Light reading

Several months ago I picked up the abridged audio version of Peter Mayle's Anything Considered, which I had read when it came out a few years ago, and which I remembered fondly and thought would make a good book to listen to in the car.

I never listen to abridged books; it feels like cheating to me, somehow, like reading the Reader's Digest version (which I did as a teenager, but not since then). And I like getting into and kind of "living in" a book--the longer, the better. But this one was read by Tim Curry, and it was only a couple of dollars on the clearance table, as I remember, so I picked it up and forgot about it.

I couldn't find anything in the library this weekend that I wanted to listen to, so I was looking for something at home, and found this one, and I started listening to it last night. This morning I wanted to update the "Listening" link in the sidebar, so I went to Amazon to find the URL, and while I was there I read a few of the readers' reviews.

One of the first reviews described the book's premise--an expatriate Englishman living in France is down on his luck, living in a friend's house and quickly running out of money. He places a "situation wanted" ad in an international newspaper saying "anything considered (except marriage!)" and is hired by a wealthy gentleman to live in a luxury apartment in Monaco for six months and pretend to be the gentleman as a tax dodge.

Of course, that's just the story he was told--there is more to it, as he soon finds out.

The reviewer goes on to say:

I enjoyed it with some reservations. This is the sort of light reading favored by the highbrow set.

"Highbrow set??" That made me laugh, and I read several more of the reviews, finding such remarks as:

If you find yourself too stressed for the melancholy of Goethe or the intensity of Proust, this is a good diversion . . .

Into reading Booker stuff? Forget it. However, if you like an easy going read that does not demand, I can recommend this . . .

He seems a clever chap, writing bad American genre fiction for motivations that I hope are merely financial.

Light, amusing tv movie of the week fare from Peter Mayle.

For the most part, the reviewers wrote that they enjoyed the book immensely, BUT (and there was always a but) they seemed to be embarrassed, or ashamed, that they did. "I enjoyed this book very much, but since I usually read MUCH more serious, demanding books, I can't recommend this one unless you're the type of person who eats bonbons and watches daytime television, in which case it's right up your alley."

And how about actually writing a novel? Take Now you too can be a writer! which I ran across in one of the NaNoWriMo forums, which says, in part:

Many people have "thought fleetingly" about writing a novel. But if they are scared away by the time and effort involved, perhaps they SHOULD be scared away. If a wannabe sculptor produces a piece of palpable rubbish, the fact that it is cast in bronze does not make it a piece of art, nor its maker a sculptor. It burns me deeply that this is simply not the case with the written word. Write 50,000 words of what may be unadulterated crap, it seems, and you're automatically "a novelist."

Some people just take themselves way too seriously. If a "wannabe sculptor" creates something, no matter whether it's any good or not (and who is the judge of that, anyway?), yes, it is a sculpture, and it's creator a sculptor. Whether or not anyone likes the piece he created, and whether or not he can sell it, doesn't change that fact. There are many, many famous artists who were unable to sell their work during their lifetimes.

Writing a novel makes you, by virtue of having written it, "a novelist." You may not be a published novelist, and no one may read your work, but the fact that you have created it is worth something. If you want to call yourself a novelist, who does that hurt? Apparently the people who believe that it somehow diminishes their own efforts at becoming published authors.

Which brings up Think You Have a Book in You? Think Again, an article which has been widely quoted on the web.

Why should so many people think they can write a book, especially at a time when so many people who actually do write books turn out not really to have a book in them -- or at least not one that many other people can be made to care about? Something on the order of 80,000 books get published in America every year, most of them not needed, not wanted, not in any way remotely necessary.

But his is, of course, I assume. And according to whose criteria? Have you ever heard of Joseph Epstein? He wrote this article. Or how about Alma A. Hromic? She wrote the first one I linked to. Me neither. Epstein wrote a book called Snobbery, which I guess must be one of those books that were needed, wanted, and absolutely, positively necessary to the continuation of civilization. Or something like that.

Hromic wrote, collaborating with an email acquaintance who she later married, a book called "Letters from the Fire." In the article I quoted from, she talks about how ridiculous it is for a group of people (NaNoWriMo) to attempt to write a novel in 30 days, how it takes so much more than just a desire to write--it takes research, and blood, sweat and tears, and talent, and so, so much effort . . .

Looking through her website, it tells how the book was written as a series of emails between a Serbian woman and an American man:

The book was written and published with mind-spinning speed. Begun on April 23, it was completed by the first week in June. By July 6 HarperCollins in New Zealand had accepted the novel and scheduled publication in Australia and New Zealand by September 27, with foreign rights under negotiation. From idea to published book, Letters took just over five months. Which, in the publishing world, is nearly unprecedented.

But, really, you know, there's no reason for anyone else to try to write a novel because, of course, no one else actually has the ability to stick to it for -- oh wait -- okay, yeah, they took about six weeks to write it. So, absolutely, 30 days is an impossibility for anything worthwhile!

I read for enjoyment. I freely admit that. And hey! I write for enjoyment, too. Sure it's hard. It's really, really hard sometimes. I still enjoy it. I can't think of anything I'd rather do, except maybe just read. If it's not fun, why do it? I mean, of course most people don't have jobs that they consider "fun." Mine isn't always, either. But most of the time it is, and I still want to write in my off hours.

There are lots of bad writers. I know that. I might be one. But that doesn't stop me from trying, and it shouldn't stop anyone else from trying. I would be the last person to try to discourage anyone from trying to do anything that they want to do, particularly writing. Give it a shot.

And going back to my first point, unless you're reading for school or training for your job, why not read something that you enjoy? And why not try not being ashamed of it? Say, "Yeah, I read Stephen King, and I like him!" and leave it at that. Don't feel the need to say, "Well, yes, I read Stephen King, and yes, I liked it, but I know I should have been reading something else more worthwhile, like Proust." Or, "I read Stephen King, but only when I'm home sick in bed and my attention span sucks--normally I read only Proust."

Give yourself a break and stop taking yourself so seriously.

And by the way:

My name is Willa Cline, and I'm a NaNoWriMo participant.