Break Away from Mundane Books
I suspect a lot of people want to travel to faraway lands and experience new things every now and then just like I do. I also suspect a lot of those same people feel a financial strain at the mere thought of buying an airline ticket and reserving a hotel room. So, until your budget for traveling looks better consider taking a little extra time finding great books that will transport you to new places. Books are, afterall, the best way to see the world through someone else’s eyes, learn about other cultures and travel to a part of the world that money and time won’t always allow you to do on your own. Best of all when you do finally have the means and the time to take that exotic journey you’ll find that the great novel you read will come back to mind and enrich your experience. Till then, I promise there’s a book just waiting to take you on an unforgettable journey and if you’re not sure how to go about finding that novel that truly transport you (as opposed to books set in interesting places and nothing else) here are some tips to get you started:
- Ask yourself what it is you hope to get out of a book.
- Think about the last 3 books you’ve read and what you really liked and didn’t like about them. Ask yourself what was the best book I’ve ever read and why did I like it so much?
- Think about a place you’ve always wanted to go then review some of the award winning lists like the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, National Book Award going back as long as the contests have been in existence and find one set in that place. I’ll guarantee the author will have taken the time to use words that will transport you there. Don’t be drawn in by a title and a pretty book cover. They are marketing tools not the sign of good writing.
- If you aren’t set on a specific location, think about a culture or a type of person you’d like to understand better, or simply be around. Perhaps it’s a crazy man, a whimsical girl, someone living as a refugee, or someone who is rich and famous–the list goes on and on.
- Talk to someone who has read a lot of literature and tell them what you like about the formula novels you read. Tell them what kind of characters appeal to you, what types of storylines and places interest you the most. Hopefully, they can suggest about 8 -10 authors who write literary fiction. Read a short excerpt, maybe 4 -6 pages from a novel by those authors and see what appeals to you. I did this in both of my books, A Literary Paris and An Uncommon Heroine. If you and your friends are all searching for books that will captivate and transport you, then take a look at the excerpts I’ve chosen in my literary anthologies and go from there. Keep in mind A Literary Paris is focused on life in Paris and An Uncommon Heroine celebrates remarkable women characters in great literature. I spent a lot of time deciding which excerpts to use for my books in an effort to give readers a clear sense of whether or not the writing style will suit their taste. Whatever you do, don’t rely on the blurbs inside the book’s dust jacket. They are often misleading and say nothing about the writer’s abilities to transport the reader to a new world.
- Finally, select a book and if you’re half way through the book and not fully captivated, then move on to another book. There’s no need wasting time with a book just because you thought you’d like it or someone else said it was good just like there’s no sense in wasting time with dime store novels. If you’re like me you only get a little time to relax, escape into a new world and enjoy a book—make sure that book is worth your time!
Ignore what your English Professor Told You and Just Read — Literary fiction is far more enjoyable to read than you might think. All you really need to do is sit back, relax and leave the search for symbolism and over-analyzing to the academics.
We are taught early on as students that there are books we should read but might not enjoy and even more might not be smart enough to understand. It’s just not true. Everyone is smart enough to escape into and enjoy a well-written book. You don’t have to know the proper academic way to read great works of literature in order to enjoy them and make them your own.
I realized this in college when a professor told me to read Hemingway’s For Whom the Bells Toll and write a comprehensive analysis. This novel was not just any novel for me. I had read it when I was fifteen. It took my imagination to Spain and then it inspired me to go there myself when I was seventeen. Talk about a book that transports you! But rereading the novel and dissecting every passage for double meanings and symbolism (something I usually enjoyed doing) took away some of the book’s essence for me. What does this prove? You don’t have to know literary theories or how to analyze fiction in order to enjoy great literature. I think it also proves that sometimes it’s even better if you don’t know.
Getting into other people’s shoes and going where they go. Your time with a book should be spent with a provocative, unpredictable character.
A character who changes in some small way or even a big way through the course of the book. A skillful writer is always aware of the reader’s experience—or lack of experience and is sensitive to it. Whether you journey with these characters to India, the South Bronx or New Orleans the experience is sure to be memorable and meaningful. Great writers know developing a sense of place has more to do with thoughtful perspective than detail upon detail. For example, when Mark Twain wrote Innocence Abroad he knew it would be useless to describe all the things he saw without contrasting them with things his readers, American farmers, grocers and school teachers, saw everyday. So, he described Paris by talking about the things he didn’t see; thereby revealing the city’s character through what was absent from it. By writing about his journey in this way, he allowed his readers a level of comfort that allowed them to sit back and enjoy their European journey with him.
Hemingway’s style was never about intimacy with his reader; however, it’s clear the reader was always on his mind when he wrote. He used his now famous minimalistic style hoping to give the reader just enough information about a place to set up a story, but he left out as much as possible in order to give readers the chance to make the story their own. His short story, A Clean Well-Lighted Place, may be the best example of this. There is so much that is not said, and so much that is conveyed through the sparse descriptions that readers have no choice but to put themselves into the shoes of the two waiters and the “clean” drunk and see the world through their eyes. It’s a fantastic way to be transported.
