can understand how being read would make you pull up the drawbridge. I'll never forget reading my first book again after you'd read it. Until then I had no idea how much I'd revealed about myself, but if you published under a pseudonym...no one might ever know you were the writer, especially if you used a man's name! I'm actually planning on using another name for my non-romantic fiction. It's my name, it's just a different version! :)
You're so right. Fiction does allow us to lift off the lid on internal layers that non-fiction can only hint at. I think that's why I normally don't like stories from only one character's perspective. I want to step into the minds of all the main characters...otherwise, how can I see the big picture? It's like only getting the blue sky pieces of a puzzle! :(
As for JFK...I've never wanted to read anything he's written...I think your assesment was on the kind side. That whole family stank of coruption...as for Ted Kennedy, the man sends my creep-o-meter-warning zinging deep into the red!!!!! I feel little pity for him...he certainly felt no pity for that woman he left to drown in his car. Did you know he actively supported the terrorists in Northern Ireland over the years? Oh yes! Evil! The man is covered in blood. Regardless of whether JFK has blood on his hands or not, I have yet to learn anything about the man that persuades me he in any way deserved to be president.
Unfortunately I'd have to say that about quite a few of our supposedly elected leaders.
I find it deeply satisfying to know that the name Kennedy in Irish means "Funny shaped head."
Well I have no problem with the motivations of a long since dead man. And the stories of how these other politicians stood up for what they believed in at the cost (in nearly every case) of great political ruin is a testament to truth. It doesn't mean you're going to get a big red ribbon, it means you'll probably end up poor and alone, but at least you'll be right and someone someday will acknowledge it.
Maybe I'm just able to empathize with people differently than you my dear, but I find that I don't need them to tell me the nitty gritty details to understand how they felt in a given situation. That's art, being able to tell a story without saying everything you want to be taken from it.
I'll bet you don't like abstract art do you?
If JFK doesn't tempt your pallet then you should try "Three Weeks with my Brother" by Nicholas Sparks, it's a very touching story of his life growing up. But it's a memoir, so maybe not.
If I recall you weren't interested in "A Gift From the Sea" either.
Hmm, interesting. I like memoirs, but only if they are written well.
Cari, I totally agree with you on the multiple P.O.V.'s. I have a hard time with first person. It bugs me not knowing what the love interest is thinking when he walks into a room.
*laughing* I have to disagree with both of you on 1st person pov. That's my favorite! It's my favorite to read and my favorite to write. But then I also like to read present tense stories and novels. I'm weird, I know. ;)
Abstract art - It depends on the painting. If you're talking schools (is that the right word for it, Cari?) I'm fonder of surrealism. Basically, I like paintings that hint at a story. If it's so abstract that there's nothing there but shape and color (Mondrian, for instance), it doesn't usually touch me very deeply. It's like trying to hold ice. I can't dig my fingers in and it just keeps slipping through my fingers. Stories grab my imagination; they let me dig my mental fingers into the artwork and start thinking about symbolism. I do resonate more with abstract paintings that involve vivid colors and curving lines; strictly geometric paintings don't appeal to me at all.
(My favorite art is three dimensional, though - sculptures and suchlike. Especially if I can touch it. I am appallingly tactile about art.)
Nitty gritty details? That phrase makes me think of the physical details of the situation. I don't know if that's what you meant? What I like best in a book is being able to submerge myself in the psychology of what's going on, and I find it's much harder to do that with memoirs / biographies / autobiographies. You know when you read a book and you lose yourself so thoroughly in the story that when you stop reading and come back out into the real world everything feels as if it's UNreal? As if the story is the real world and you've wandered into some dream world by mistake? That's what I consider to be the best books - the ones that effect me that way.
See that's one of the things that I find detracts from reading books. That feeling of returning to reality. It depresses me.
I mean I'll deal with it for a good book, but it still puts me in a foul mood.
I don't like readjusting my realities.
Jen, I didn't know you loved reading and writing first person!
You should give Jayne Eyre a go...that's in the first person! You can't hear an impish smile creasing my lips.
I'd only use first person blogging, bloggmenting or writing an autobiography. I find reading novels in first person that the "I" can get irritating. (And I do like stepping into everyon's head). An author using first person has to be able to delineate their personal "I" from the "I" of the main character because even though the character is a part of the author, the character isn't the author! Stories written from the first perspective probably are the most revealing of the author...how can it not when you're writing "I" all the time?
I find it really interesting how everyone finds reading a personal journey...that probably makes no sense. It's gone six in the morning and I've been up all night because I slept all day because I have another stupid cold which is turning into a chest infection. Life could be so much worse.
Esperity...you can't hold a good novel responsible for a seemingly crappy reality! It's all about perspective. That crappy reality is probably the most fantastic story...you just haven't reached a good part yet! I just wrote another post on my blog and it made me think about all the strange, bizarre and magical experiences I've had on a regular basis all my life. I'm almost the opposite to you...I've often felt like reality was a scripted play written by a mad person with a wicked sense of humour...good literature has always been stepping into an alternate reality, but outside of being forced out of a good story by it ending without having any say in the matter, I've never regretted returning to reality(outside of a few occasions when reality was really crappy and I was incapable of seeing the great story carrying me along like a swollen river), but I love the weird and bizarre so it's a good thing I have my life.
I've always been fond of that book with Dick, Jane and a dog named Dot but I can't remember who the author is.
LOL, Ethan now I'm at work and laughing so loud that I probably look unprofessional.
Dick and Jane! you are so funny.
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