Month: October 2015

From Kid to Post-Kid

Posted by

74

Many novels telescope their stories into a few years, a few days, or even a few hours. But other books take the protagonists from childhood well into adulthood, and it can be quite compelling.

Following characters from kid to post-kid can help us see what makes them “tick.” How were their personalities shaped by parents, siblings, and other people they encountered when babies, toddlers, tykes, and teens? How did factors such as household income, school, first love, etc., turn them into adults who were happy or sad, optimistic or pessimistic, nice or nasty, leaders or followers, and so on? Meanwhile, we compare our own remembered childhoods with the characters’ fictional upbringings.

Also, we’re hopefully impressed with an author’s skill in depicting the formative years — a skill that includes getting inside the head of a kid and then inside the head of that kid as a grown-up, with all the dialogue differences and other nuances necessary to show those respective stages of life.

Lots of novels chronicle the child-to-adult transition in a chronological way, but there are of course many books that look at a protagonist’s youthful years in flashbacks. Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye is among countless examples of the latter.

W. Somerset Maugham’s riveting Of Human Bondage devotes many pages to showing the orphaned Philip Carey as a kid and teen: getting raised by his narrow-minded/religious uncle and meek aunt, living a sheltered life that includes little contact with girls, dealing with ridicule for having a clubfoot, etc. Philip is a kind person, but those trying formative years also make him an insecure person with low self-esteem — and thus have a major impact on how he behaves as an adult. Most notably, he falls for a shallow woman totally wrong for him, and behaves embarrassingly.

Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield is also semi-autobiographical (note how CD’s initials are reversed to DC) as the protagonist goes from boy to man. David’s difficult upbringing is undoubtedly a big reason why he makes some questionable life choices as he grows older, but, as is often the case with Dickens novels, things tend to work out well in the end (at least for some characters).

Charlotte Bronte’s Villette opens with protagonist Lucy Snowe as a girl, during an extended stay at her godmother’s home. The scenes there are crucial in giving readers insight into Lucy’s personality — she’s a (mostly) self-reliant loner — and we meet several people she’ll encounter again as an adult.

There are also kid-to-adult novels starring siblings, with much of the drama created by those characters being mismatched. For instance, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss features the appealing Maggie and her unappealing brother Tom, who often treats Maggie badly when they’re kids and when they’re adults in a 19th-century England that’s depressingly patriarchal. Their tragic “reconciliation” is made even more intense by how we’ve known the siblings since their childhood.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland starts with the boyhood years of brothers who are timid (Subhash) and daring (Udayan). We figure those traits will remain when both grow up, but are still fascinated with how that manifests itself in later chapters. Udayan becomes a revolutionary, and Subhash picks up the pieces of Udayan’s life.

Where a kid resides also has a major impact on her or his development. In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Lacuna, Harrison spends part of his childhood with his mother in Mexico. That leads to eventual employment with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and the exiled Leon Trotsky (though Harrison is not particularly political) and then to getting hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Harrison’s life is ruined — or is it?

Among the many other novels with memorable kid-to-adult segues are Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (in the persons of Celie and Nettie), Toni Morrison’s Sula (Sula and Nel), Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (Clyde), Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex (gender-confused kid who finds some clarity over the years), and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (from Afghanistan to the U.S. back to Afghanistan back to the U.S.).

Of course, the kid-to-adult transition can play out over several novels, not just one. A memorable example of that is L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and its many sequels that take Anne from preadolescence to teenhood to young adulthood to middle age.

What are your favorite novels in which the protagonist ages from child to grown-up?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

When Readers Finally Enjoy Their Masterpiece Theater

Posted by

66

Oftentimes, we read an author’s best and/or most famous novel before moving on to her or his other works. This can be a personal choice, or the result of assigned reading from our school days — when teachers introduced us to top novels such as Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Richard Wright’s Native Son, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, etc.

But sometimes we don’t read an author’s best and/or most famous novel first, and the reasons vary. Maybe we want to experience an author chronologically, to see how her or his writing style developed from the first novel on. Or perhaps we want to first read a short book by an author, to sample how we feel about the writer’s prose prowess. Or maybe we want to initially try a book less challenging than the author’s masterpiece. Or perhaps we mostly use the library rather than buy books, so we’re at the mercy of what’s on the shelves at the time.

Whatever the reason, if we end up liking an author before reading her or his top effort, we have an even greater sense of anticipation as we at last start the writer’s most transcendent title.

I thought about all this last week when I finally began Of Human Bondage — widely considered the best of W. Somerset Maugham’s many novels. OHB is always checked out of my local library, I don’t have much of a book-buying budget, and I don’t use a Kindle, so during the past couple of years I instead read the Maugham novels my library did have on its shelves: The Razor’s Edge, The Painted Veil, The Moon and Sixpence, and Cakes and Ale. All excellent books, so I figured if the much longer OHB has an even better reputation, it must be great indeed. And after reading a good chunk of OHB this week, I’m VERY impressed so far.

