Summer Reading

Since my summer class is cancelled and my kids are recovering from sickness, we decided to have the kind of summer I love, a reading by the pool kind of summer.  We haven't been to the pool yet, but I already finished a book. 

I originally planned to alternate authors:  Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and then a random Appalachian writers before returning to Toni Morrison.  Almost all of the books on my list are set in the time period of the historical series I'm writing.  The rest are in the location of my WIPs.  And some are just awesome books I want to read again. 

Then my daughter and I had a conversation.  The theme of her English class this year was supposed to be American Literature.  And yet they read two Shakespeare plays.  And not even one classic novel one would expect a college-bound junior to be required to read.  Not that there's anything wrong with non-classic novels, but I think someone going to college should be well-read if only to catch references when they present themselves, as they often do on Family Guy or Sponge Bob or whatever.  It's not cool when you don't get the joke.

My daughter's impression - and I really hope this isn't true - is that women writers are almost exclusively reserved for the Women Writers class - an elective.  If you want to read Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, or Toni Morrison, you have to take that class.  WTF?  She didn't even know who Joyce Carol Oates was.  That's just wrong.

She said the only female writer she read in class (not sure if it was this year or in her entire high school experience) was one poem from one poet whose name I don't remember.  I started fuming and decided to do something to correct that - or at least find out if that's policy or a strange coincidence.  She asked me not to make a scene about it, so I haven't yet.  I'll sit on it for the summer before I ask the question.  It seems like outside of the Honors and AP English classes, the teachers have the choice of what they teach.  Last year it was all Bradbury presumably because the teacher really liked Bradbury.  I think kids should be exposed to more than Bradbury (no offense to you Bradbury fans).

By the way, they also didn't read any Transcendentalists.  No Emerson, Thoreau, Emily Dickinson.  Not even Hawthorne.  American literature with no Transcendentalists?  It makes absolutely no sense to me.

So my daughter and I looked through each of our several overstuffed bookshelves, cleared a shelf for female writers, and then filled it.  She picked out the books she wants to read first (not just the female writers).  I put my William Faulkner novel back on the shelf and picked up Toni Morrison's Beloved.

I have to say that as soon as I realized there was a paranormal aspect to it, I groaned and almost chose a different book. 

No offense if you write paranormal.  I don't believe in the paranormal - yes, I know writing those words is an invitation for a poltergeist to haunt me in my sleep.  It's very difficult for me to read paranormal fiction - it's just not believable to me. 

But in Beloved, the difference is this:  the things the slave owners did and the slaves went through were just as unbelievable - although I know that sort of thing really happened.  If we are to believe that people are capable of being that inhumane, a little ghost action seems possible too because none of what really happened makes sense, none of it is logical.

So I kept reading because I couldn't put it down.  Not because of the ghosts or because of the horror of how people were treated, but because of the way the story was told and the characters were revealed. 

I read it almost all in one day.  I read until I had three chapters left and could no longer focus my aging eyes on the words.  I woke up this morning and finished it before I finished my cup of coffee.  And I cried.

I'm debating whether to reread Sula or start Song of Solomon next.

Reading List for 2013

Not only is 2013 going to be a year of focused writing for me.  It's going to be the year I start reading like I used to before I had kids. 

The bulk of the reading I've done since my first baby was born has been children's books and technical documents and IT certification manuals.  I prefer the children's books. 

This week I have an academic advising appointment for graduate school.  I may be able to start taking classes as early as this month if they have an opening.  If not, I'll be back to school in the fall.  My guess is they'll be expecting that I remember a good percentage of the reading I did as an English major.

But it's been a long time - 22 years - is that possible?  In the last 22 years I haven't slept much.  I had one bad concussion (that I remember).  The details of the literature that I love were replaced with first aid for babies, programming syntax, class libraries, three versions of the .Net framework, SQL query language, SQL analysis services, CPT codes, ICD-9 diagnosis codes, the hospital billing system, charge pathways, and on and on until the only things left are shreds of memories of the literature I love.