The Truth about Romance — A good book that takes you somewhere doesn’t romanticize a location, or give you a narrow view of the place.
Instead, you may not even like the place the author takes you, but you’ll find yourself enjoying the journey.Afterall, Colette’s famed character Claudine couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live in Paris by her own free will, but going about town with Claudine always makes me want to go to Paris even if she hates the smell and the people herself.
Setting a story in Italy doesn’t mean the reader is going to feel as though she is in Italy. As I mentioned earlier, a skillful writer like Willa Cather will make the plains of Nebraska more fascinating that a mundane writer could ever make Rome, so unfortunately, it isn’t always about the place. Writers who churn books out faster than we can read them rarely give meaningful detail. Instead, they ramble on about a place without thinking whether or not the details move the story forward or benefit the reader. If you read enough great authors, you get good at telling the difference between writers who carefully choose their words for description and writers who just fill a page describing a room.
This is why it’s important to choose authors who have taken the time to carefully craft their books with the readers in mind and why it’s important to read an excerpt from a book and decide for yourself. Anyone who reads Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible earlier probably feels as though he has journeyed through the Congo—but I doubt anyone picked it up hoping they would take a trip to the Congo. So get recommendations, read excerpts and see where they take you. Don’t settle for the pretty book cover of a Riviera sunset unless you read some of it and you really feel you’re in the Riviera. a picture of a warm tropical setting or the Effiel Tower on the cover of a book isn’t going to make you feel as though you have been transported. Only a well written novel by a thoughtful writer can do that. So, start reading and have a wonderful vacation. And if you want to go to Paris through the words of some really great authors, check out A Literary Paris and choose a novel that excites you.
Read the book or wait for the movie? – Movie versions of great literature are fun to watch, but they are no substitute for the book.
The movie version of a great book, no matter how well it is done, usually pales in comparison to the experience you’ll have with the book. Why? Because readers becomes much more intimate with and invested in the characters in a book. A movie director has two to three hours to condense a novel. Even the film for the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which was only 94 pages long, left out lots of great stuff. For example, the movie’s opening scene starts in the middle of the book, and altogether omits the memorable novel opening.
The main reason the book is almost always better than the movie, however, is because thoughts and introspective moments do not translate to the big screen. Even before movies, Henry James was approached by a stage writer who wanted to make his novel Portrait of a Lady into a play. James said it couldn’t be done. There was too much going on inside the character’s heads that couldn’t be shown on the stage.
There are some great novels, like Gone with the Wind that translate fabulously to the big screen—one of the greatest movies ever made—and guess what, the book is still even better. For example, there is a scene in the movie where a Yankee sneaks into Scarlett O’Hara’s home. She gets a gun and quietly walks down the stairs and bravely, though quietly shoots him dead. In the novel, however, we know the irony of the gun she uses, and we know that how afraid she really was. We know her every thought and we know she shots him because she couldn’t stand the thought of him eating the stew she had worked so hard to prepare. She simply couldn’t let him do it. The scene in the movie is good, it’s probably the greatest movie ever made, still, nothing is better than Margaret Mitchell’s description of that scene. That’s just one example.
I often don’t see the movie of a book I’ve read. If that book has meant a lot to me, I don’t’ want the director’s version to in any way taint my own imagination’s version. The Great Gatsby, The Old Man and the Sea, and Anna Karenina all come to mind. If they ever make a movie out of any of Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible I won’t go. The story is still so vivid in my mind and I like it just the way it is.
Suit Yourself – Finding an author that suits your own taste is essential to enjoying good literature.
Great writers have invested years in getting the words and the tone just right in order to give readers the most authentic, memorable experience possible. Their ways of achieving a memorable experience for the reader vary dramatically. I’ve mentioned a few writers’ techniques above, and while all have proven to work for readers, none of them suit all readers. For example, Jack Kerouac and Henry James were both literary giants who wrote about Paris; however, the similarities stop there. While Kerouac wrote in a stream of consciousness form that sometimes seems self-indulgent and highly introspective, Henry James focused on people’s psyche and the dynamics of people from different worlds colliding. So, depending on the author you choose, your experience in Paris might be very different. If you’re looking for more experiences in Paris, single women, all women really and men interested in women, should read a little Anna Gavalda, and those with a really eccentric flare will feel right at home with Colette’s character Claudine in Claudine in Paris.
Keep in mind one other thing, just because a writer wins the Nobel Prize for literature, or a book wins the Pulitzer or Booker prize, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a great book for you. While award winning books are often safe bets, the author’s style or the subject matter simply may not suit you. That’s okay and it doesn’t mean you won’t like next year’s winner of those prizes, so pay attention.
