Category Archives: Reading
On autobiographical fiction
I’m consuming Dean Koontz books like salted peanuts right now. Although I still have reservations about his style, especially in the early books, I’d have to be even more in denial than I am to claim I don’t find his books satisfying on a very elemental level.
I don’t know what other people find in Koontz. I can’t imagine that all his millions of fans have the same reasons I do. Because what I respond to most in Koontz is the recurring themes of protecting abused children, and of adult children of abuse overcoming their personal demons.
It would be interesting to know what elements in the author’s own life led him to tell these kinds of stories. If he himself suffered abuse as a child, then I can only assume he’s made a remarkable recovery. Because it’s hard to write that way unless you’ve unpacked your old baggage.
I’ve got an unfinished manuscript on my laptop, and I’ve been stuck on it for at least a year. I made the mistake of having one of the main characters suffer from Avoidant Personality Disorder, as I do. I think that’s one (but not the only one) of the reasons the story’s stuck. Because stories are about overcoming obstacles and, in my heart, I don’t really believe this guy is going to overcome his.
Last time I talked about my reading here, I was working on Koontz’ Intensity. I said that I was finding it hard because the story involved spending a lot of time with a really vile sociopath. And that was true, as far as it went. But I think another part of the problem was that I really—really—identified with the heroine, a woman named Chyna Shepherd who, because of childhood abuse, has walled herself off from the world. But she is forced by circumstances to go far beyond her personal limits, and to suffer much, to save a child’s life.
Loved it. But it was harrowing.
Then I went on to read Cold Fire, which looked like it would be a lot more fun. It’s about a guy who’s a living superhero. From time to time he gets psychic promptings that tell him to be at such and such a place at such and such a time, and to be prepared with this or that equipment. When he shows up, he finds somebody’s life in danger, and he saves them.
But the story gets darker. A woman reporter who falls in love with him discovers that his “gift” has its roots in terrible events in his childhood, events he has blotted out of his memory. With her help he confronts them and faces the truth.
At which point, of course, I stopped identifying.
Anyway, the moral (I guess) is, if you want to write autobiographical fiction about your own neuroses, it’s best to wait until you’re all better.
Ash Wednesday Intensity
Sorry I’m late tonight, and I’m afraid I’ll be short as well. Tonight I read scripture for our Ash Wednesday service (turned out the verses they’d given me to prepare were the wrong ones. No matter, I’m a quick study), and my bathroom sink has suddenly developed a massive clog. I hadn’t even noticed it was running slow before this morning.
Must be my renter’s fault.
I’m currently reading Dean Koontz’ Intensity. I remember, back when I had cable, that one of the networks ran it as an original film. I remember looking at the ads and thinking, “That’s precisely the kind of story I don’t want to see or read. I have no interest in spending quality time with a psychopath.” I’m pretty sure that was one of the reasons I avoided checking Koontz out for so long.
My opinion, as far as this book goes, haven’t changed with the reading thus far. Usually Koontz treats us to a group of interesting good characters whom I enjoy getting to know. There was such a group in this book, but they got removed from the stage early on. Now there’s just the heroine and the psychopath. The heroine’s fine. I like her. But I’m spending much more time with the serial killer than I’d choose if given my druthers.
That’s my personal taste. Apparently a lot of people feel differently.
Of China and Spain
Today was actually colder than yesterday, but it felt warmer because we didn’t have that Ginzu wind that seemed to have something personal against us all on Tuesday.
News is that they’re having an unusually severe winter in China, and that all kinds of people are stranded in railroad stations, since this is a heavy travel period in that country (their New Year is next week). Normally, heartless Occidental that I am, I’m only vaguely concerned about what happens over there, be it never so cataclysmic. But as it happens my Youngest Niece is spending two years teaching in China right now, and she’s taking this holiday time for traveling too. I hope the worst that happens is that she’ll have some interesting traveler’s stories to bring back.
