Clive Owen reading. I know I have.
A interview with John Irving brought this to mind when he spoke about reading THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE as a young man. I used to read books like that all the time in my twenties and thirties. I went through all of Thomas Hardy, George Elliott, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Jane Austen, John Dos Pasos. Well, you get the idea. Oh sure, I read what we called mysteries then too--read them all the time, but I also managed a sizable number of literary books and not just contemporary lit. So what happened? Have you noticed a drift toward simpler fare in your reading or is it just me. Lisa Kenney reads book like this still. What about the rest of us?
What was the last 19th or early 20th century book you read by choice? For me, I wouldn't have a book to name if it wasn't for my book group: Madame Bovary, whew!
48 comments:
Definitely has happened to me!
I used to read almost exclusively "literary" stuff, basically what teachers told me was "good" writing. But I honestly still remember being in college and reading Mickey Spillane's "Vengeance is Mine" for the first time - and I was blown away by his prose and the way he crafted the story. Since then I've focused largely on mysteries (and film history books, my other passion).
But I would never say that I think I've gotten lazy as a reader, just because I prefer Fredric Brown to, say, Italo Calvino (name pulled at random). I feel that I've been cultivating my own tastes, and discovering for myself what it is I value and admire in literature of all varieties.
Well, in my case, I am looking for books that I dn't have to work as hard to get into. I don't mean to do this, but I am. Every summer I mentally list ten books that I know I should read: like Magic Mountain and Moby Dick and at the end of the summer, I may have read one. Although not yet these two.
These days, I just want to be entertained. Not that 19th and early twentieth century lit isn't entertaining, (Okay, let's face facts, it's really not. Most of the time it seems like work to me-- except for Hemingway and most of the lost generation crowd, which I still get a kick out of--and when I'm reading I want to be relaxing.)it's just that I want my enterainment to be contemporary and something I can easily relate to
My page count formula for what I read: Divide age by 2, multiply result by 10, subtract ten pages of the total for each decade I've been around, divide it by 0.157, add nine to the end sum. Rinse. Repeat. By the time I do the math I'm too tired to read anything longer than a beer label.
[Actually I just reread Gone With The Wind but I'm reading less than I used to. And I'm much quicker to to give up on a book that doesn't draw me in fairly quickly.]
John McAuley
Yes, that's another topic: how long do you give a book?
I wonder if our need to just be entertained is due to the current economic crisis. When did I start being lazy? Was it a gradual thing? One thing-and this is age-small or light print is a deal breaker.
I read old crime books (1940s - 60s) and contemporary literary short story collections. If you surmise that i like short works, you are correct. The old noir and hardboiled books are always less than 200 pages and tell one story well. I alternate these tales with short stories, but not crime or mystery, only what some call literary. I pick up contemporary novels from time to time, but these are usually written by foreign authors. I enjoy reading about human drama played out in other cultures. Mayra Montero is a favorite. So, my reading is a bit eclectic.
I don't think I've become a lazier reader, but I've definitely become more specific in what I choose to read. I confess, I tend to read less in the way of canonic literature, but I have been seeking out more classics among my favorite genres. Chandler and Hammett are huge for me, as is Wells, and Stoker, and Carroll and the like. So I suppose I should endeavor to cast a wider net (particularly in getting back to reading so-called real literature), but I feel like within the realm of fantasy, horror, sf, and mystery, I've actually become more passionate about seeking out the past greats, as well as keeping up with the new torchbearers as best I can.
At my age, I, too, read for entertainment these days. I read a great deal of literary in my younger days.
The length of a book doesn't matter either as long as it's interesting. I read a book this month that was only 144 pages, but most run 250 to 350. I have a few in the TBR pile running 500 to 800 pages. I will get to them. I swear.
Oh, and I'm reading an early twentieth century book now for Friday.
I read OIL a few months ago. It's the book the movie THERE WILL BE BLOOD was based on. I liked it, especially the first half, but it went on a bit too long as Sinclair made sure you got the point about the oppressed workers. I agreed with him about the oppressed workers, but it still got old.
I'm with Chris: I don't hink I'm a lazier reader, just more selective. Another things to consider is that more contemporary writers write in a style we're more accustomed to hearing in our speech and personal lives. I enjoy Dickens, but there's a bit of translation that has to go on to read him, as the vernacular in which he writes is not familiar to us now. I loved the TV show DEADWOOD, but I have friends who I thought would also like it who said they couldn't get past the archaic language. (Given my friends, the profanity was not a disqualifier.)