*Sigh*

So, today, right now, I'm making a reading list.  Actually I started it yesterday using Goodreads.  My reading list is kind of hilarious.  There are children's books like Peter Pan, non-fiction books on Appalachia, women's fiction, dark comedy screenplays, a lot of Faulkner and Steinbeck, plus a book or two that some of you have written.

Mostly, I intend to read classic literature that I've already read to overwrite the bad sectors in my mind.  I'm hoping the reading will go quickly since it's all stuff I've read before at least once.  I wonder how long it will take before I have a good data restore. 

This might prove I'm crazier than the rest of you, but I dug through my bookshelf and found a fresh copy of The Norton's Anthology of American Literature - Volume D.  It covers the approximate time period of my current novel and includes stories  my characters would have been reading if they weren't isolated on a mountain.

The time period of the anthology is 1914 to 1945.  It includes some of my favorite authors and poets - F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, E.E. Cummings, Eugene O'Neill,  T.S. Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston and more.  (Note:  The only name in this list that spellcheck didn't recognize is Zora Neale Hurston.)

The thought of reading their works again, even snippets of them, gives me goosebumps.  It's definitely going to be a good year. 

Reading from a New Perspective

When I was younger, before I had kids and when I had time to sit for hours and immerse myself in a novel, I read to escape into whatever world the author of the day created for me.  I suspended disbelief and inhaled the story until I got to the last page. 

Now that I've been writing seriously for just over a year and have spent time giving and receiving critiques, something has changed in my reading style.  Now when I read, even something I've read and loved before, I read it as if I'm reading to give a critique.  I note what I like and don't like about word choice, imagery, the way the author handles transitions, chapter titles, everything.  I can't help but stop when I encounter punctuation I would change. 

I have to say it really is getting in the way of my enjoyment of reading.   

Finished a Book!

In all of the relaxation I insisted on for my family over the New Year's day weekend, I finished the first book on my Half-Read Book List, The Hobbit.  I was amazed to read on the back cover that it was published initially in the 1930's.  I thought the story was fantastic and love the way Tolkien walks you through the story, painting clear images to make you feel like you are there and developing characters that are fantastic but somehow very real.  At the end, some characters died, which surprised me since I obviously never read it to the end after several starts.  I imagined the dwarves that died would continue into The Lord of the Rings, and after seeing the movies was really saddened when they died - it sounds crazy to say, but they were definitely my favorite dwarves - I wanted them to be present in the next stories.

Finishing reading a novel has not been an easy thing for me since I had my first child fourteen years ago.  Before I became a mommy and since I was twelve, I read at least a novel a week.  I loved the classics even when I was twelve, spending a summer reading only Steinbeck and Salinger.  Since I had my first child, children's books read out loud to my kids and an occasional short story were about all I could finish, and after a few years were all that I even attempted.

Before my last child was born, I started reading again since my older kids were independent enough to give me time to myself and for myself.  Being a mother of an infant or toddler does not leave time for reading for me - it's rare if I can finish one chapter at a time.  That's not the way I like to read.  If I can't finish one chapter without interruption, there's no chance of finishing the whole book.  To complete my book list, however, I will need to be satisfied with reading two paragraphs at a time and picking up at the next, which is the only way I got through The Hobbit.  I have a magnetic book mark that I place at the start of the paragraph - otherwise, I would read the same page over and over again and eventually give up.

My husband, however, has somehow managed to read several novels all the way through in the last few months - one this weekend.  I don't know when he's doing it, but am certain he must be the best speed reader in all the world.  I seriously cannot comprehend when he finds time to read.

When I told my husband I was on the last chapter of The Hobbit last night, he was as happy as I was.   He enthusiastically suggested that I read one of the "Culture novels" by Iain Banks, the one he mysteriously read over the weekend front to back while I wasn't looking.  I declined and am sticking to my list.  The next book is Their Eyes Were Watching God.  I remember it being a fast read in college and when I started it last spring.  Maybe I can finish it by the end of the month.