Some solid quotes from two books I'm reading now:
FROM Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie
This one seems especially appropriate for this day and age:
"There is no originality in tyrants, and they learn nothing from the demise of their precursors. They will be brutal and stifling and engender hatred and destroy what men love and that will defeat them."
And this one made me miss the days before the Internet and YouTube and social media:
"All our stories are told more quickly now, we are addicted to the acceleration, we have forgotten the pleasures of the old slownesses, of the dawdles, the browses, the three-volume novels, the four-hour motion pictures, the thirteen-episode drama series, the pleasures of duration, of lingering."
FROM From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction by Robert Olen Butler
Both of these speak to the craft of writing and are probably more interesting to me than to some of you, but I think Butler has a great way of conveying his ideas:
"If somebody rejects the story, with whatever criticism—you’re going to get bad criticism from literary magazines too, let’s face it—you let it go. What is the editorial reader’s frame of mind? They have fifty things on their desk today, and there are going to be fifty tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Do you think this puts them in a frame of mind where they are naked to each manuscript they open? Where they put aside the worldview they’ve held all their lives and open up to a new voice, a new vision of the world? Rarely. That’s why a lot of bad stuff gets perpetuated, the bland stuff and the mediocre stuff. It’s because often those screening readers—I’m talking about those first two people who see it—those readers, just by the very nature of what they do, are going to be if not consciously looking for, at least more open to, things familiar to them. So all of this works against the unique voice of the real artist. And this happens at the highest, most prestigious, slickest magazines—for any number of reasons that don’t have to do with art."
"You should read slowly. You should never read a work of literary art faster than would allow you to hear the narrative voice in your head. Speed-reading is one reason editors and, not incidentally, book reviewers can be so utterly wrongheaded about a particular work of art. By their professions they are driven to speed-read. Some book reviewers review three or four books a week. Such reviewers could theoretically be fine on works of nonfiction. Or certain works of fiction that do not rely on many of the essential qualities I’ve been trying to identify for you as the characteristics of art. But if you read four books a week and you read them all at pretty much the same pace, you are inevitably going to be a bad reader of literature. A speed-reader necessarily reads for concept, skipping “unnecessary” words; she is impervious to the rhythms of the prose and the revelations of narrative voice and the nuances of motif and irony. This makes a legitimate response to a work of art impossible."
Not sure about the slow vs quick reading. I personally don't read anymore the way I used to - now I read as a writer, often reluctantly, never without looking over my own shoulder - the innocence of reading is gone & it's not anybody's fault. It's a price I gladly pay though I feel the loss daily. To label ways of reading as "bad" or "good" seems to miss the point of reading as a private, personal affair. I understand that Robert Olen Butler means the professional reader of literature. But professional activities must take into account other than aesthetic qualities - economics is an issue for every professional and for every business. If the economics are good, the authors benefit, too. The whole debate smacks of another curse of our Millennial times: wanting it all without wishing to pay a price.
ReplyDeletei hear ya, brother. I went a sort of opposite route. I read as a writer for the past twenty years and am now reading as a reader. I found that reading as writer now puts me at risk of adopting (mostly out of admiration) other writer's voice and style. I still can't speed read, either way lol
DeleteHey Sheldon! You must tell me how you regained that blessed state of reading. Only the very best work will still draw me in like a child. It did happen when I read the Hobbit recently (again). I think that might do it. (Tolkien's letters are great, btw, recommended if you like that stuff). It does not happen when the writing is too heady. I can do poems as pure reading - because I don't write poems perhaps. Anyway, have a great Sunday, mate & thanks for your always stimulating posts.
Delete