One more thing, re: Clive Owen. I have heard several places that Frank Miller is working on creating a movie based on Raymond Chandler's story TROUBLE IS MY BUSINESS, and Owen is slated to play Phillip Marlowe. That's as good a casting decision as I have heard in a long time.
I am almost glad he didn't play Bond. Really who came out of playing Bond the stronger for it.
Yes, the early 20th century writers were very didactic.
I don't think I would even attempt a book of 800 pages. It might literally be the death of me-or at least my hands and eyes.
Well, it did get Connery's and Lazenby's careers (such as the latter's has been, as an actor) going.
I would say no, I haven't yet become a lazier reader, but my eyes do rebel more quickly than they used to...Bantam and other microprint publishers seem less congenial than they used to. Past time for good reading glasses, alas.
A few months ago I saw the new movie version of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" (not all that good), which prompted me to reread the novel. It reminded me of how much I enjoyed Waugh's novels back in the day and launched me on the path of revisiting his work. I've since read "Decline and Fall", and up next is my favorite of his novels, "A Handful of Dust". But don't let this fool you. I mostly read current crime novels with an occasional current literary novel thrown in. So, yes, I've gotten lazy.
I'll admit I've gotten lazy, preferring to see the movie versions of 19th Century instead of taking the time to read the novels. I tried to read Dante's Inferno last year, gaining no traction in either Olde English or antiquato Italiano.
I don't know if I'd call it lazy. I read on average 10 books a month. That's committed reading. So the subject matter of the reading is the issue. My best friend reads classics almost exclusivley. Is she a better person for it? I think it comes down to read what you enjoy because it isn't a homework assignment and you're not getting graded for what you read (as far as I know). As long as you are reading something, you're ahead of the game already...
I remeber reading Waugh after the first Brideshead with Jeremy Irons. I don't think I would be so invested in doing that today.
Yes, we're ahead of those who don't read at all. I sit on the bus and watch them stare out the window for an hour and wonder why. Of course, maybe they working out a story because we are all writers now.
Montero? I'm going to look her up.
Also, is this Lazier reading, or more choosing for greater reward? There was a time that I'd try anything, including supermarket gothics and standard-issue Harlequins. Nowadays, I'll still try a "genre" romance or Worldwide-style adventure novel, but it better have something to recommend it...
I read Dorian Grey about every three years and i read david copperfield again last summer and 'The fall' by camus.(oh, and two years ago i worked on the subtitles for a polish version of hamlet! The money wasn't good but i just wanted to have a file that said -Paul Brazill's 'Hamlet.'!!!)I left school at 16 and didn't spend a lot of time there before so i never had a teacher really tell me what to read and in many ways i regret this. but in my ad hoc way of dicovering books, i've found all sorts of gems. oh, and i reread my 'Forgotten Short Story' the other week.... but for the most part I avoid hard work in any form!
I like that "choosing for greater reward" idea. Also the postmodern idea that no text should be priviledged over another. So bring on the comic books or graphic novels. That suits my mood.
I must read Dorian Gray. Second time someone mentioned it lately. Or was it you twice Paul.
Well, thing is, John Irving isn't more profound nor complex, in fact is considerably less so, than Fritz Leiber or Ross MacDonald. And neither is, say, Sherwood Anderson. And all are geniuses beyond question when contrasted with James Fenimore Cooper, to pick an easy target who still has his defenders.
Graphic novels trigger slightly different sets of neurons, but the sophistication of a Carol Lay or a Phoebe Gloeckner or a Jules Feiffer or a James Thurber compares favorably to the more purely literary work of their peers.
Funny, you should mention Irving. I am determined to find this Leiber fellow and read him before I die.
Well, Irving having triggered all this put him in mind. Yes, the damnedest thing about Leiber is how the outre nature of what he wrote gets in the way, for too many readers, of how brilliantly he wrote it. Then again, some of his more facile work (say, the novel THE WANDERER) is often held forth by some admirers as among his best, when it is isn't, and some of what is so impressive about his work depends in part on understanding what he's reacting to and improving upon, as with almost any work in any school of art. As my friend Alice noted recently, having just skimmed/speed-read her way through DRACULA after making her way slowly though some Ralph Ellison, she discovered to her surprise that Leiber's prose was also dense and allusive.
Even the book I sent along, A TREASURY OF MODERN FANTASY, includes an amiable, good Leiber in "Four Ghosts in Hamlet," rather than the razor-sharp Leiber of "Smoke Ghost" or "Coming Attraction" or CONJURE WIFE or OUR LADY OF DARKNESS or...
