BOOKS « In Which We Do What We Do When We Do It For the Children And Them Alone »
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 10:34AM 
How I Got This Way
by ALEX CARNEVALE
As I got older, I learned some tough stuff about the world. For instance, that there was no Jack in the Box on the east coast. I still don't get that.
And once I was able to be a little more choosy about my own reading, all these saccharine kids' books really led me in a differnt direction. Here's where I ended up:
Big Friendly Author?5. Danny the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl
Dahl was an admitted anti-Semite, making it all the more inappropriate that my parents permitted me to read his books. Many of his books have outrageous Jewish stereotypes, and I'm sure this one is no different (it's not kind to Gypsies either), but at the time, it was a simple story of revenge and wonder, plus the nature element. It's the best of his books and it's not particularly close, although the Henry Sugar novella always will hold a steely place in my heart.
4. Incident at Hawk's Hill, Allan Eckert
For a kid's book, this was some pretty dark shit. This was the assigned reading in Mr. Z's sixth grade class. Mr. Z himself was a psychotic local Republican who somehow was permitted to teach children reading. In hindsight, this book was wholly inappropriate, as were his frequent stories about how he once had a leg cast as a kid and he kept shoving food down there and he got maggots. I've carried that with me long enough.
3. Books of Blood, Clive Barker
After a bad experience in 1994 when I had to run into my mother's arms because Jurassic Park was way too real for me, I realized I had to toughen up. Fortunately or unfortunately, I decided to toughen up on the greatest series of horror stories ever written. Barker's a native Englishman perhaps most familiar for the Hellraiser series. He's a capable novelist--Weaveworld and The Damnation Game are both enjoyable for what they are--but Books of Blood, which brought Barker onto the scene as a master of the genre, blows anything he ever did after BOB away. This stuff is still scary to me today, and it's flat out fun to read. It's probably available as a dollar paperback at any decent used bookstore.
2. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
The first book in the series, the universally acclaimed Ender's Game, is the ultimate kid's science fiction book in that it's wonderful throughout, but once you know the end, it's friggin' pointless. South Park parodied Ender's Game with an episode that had Kenny playing the PSP against Satan's Army. Having delivered one decent book that gained a massive audience, Orson Scott Card--whose politics leave something to be desired--had it in him to write one more great book before resigning himself to a lifetime of mediocrity.
That book is Speaker for the Dead. The two books have very little to do with each other besides the same central character. SFTD holds up quite well--it's a philosophical intrigue that even young people can digest, and the mystery behind everything is fun and enjoyable to grasp. In many way it reminds me of Joe Haldeman's far superior All My Sins Remembered (one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written) and any comparison to Haldeman is high praise from me.
1. Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling
I didn't read Harry Potter when I was very young. The first Potter came out in 1997 (I was 14), and it wasn't very good. It had some great world building and plenty of memorable characters, not much of a plot. The Potters are hardly my favorite children's books, but they are wonderful, and since they're going to be far and away the first real influential books of this century it's worth thinking about what they might be doing for our culture and whether or not they're actually bad or good.
People who don't read Harry Potter irritate me. If something is going to hold this kind of thrall over young people, who are digesting 600 page novels as if they were Pop Tarts, I'd say it's pretty important to get your hands on a copy.
In short, if you really care about reading, and what the future of prose literature might be, you have to have read this.
Like I said, the first one's just world-building. The second one has some high notes. The third one, adapted into another terrible Alfonso Cuaron film that looked great, was the best up to that point. Goblet of Fire topped it with its massive set pieces and violence. The Order of the Phoenix was Rowling going a bit crazy with exposition and a tedious final scene, with plenty of more adult fun in between.
one could hardly call such a thing beautyThe next one was a better effort than the Order, but churning them out at such speed hasn't helped the quality, though Rowling's improved at plot tremendously as she's moved along.
A.S. Byatt, a marvelously talented writer in her own right, penned the strongest possible repudiation of Rowling, although like most criticism of institutions, it was rendered pointless. The book is "cliched"-- thanks, we didn't catch that.
Byatt's argument:
Ms. Rowling, I think, speaks to an adult generation that hasn't known, and doesn't care about, mystery. They are inhabitants of urban jungles, not of the real wild. They don't have the skills to tell ersatz magic from the real thing, for as children they daily invested the ersatz with what imagination they had.
Similarly, some of Ms. Rowling's adult readers are simply reverting to the child they were when they read the Billy Bunter books, or invested Enid Blyton's pasteboard kids with their own childish desires and hopes. A surprising number of people — including many students of literature — will tell you they haven't really lived in a book since they were children. Sadly, being taught literature often destroys the life of the books. But in the days before dumbing down and cultural studies no one reviewed Enid Blyton or Georgette Heyer — as they do not now review the great Terry Pratchett, whose wit is metaphysical, who creates an energetic and lively secondary world, who has a multifarious genius for strong parody as opposed to derivative manipulation of past motifs, who deals with death with startling originality. Who writes amazing sentences.