In other cases, I tried various authors’ shortest or near-shortest novels before deciding whether to tackle their longer iconic works. For instance, the first George Eliot book I read was the 200-something-page Silas Marner, which I loved so much that I quickly polished off much of that author’s longer fiction. Middlemarch is considered her masterpiece — and it is indeed a magnificent accomplishment — but Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss and Daniel Deronda also approach that rarefied level of quality.

I chose Ethan Frome as my first Edith Wharton book because it was a novella, and it packed such an emotional wallop that I quickly moved on to that writer’s two best (and lengthier) works of fiction: The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth.

Same for Henry James, whose short The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller got me interested enough to read that author’s widely acclaimed The Portrait of a Lady and his lesser-known but subtly masterful The Ambassadors. Both are many-paged novels.

While many people read Charles Dickens’ short A Christmas Carol before segueing into his longer and more intricate fiction, I eased into Dickens with the not-hard The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club — which was not only the author’s first novel but has the reputation of being his funniest. It is indeed hilarious.

For which authors did you read the best and/or most famous novel first? For which authors did you take a different reading route — and why?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

‘Bring Out Your Dead!’

Posted by

115

For a long time, I’ve wanted to write a blog post about some of literature’s most memorable deaths and death scenes. But there was a “spoiler” problem: I would be revealing very important plot developments, and those who hadn’t read the fictional works in question might avenge my indiscretion by creating a real-life death — mine. 🙂

Yet I’m going to risk The Grim Reaper today and tackle this mortal topic. As one does with cremated remains, I’ll liberally scatter spoiler alerts throughout this post. Also, I’ll bury the names of the characters I discuss — as in mostly not giving those names. And I’ll camouflage things in other ways, as one might cover a coffin with dirt. Finally, I’ll consider hiring 24-hour security in case I angered anyone with this paragraph’s tasteless wordplay about death. (Of course, 24-hour security leaves a person unprotected during the other 144 hours in a week…)

First some general thoughts: Death is a tragic/dramatic subject almost like catnip to authors — a subject that can make plots highly interesting, both in terms of the deceased and the way survivors react to the character being gone. In short, a death is a way to potentially grab the attention of readers, who may also relate what they’re seeing fictionally to the real-life deaths of people they knew and to their own inevitable demise.

More general thoughts: Literature of course usually reflects the time in which it’s written. So in pre-20th-century fiction, many characters died of diseases that would become curable in our modern age. Then, from roughly World War I on, weaponry became VERY lethal — meaning more characters died on the battlefield or as civilian “collateral damage” (I hate that dehumanizing term). But one can’t totally generalize. After all, America’s Civil War was a carnage nightmare, and many people today still die of curable diseases in the poorer parts of the U.S. and world.

In Jane Eyre (skip this paragraph if you haven’t read Charlotte Bronte’s novel!), there are several deaths crucial to the story. Among them is the passing of an almost saintly student, whose masterfully depicted demise is not only heartbreaking but helps lead the Lowood institution to be run in a healthier way — and perhaps saves Jane from eventually dying there, too. Another death, of an adult woman near the end of the novel, is very dramatic (think fire and roof) and makes all the difference for Jane and her former fiance Rochester.

Louisa May Alcott’s also-19th-century Little Women (those who haven’t read it drop your laptop or mobile device NOW!) features the poignant passing of one of the four young March sisters. The event is especially wrenching because the dying sister is so darn nice — even knitting stuff in her sickroom to give to children passing by the window. And her death, not surprisingly, makes her surviving sisters more resolved to do good and appreciate life to the fullest.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (your watching eyes need an immediate screen break if you haven’t read that novel!), Janie Crawford’s third husband is a mixed bag but much better than her first two spouses. Then, while heroically saving Janie from danger, something happens to this charismatic guy that soon kills him. Hard to see a silver lining in that, but Janie sort of personifies the struggles and resilience of African-American women.

The main character in Emile Zola’s Nana is not admirable, though her difficult childhood certainly helps explain that. (Zola was French, so non-Nana readers should now take a spoiler-avoiding trip to Paris!) Anyway, after the protagonist’s death in that novel, a queasy and striking scene ensues — a scene designed to say a lot about not only the deceased individual but about France as a whole.

Tragic, watery suicides depicted in riveting fashion? Your go-to novels include (get a snack this second if you haven’t read Kate Chopin or Jack London!) The Awakening and Martin Eden.

(If need be, stay in the kitchen for another snack instead of reading the next two paragraphs!)

Other fictional passings that will stay with you include the deaths of two siblings in George Eliot’s magnificent The Mill on the Floss; the deaths of a saintly slave and an angelic girl in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s gripping Uncle Tom’s Cabin; the lingering demise of the wilderness-loving loner in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Prairie (the fifth and final novel of that author’s compelling “Leatherstocking” series); and the killing of a girl in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. (There are of course countless fictional murders in general fiction and especially in genre fiction such as mysteries.)