I’m reading Stephen Hunter’s Tapestry of Spies (originally published as The Spanish Gambit) right now. What strikes me most about it is the tremendous difference the lack of a strong hero makes. Tapestry of Spies is a fascinating fictional account of a proxy battle between Russian and English spymasters during the Spanish Civil War. There are sympathetic characters (in fact, most of the characters are sympathetic to some degree, which is a very good thing in a novel), but there’s no character you embrace with all your heart, like Bob Lee Swagger and his father Earl in Hunter’s Swagger series. (There is a “Bob the Nailer” in this book, but he’s a sniper on the Fascist side who never actually appears—at least as far as I’ve read to date.)
Here’s a tip for any writer who wants to write a bestselling series. Give us a big, strong, courageous, admirable hero to adore. I’m not saying he has to be perfect. Bob Lee Swagger, for instance, is a recovering alcoholic, and his social skills are lousy. But I still want to be him, and that keeps me coming back to the books.
Just Before Bed
Frank Wilson points to an Anecdotal Evidence post on reading Shakespeare sonnets or Keats letters before bed. I may have to take up this habit myself.
“No bigger than a calf’s skin”
The internet was down most of the day at work today, so a number of things I wanted to do either didn’t get done or didn’t get finished. Sometimes I wonder about this whole computer thing. Imagine an office in 1927, and somebody comes to the boss and says, “I’ve got great new office machine for you. It’ll allow you to do your bookkeeping in a fraction of the time. It’ll streamline your correspondence and printing in ways you won’t believe. It’ll provide information from around the world before the local newspaper knows it.”
And the boss, being no fool, says, “What’s the catch?” (No doubt he’d take a drag on a cigarette before speaking, because everybody smoked in the office back then.)
“Well, the machines will break down every down and then. Fairly regularly, really. And when that happens, your business will basically grind to a standstill. And even when it’s working, your employees will waste a lot of time playing with it”
Would he be willing to invest in something like that? Maybe he would. But I bet he’d think long and hard first.
Dirty Harry over at Libertas speculates amusingly on how “The Yearling” would be handled if it were filmed today.
Dr. John Eidsmoe, author of Christianity and the Constitution, is at our school teaching a seminar just now, and he dropped in to my office today. We got onto the subject of Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla (the sagas of the kings of Norway), one of our mutual favorite books. I mentioned to him one of my favorite stories from the book, one which is included in the Everyman edition, translated by Samuel Laing, but not in the other two translations I own (this is due to a difference in the source texts used).
It comes from the saga of the sons of Magnus Barefoot: Sigurd the Crusader and Eystein the Good. Eystein, being good, died young, but Sigurd lived to an overrripe old age, and appears to have suffered from dementia. Toward the end he announced that he was going to divorce his faithful and much-beloved queen, and marry a younger woman.
The bishop of Bergen at the time was named Magne. Bishop Magne went to confront the king at his hall, and brought along a younger priest, also named Sigurd, who would eventually become bishop himself, and who reported what happened.
Bishop Magne sent word for the king to come out of the hall and speak with him. The king came out, with a sword in his hand.
The bishop refused the king’s invitation to come in and dine. Instead he condemned the king’s decision and told him he forbade “this wickedness.”
While he thus spoke he stood straight up, as if stretching out his neck to the blow, and as if ready if the king chose to let the sword fall; and the priest Sigurd… has declared that the sky appeared to him no bigger than a calf’s skin, so frightful did the appearance of the king present itself to him. The king returned to the hall, however, without saying a word….
Then the bishop went to his own house, and Father Sigurd noticed that he seemed extremely merry. He asked the bishop if he wasn’t frightened, and if he didn’t think it would be a good idea to get out of town.
Then said the bishop, “It appears to me more likely that he will not act so; and besides, what death could be better, or more desirable, than to leave life for the honour of God? or to die for the holy cause of Christianity and our own office, by preventing that which is not right? I am so cheerful because I have done what I ought to do.”
