I’m pondering this question, as I’ve sorted through book after book, wondering what lead me to reading these, which were my favorites, and why. I’ve also wondered what makes me stop reading a book, shortly after I’ve started. How far do you read, before you realize that a book just isn’t right for you?
Recently, I bought a couple of books on recommendation, trust, I relied on someone’s judgment, wholly, knowing these people where excellent observers of the written word, and valued the importance of the existence of good story telling.
How much can we rely on others to make these choices for us?
I’m going to use one book as an example of my critical observation, Ann Patchette’s Bel Canto, and I’ll use two emails, one I’d sent to Lisa Tucker, and the other I decided not to, but found it to contain my reasoning behind this question I pose.
Knowing myself as well as I do, I look at this question in two ways; there are two types of learners. How do we absorb what we see and learn? There are visual, and audio types. And knowing that I’m a visual learner, I have to read and see concepts and ideas for my brain to be able to fully absorb. The saying, A picture is worth a thousand words, comes as close to the truth, as I see it.
As an artist, I pay close attention to details, and the more a writer can observe their own words as they write, the better for me to understand what they are trying to convey in their story. The tricky part to this is, a writer has to allow the reader to see, but allow the reader to make up their own minds about certain details concerning the actions of a character, or where the storyline is leading - in what is not said, again, allowing the reader to read between the lines, sort of speak.
Now, back to Bel Canto....I stumble, at times, when trying to express my own thoughts.
Email #1:
You say: Ann Patchett writes beautifully. I honestly don’t know what beautifully means to you.
Just in those few pages I read, I didn’t find anything extraordinary about her words. To me, they read like a weather report. I felt it was being contrived for the audience, giving data...informational....words saying things that should be beautiful, but she wasn’t emitting the emotion behind those words. I can tell you the sky is blue, but unless I tell you the color of that blue, and why and how it sets the scene to be not just viewed, but absorbed by the reader, it says nothing to me. She can tell me how beautiful opera is, how beautiful the voice is, but she doesn’t make me feel it. I love Opera, and I know how it makes me feel. I love to sing, and I know how that makes me feel.... I can tell you the emotional involvement it takes to feel those words. (But I won’t, because I know that you know) You get my point."My further thoughts, and the email. #2, I didn’t send, I’ll share with you:
Today I talked to the two people who recommended Bel Canto to me. I now feel as though I was perhaps being too critical of Ann Patchett. And I also felt that I was influenced after reading Varghese’s story and writing, and then finding myself enmeshed again with VW, before starting this book.
One of my friends said that he had a bit of a hard time getting into the Bel Canto story, himself, but he kept with it, soon finding himself totally engaged, and by the ending, it had a real emotional affect on him. The other friend said she admired how Ann took these characters and intertwined their stories. I can’t remember exactly how she worded it, but she totally loved the book.
I don’t like being harsh with any author’s writing style. (And that’s the primary issue I had with this book, the style).... I’m not the best critic, in that I have my preferences, as most people do, but it shouldn’t mean that I look at other writing as inferior. Ann Patchett’s writing is definitely not in that category....and I’m really sorry if I sounded as though that’s where it should be placed.
So much of what I read influences what I write. I have to be careful. If a story doesn’t move me, or say something to me, after thirty or forty pages, I wonder if it can improve my outlook after that point. If it doesn’t take me to a place I feel comfortable in my reading, I start to second guess why I’m reading further.
The main issue is there has to be values present in the writing style for me to enjoy the experience.
It’s like finding more on a color wheel than just the single three [primary] colors -Shades of colors, tones of colors, mixing the colors.... White and black added, bleeding the colors, shocking the colors! All of these steps, and more, lead to the process of finding value. Even though it’s all done mathematically, by formula [as some art can be], it’s still amazing to me to see how just three colors can expand! Yes, I find all art exciting, and that’s how I look at writing.In the end, what makes great art? What makes good art? What makes all other kinds of art? - that’s the question for us, as individuals, to answer."
In saying this, I had to look further, that’s what brought me here. What are these words we read on a page? There is the psychology, and the physicality of the reader that determines just what a mind can, and cannot, absorb? What does your own history have to do with what you bring to your reading?
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