Dense and elusive doesn't seem like two adjectives that would hold onto my skittering mind nowadays but I am drawn to the title THE CONJURE WIFE.
Painlessly so. CONJURE WIFE is an excellent starting point.
"How long do you give a book?"
10-20 pages, regardless of genre. It's all about the writing. Case in point; anyone that knows me couldn't imagine that I'd enjoy reading a book where the main female character works in a greeting card shop and the first lines are: "It was a cigarette burn.
I could scarcely have been more shocked if I'd discovered it on my own flesh, appearing out of nowhere, like stigmata. But it wasn't on me. It was on my grass green carpet, Aisle 3, Condolences/Get Well Soon, where I knelt, rooted in horror..."
But I loved it. The novel was Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak. Well written,entertaining--light but not fluffy-- I was hooked from page one.
John McAuley.
I remember her from Arachnophobia. Should try it.
Patti: Great memory. I'd forgoten about that. All I really remember about the flick is that I enjoyed it. I'll have to watch it again. B.t.w. if you guys ever make it to Halo Burger country give me a holler,I'll let you know where the closest [and safest] location is to whatever route you take.
John McAuley
One reason I'm reading the way that I am these days is the reason Paul mentions. Since I didn't go to college, I spent most of my twenties and thirties reading best sellers, with a few classics here and there. I sense that many people who did study literature in college and graduate school look back on it as a borderline unpleasant experience because it was work. For me, being able to discover great literature on my own has been exhilarating. There's also a very real difference between getting what I do out of an author like Saul Bellow and reading a less weighty book purely for entertainment. As much as this doesn't sound like fun to a lot of people, I truly enjoy going through a dense read slowly, highlighting references to check them out and then finding other works as a result of having read the first. I can feel that my endurance has increased and the tougher books are becoming much less challenging to read.
That is such a good point, Lisa. You have primed yourself to read difficult texts.
The reading wasn't the Work so much as the Having to Read, and then Having to Prove One Had Read. And I was spared some of the greater tedium there as a Writing/Editing major when I was an English-Dept. collegian. We got to do the writing workshops. Happily, never one nearly as poisonous as the one in STORYTELLING.
Was that Philip Seymour Hoffman?
Actually having to read it helped me. I think women respond more to the demands of a syllabus than men.
Your blog title is something to think about...
Guilty as charged, Patti, though it's partly a matter of not having as much time to read. The last classic I delved into was Orwell's 1984, which I enjoyed but didn't quite finish. I still read nonfiction though, which isn't always easy reading. Oh, I did recently read some Fitzgerald short stories, including "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". It's very well-written but sad.
I read it again too after hearing the movie was coming out. They made a long movie out of a pretty short story. Orwell, a long time since I thought of him. DOWN AND OUT IN LONDON AND PARIS sits on my shelves unread.
I'm a Trollope trollope, so it was probably either "Phineas Redux" or "The Eustace Diamonds." But these are really funny, satirical, gossipy romps, so they don't count as difficult reading. Couldn't work my way through a Henry James these days if you paid me (I fear). Then again, if someone wants to offer me some $$, I'd happily take tomorrow off and try "The Golden Bowl" again!
I would certainly count Trollope as more than easy reading. Being funny does not preclude demanding close attention.
I've been plowing through some pretty serious literature lately -- reading Dorian Gray last week was my most recent read.
I reward myself with one literary book and one 'fun' book.
I go through periods. I'm reading some 18th century poetry at the moment, which can be tough sledding in places. I actually read a lot of very complex works, but mostly those are in nonfiction and science. I do tend to read mostly straightforward genre novels for entertainment.
Possibly William Morris's NEWS FROM NOWHERE, but I was writing a review of the new Finnish translation, so it doesn't probably count. And I'm reading old Finnish horror stories for a book I'm working on, so that doesn't count, either.
If you got a good translation of Gogol, I think he holds up pretty well.
I didn't have time to check all the answers, but don't everyone read Austen?
Oh, I guess I have become lazy. Drat.
Honestly? I read much everyday, just not literary fiction; but once I discovered Dickens...man I ate it all up, which took me to poets like Burns and from there to Dumas and Twain, Guest and finally to the 20th century. It was when I realized that popular contemporary writers that wrote by formula and not so much creativity, that I lost interest.
No, not everyone reads Austen unfortunately. I read her--again in my youth. I almost never reread anymore.
Jurhave you been reading my mind?My Forgotten Short Story is 'The Nose'?
Post a Comment