If you’re wondering how it all turned out, the king got his wedding in the end, by going south to Stavanger and bribing the bishop there with a lot of gifts.
But I love that story about Bishop Magne, and particularly Father Sigurd’s description of the sky appearing “no bigger than a calf’s skin.”
I’ve never read a better description of the psychological effect of fear. That man was a storyteller.
The Door to December, by Dean Koontz
I’m becoming a fan of Dean Koontz, almost against my will. As I familiarize myself with his body of work, I’ve developed a theory about him, which I’ll share at the end of this incisive review.
The Door to December is one of Koontz’ earlier works, first published under a pseudonym. It exhibits the usual weaknesses you expect from early Koontz. And yet… I loved it.
As the story begins, Laura McCaffrey, a psychologist, is summoned by the police to a house where her ex-husband has been found horribly murdered, along with two other men. Her concern is not with her ex, but with her daughter Melanie, whom he kidnapped six years ago. Besides the bloody corpses in the house, beaten beyond recognition, a room is found containing a sensory deprivation chamber and an electro-shock aversion therapy chair. Of Melanie there is no sign at first, but the little girl is soon discovered wandering naked on a nearby street. She is physically unharmed, but appears to be autistic.
At the crime scene Laura meets police detective Dan Haldane, who immediately takes an interest in the attractive doctor and her vulnerable child. As they look at the evidence, it becomes clear that Melanie has been the subject of a heartless, long-term psychological experiment.
And the horror isn’t over, because whatever killed the men in the house is killing others connected with the project. And Melanie, in her rare lucid moments, expresses her certainty that when the Thing is done killing the experimenters, it will kill her too.
I found lots of things to complain about in the writing here. The dialogue in particular was clunky. There’s one scene where Det. Haldane has a long argument with his greatest enemy in the world, his police superior. At one point he starts explaining himself to the man, sharing his deepest fears and motivations. This is ridiculous. Men hate to bare their souls to their closest friends. They don’t voluntarily point out their own weak spots to people who are likely to use the information against them. I know why Koontz did it. It’s a temptation for an author—you need to insert some exposition, explaining why your character acts the way he does. You’ve got a passionate dialogue scene; your character’s emotions are up. It seems to be just the place to throw the exposition in. You willingly ignore the fact that your character is expositing to the wrong person.
It’s easy to do. I’ve been tempted to do it myself (and have probably succumbed). But it’s bush league, and it damages credibility. (I’m reading the more recent The Good Guy now, and Koontz’ craftsmanship seems to have improved a lot.)
In spite of my criticisms, I liked this book exceedingly. And I think I know why (here comes my theory). Koontz is different from the average thriller writer. The average thriller writer is interested in examining the Problem of Evil. That’s an important question, and well worth looking at.
But Koontz prefers to examine the Problem of Good. When you consider it, the problem of good is just as puzzling, and certainly as important, as the other problem. And there’s the added advantage that there’s a whole lot less being written on the subject.
From that point of view—the point of view of looking at why people do good things, why they love and sacrifice and care for one another—I found The Door to December very moving. The climax, in particular, surprised me completely (it would probably not surprise a more virtuous reader as much).
I won’t say I like Koontz as well as Andrew Klavan, even now. But I’m liking him better and better. And he has a lot more books out there for me to find and read.
Reading Help
Lifehacker points out a post on reading above your comprehension level. The first commenter makes a good point about using Cliff Notes or similar study material to help get through the classics. That reminds me of something my English professor said about some books being difficult to read without help. If you have a group with whom to discuss certain books, you can get more out of them, possibly enjoy them more, than if you read them alone.
George McDonald Fraser’s last column
Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard links to a last opinion piece written by George McDonald Fraser, author of the brilliant Flashman series, who passed away this week. The more I read about Fraser himself (who also wrote the Michael York/Olver Reed film version of The Three Musketeers, one of my favorite movies), the less guilty I feel about enjoying the Flashman books.