It is the substitution of celebrity for heroism that has fed this phenomenon. And it is the leveling effect of cultural studies, which are as interested in hype and popularity as they are in literary merit, which they don't really believe exists. It's fine to compare the Brontës with bodice-rippers. It's become respectable to read and discuss what Roland Barthes called "consumable" books. There is nothing wrong with this, but it has little to do with the shiver of awe we feel looking through Keats's "magic casements, opening on the foam/Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn."
Say what you want about her views, but Byatt's identified the trend here--consumable books not designed to be savored, but to be ingested or plowed through like Lost on DVD. The problem Byatt faces in dissing Rowling is that she has to find something to praise. Terry Pratchett's an even more terrible writer, so that's not gonna help.
The chief benefit of this phenomenon seems to me to be that people are reading, and that it doesn't really matter what. Overall, after taking the interweb into account, it seems that people are reading as much as ever, if not in exactly the same way that the publishing companies would like them to. This is a notable change in world culture, and for us to process what it really means will take some time. For now, who cares what children read? Why bring taste into a discussion that already has babies in it? Babies only know what tastes good.
LULLABIES FOR THE LITTLE ONES
"Butterfly Nets" -- Bishop Allen (mp3)
"Roscoe" - Midlake (mp3)
"Son of a Preacher Man" - Dusty Springfield (mp3)
"96 Tears" - ? and the Mysterians (mp3)
Find some sweet MP3s here.
Reader Comments (15)
Speaker For The Dead is a fantastic book. The first chapter alone was one of the best things I've ever read, but that was, of course, many years ago and before I was slightly soured on Card's work by his oh so tolerant and loving politics.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar = forever in my heart as well. I always give that book as a gift, because no one else has ever read it!
I don't remember that book but I remember that story about the cast and the maggots, how gross. Anyways he was a good guy, how could you not like the Mr. Z?
i love all the traffic you send my site, but update your links, dorks!
gothbrooks.blogspot.com is no more.
it's now www.swanfungus.com -- all the old biting commentary and rapists wit, but with a real .com url attached to it!
"The chief benefit of this phenomenon seems to me to be that people are reading, and that it doesn't really matter what."
This is rather a dismal statement and it doesn't make sense either. The (other) chief benefit is that it doesn't really matter what people are reading? :-(
You understood completely what I was saying, but then you say it doesn't make any sense.
Which of us is being willfully obtuse?
Also, Orson Scott Card's conservative viewpoints may be out of the norm, but they certainly don't make his Alvin Maker series suck any worse!
Me.
I just wish you had said something like "The chief benefit of this phenomenon seems to me to be that people are reading, and that's better than smoking crack".
Love this site though...
I don't see you writing any award winning novels Mr 'Its so Easy to Write 7 Novels that are Read by Millions all Over the World
OK, give harry potter a break. It's actually the most amazing series that i have ever read. Those who complain that they 'didnt understand' the last movie should quit complaining and go read the books. Of course it's not all sunshine and lollypops! Any teenager is capable of having a day where they feel depressed; add in a few murders, the fact they're an orphan, and lord voldemort trying to kill them, and yeah, the movie did a good job. The books are FULL of intertextuality, and every little name or spell is carefully thought out and researched, and the latin use is incredible. Harry Potter is amazing. If you read all the books, if you allow your imagination to run free a little from your dull boring office job, if you do this, maybe you will understand. To read harry potter, one goes in with an open mind, and exits enriched by this world that one woman created. I love harry potter, i have read each book at least 10 times, probably a lot more. i challenge you to give it another go.
Some day I might read Harry Potter but for now I'm glad I can irritate you. :) However, look at it from a different perspective. Let's just suppose for one minute that Harry Potter will do nothing for our progression. What I mean is progression after this life. Humor me please.
Have you ever thought about what happens to us after we die? Have you ever thought that it's possible the knowledge we obtain in this life will either benefit or hurt us in our after life? And what I mean by hurt, I'm saying lost time in this life seeking unimportant things that could have been spent on things that have an eternal significance. For instance, if I indulge myself with Harry Potter that is time lost from my two boys, spouse or lost time reading books that have an eternal importance. I'm sorry but I put Harry Potter in this category.
And, yes it is true, there are other things that I waste my time with but if I add Harry Potter to the list of unimportant items I won't be improving. And, improving has an eternal significance. I just wanted to share my perspective....thanks for reading.
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why does everything have to lead to something else? and be an important part in your life filled with complex reasons for reading/watching it? cant you just enjoy life as it is now, rather than worry about improving your death?
I have read the Harry Potter series several times, and I was not once disappointed in a book or a movie. I must admit it took me a number of times before I actually got into the first book and read it through, but I am glad I did. Out of all the books I ever read, Harry Potter is by far the best.
For those people who watch the Harry Potter movies, but never read the books, do not expect the movies to be clear. The Deathly Hallows was a huge book that had many important parts in it, that are very hard to understand well without reading the book through. It's not wrong not to read the books, but when you go say they did a terrible job on the movies, well thats just to much. I think that they did a great job on the movie, it was exactly how I pictured it.
Reading the Harry Potter books is just as time consuming as any other book, even though it is probably larger. And who cares if we find no use in them? If this is so, then the majority of things in this century will be no use to us someday.