Also, there are the killings of Mexican priests (including a particular one) in Graham Greene’s desolate/absorbing The Power and the Glory; various deaths in Alexandre Dumas’ stirring The Count of Monte Cristo (shedding their mortal coil are Edmond Dantes’ mentor/fellow prisoner and the evil guys who framed the innocent Dantes); and the death of a soldier in Erich Maria Remarque’s heartbreaking A Time to Love and a Time to Die. (Hmm…that last title certainly telegraphs a character’s fate, as do the titles of novels such as Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop and Colette’s The Last of Cheri.)

Obviously, I’ve barely scratched the surface in this post. Let’s take this six feet under with your examples of memorable deaths and death scenes in literature. It’s up to you how much of a spoiler alert you want to include with your comments. 🙂

My headline of course references this famous Monty Python scene.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Dealing With End-of-Reading Melancholy

Posted by

85

I just finished reading my 13th Jack Reacher book, and am feeling kind of sad. Is it because Running Blind included several innocent people being killed? Is it because Jack’s girlfriend Jodie was in possible danger? Is it because Jack visited New York City’s doomed World Trade Center in the 2000 novel? Is it because the roaming Reacher was implausibly living in a house and even (gasp!) paying utility bills as the book began? Well, yes — but I’m also feeling sad because in a few months there will be no more Reacher novels for me to enjoy.

It wasn’t until 2014 that I began reading the 1997-launched series, after several commenters here enthusiastically recommended Lee Child’s thrillers. (Thank you!) Since then, I’ve polished off roughly one Reacher book a month (but not chronologically; I take out whichever titles my local library has at the time).

The sadness thing? Now that I’ve finished Running Blind, there are only seven of Child’s 20 novels left for me to read — at least until the 21st comes out! I’m so addicted to the series — reaching for Reacher every four or five books (while making sure I don’t neglect more literary fare) — that I’ll profoundly miss it. Rereading is a possibility, of course, but that’s not as satisfying as a first read.

All of this is a long-winded way of introducing today’s column theme: As wonderful as it is to read fiction, there’s also some melancholy when one completes every published book in a series. Or when one finishes every novel by a great deceased author who will obviously write no more. Or even when one finishes a very absorbing novel lengthy enough to be called a door stop. I’m going to talk about that melancholy, and about how to get over it.

I remember how unhappy I was when finishing the seventh and final Harry Potter book in 2007. That fantastic series was over! 😦 But at least there were three of the excellent HP movies still to come. Another silver lining was rereading J.K. Rowling’s series within a two-month span, which helped me see clues and connections more clearly than when I read each of the seven books as they were published a year or more apart.

A different silver lining arose after I read 11 out of Willa Cather’s 12 novels. Those 11 ranged from good to great (My Antonia being among the latter), and I was feeling downbeat about nearing the end of Cather’s fiction-book canon. Then I started reading her last novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, and found it to be such a dud that I suddenly had my psychological fill of that author’s longer works.

Still, I eventually satisfied my Cather craving by reading one of her excellent short-story collections — which is a way of easing the sadness of having none of a particular writer’s novels left to enjoy. I also turned to a Margaret Atwood short-story collection after reading all the great Atwood novels my local library stocked. In addition, one can turn to a writer’s poems, plays, nonfiction, and other works when the novels have all been perused.

With John Steinbeck, I found that reading three of his lesser novels (Cup of Gold, To a God Unknown, and Burning Bright) helped me move on to other authors despite the lingering glow from top Steinbeck books such as The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.

Long books? One example of a massive novel that felt sad to let go is James Clavell’s thousand-page Shogun, which wonderfully places a reader in another time and place (circa-1600 Japan) for many days. But my next book adventure — Fannie Flagg’s terrific Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe — soon had me immersed in another world.

Ultimately, the best way to escape the sadness of ending a particular literary “journey” is of course to start reading another great series, author canon, or novel. 🙂

Which series, author canons, and long books were you especially sorry to see end? How did you deal with that sad feeling?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

Two recent appearances:

This summer, I was filmed and interviewed for 20 or so minutes about my former life covering famous cartoonists and columnists for a magazine. I talked about Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”), Jim Davis (“Garfield”), Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), Stan Lee (“Spider-Man”), Ann Landers, “Dear Abby,” and others. The video, posted on Sept. 28, is from talented Canadian multimedia guy Dan St.Yves.

And last month I was taped for the “Robin’s Nest” show on Montclair, New Jersey’s TV34. The half-hour program began airing Oct. 2, and I appear in the first 10 minutes discussing my weekly “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column (which runs in The Montclair Times) and other topics. This literature blog is mentioned briefly on the show, which is hosted by the also-talented Robin Ehrlichman Woods.

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.