The sex in the Flashman books always embarrassed me. But (it seems to me) the secret of the Flashman stories is that you’re not supposed to like Flashman. He’s a coward and a hypocrite and a goat. But the “flashy” action of his adventures is a medium for conveying a lot of solid information about the whole business of British Colonialism in the 19th Century. And there’s a moral lesson too, it seems to me. Harry Flashman does indeed die “a thousand deaths,” and suffers considerably more than the “idiotic” heroes he disdains, who die with their faces to the enemy.
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel DeFoe
My plecostomus died today. Or last night. (In case you joined us since my last fish update, we have a fish tank in the library where I work. The plecostomus is an ugly, brown fish which eats scum, and I’ve kept a series of them in the tank, with greater and lesser success). This specimen had lasted a fair amount of time, but he’d gotten fussy lately, liking neither his native algae nor the commercial wafers they sell you to vary his diet. This morning I found him on the floor next to the tank, dried up and stiff like a plastic novelty fish. So the algae will accumulate over the New Year’s break, and I’ll have to buy a replacement soon.
I just finished reading Robinson Crusoe. I ran out of reading material over Christmas, when all the stores and libraries were closed. I’d been watching three versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, as is my Christmas tradition, and there’s a scene in the original book (and in the George C. Scott TV movie) where Ebenezer recalls the books he enjoyed as a boy, and one of them is Robinson Crusoe. I had a copy on my bookshelf (a paperback left behind by a long-ago roommate, stamped as property of “English Resource Center, Bemidji High School”), so I figured I’d go ahead and add it to my reading achievements.
I think it was fairly rare for a bookish boy of my generation to miss reading R.C. I seem to recall trying it once, but it failed to grab me. I have more patience now.
Novels were written differently in the 18th Century (which isn’t surprising. Robinson Crusoe is considered by many the first English novel, so DeFoe was making it up as he went along). Today they teach writers to start with an action scene, to get the reader engaged immediately. Back-story can be added later. DeFoe began in the natural, logical manner that modern writers have to un-learn, by starting at the beginning. Robinson Crusoe tells us more than we really want to know about his birth, education and early life. We’re told from the beginning the chief lesson DeFoe has in mind to teach us—stay at home. Don’t have adventures. Crusoe bewails his youthful folly in insisting on going to sea instead of remaining in York, to be set up in business by his father.
We all know the bulk of the story—the shipwreck, the salvaging of the ship’s supplies by Crusoe, the sole survivor. His years of solitude until he sees a footprint in the sand, and finds a friend in the native he calls Friday, whom he rescues from cannibals. I had been unaware of the shorter exploits before and after the island episode—Crusoe’s early adventures at sea, including slavery in North Africa, and afterwards a harrowing winter journey through Europe on his way home to England. Any competent editor today would have advised the author to leave that stuff out. Or save it for the sequels.
The prose was pretty vivid and engaging in the early 1700s. Today it’s a little tougher to follow, though that’s mostly the fault of our inferior educations. Even so, the story remains compelling, and once I was into it, I turned the pages eagerly.
If you only know the story from a cartoon or a children’s book version, you may not be aware how religious it is. Robinson Crusoe sees himself as living proof of God’s providence in the world, and his story as a series of lessons in faith and trust in God’s plan.
The chief problem with the story, for the modern reader, is its primitive, unself-conscious racism. Although Crusoe bewails the wickedness of his early life, before the shipwreck brought him to repentance, the fact that he was on a slave-hunting expedition at the time of the disaster does not seem to count in his mind as one his sins. Although he has the highest praise for Friday’s courage and character (in one place he judges him a better Christian than he himself is), his assumption seems to be that dark-skinned people (like dogs) are happiest when they are owned by kindly white people.
Which means, sadly, that this book will probably not be read by anybody except scholars for a while. Perhaps the day will come when we’ll have gotten past the race thing sufficiently to be able to evaluate a book like this in the context of its own culture and time. Because it’s an important classic, and a very good story with a large “footprint” in English-speaking culture.