Do you read more than one book at once?

This was a question posed to me by my blogging friend Gustav a few week’s back.

In thinking about it, it’s raised some interesting questions about the way in which we absorb narrative in its different forms.

I always have more than one book on the go at any time – but never more than one piece of fiction.

I’ll often have three of four books on the bedside table that may be about history, religion, or other non-fiction (and not all as high brow as that statement may make it sound!).

But I rarely attempt to read two novels at once. (Occasionally, a high-demand novel may become available on short loan from the library, and I’ll set aside whatever novel I’m reading at that moment so I can return the library book on time. But I always set it aside - I don’t try and read both at once.)

For me, it’s always been an issue of not having my head in two narrative spaces at once.

Which got me thinking: isn’t that what I do when I watch more than one television series in the same season? Or following stories in more than comic series?

Films are slightly different because we watch them in a single sitting, (unless you’re a pay TV “flicker”, of course, then you might watch it in three instalments, and not necessarily chronological!), experiencing the entire narrative before moving on to the next story.

I seem to manage quite well keeping track of story arcs and characters across these more visual mediums.

Is it because an episode of a television series or an edition of a comic has its own smaller story arc, with a natural place for a break at the end? Even a cliff hanger ending makes a clean break from one episode to another.

For me, the same rules just don’t seem to apply to novels. Is it because with a novel, the story takes up so much more of my imagination, and when I fill up that space with too many stories requiring my emotional and imaginative capacity, it becomes too messy?

Does the visual nature of television and comics make it easier for me to keep the stories separate?

So, my question this week is: do you read more than one novel at a time? And if so, do you find it easy to keep the stories straight?

The power of a strong narrative voice

Regular readers of this blog know I hit a wall a week or so ago in my reading schedule. Strangely enough, it was the most unlikely of novels that got me moving again: a violent, bleak urban tale in which nobody finds an even remotely hopeful ending.

Bulletproof Suzy, by British writer Ian Brotherhood, was not uplifting stuff, but it definitely got me thinking about a few things.

First and foremost, this novel has one of the most distinctive narrative voices I’ve read for a while.

The narrative character (actually called Francine, but referred to by all and sundry – including herself – by her street moniker, Suzy) is a tough young woman in a not-too-distant future Britain, living in a cold, poverty-stricken concrete jungle dominated by thugs and violence.

She and her team of “little ladies” are what are known as “Liaison Officers for the Commissioner’s Office”, government-sanctioned stand-over merchants who collect rates on behalf of the local council.

In this future, rates go so high there’s little chance anyone will willingly pay them. “Operation Community Responsibility” is launched – a system where one household is responsible for collecting the rates of another. It invariably fails, and non-government “teams” are recruited to do the dirty work. (Given my current line of professional communication work, I found the concept deeply ironic.)

Suzy’s world is brutal, but she’s adapted to it and is relatively comfortable with her place in it. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse when her less violent and best friend Joanne is cruelly murdered and Suzy finds herself the prime suspect.

The majority of the story is set over about 48 hours, during which Suzy and her crew try to get to the bottom of Joanne’s murder and then exact revenge.

The story, even with its bleakness, drew me in thanks to Suzy’s take on the world and her observations of those in it. She’s uncompromising, rarely sentimental, and relentlessly tough in the face of danger. A dark sense of humour helps.

Brotherhood writes like Suzi thinks, making the novel essentially a long monologue, but once you get her rhythm, it’s easy to follow. Her observations are full of profanity and slang (cops are the roz, rozzlings, rozzloiders; a gang from an apartment block called the Cherry basket are Cherroids; certain sensitive body parts are “jarlers”).

Here’s a taste:
The door starts going at all hours – this one from the first floor, all sweaty and crimson what with just having rubbed up against Shuggs and his merry cherries, or else one of the other CO teams now operating, that one struck dumb with fear, bearing the tell-tale odour of involuntarily released bodily fluids. Sometimes, if the client has actually suffered physical damage, we’ll be straight out there and then to find those responsible, Shuggs more often than not, and he’s usually to be found with his raggle-taggle collection of buff-fluffed Cherroids in the favoured Maxwell’s Lounge by the river, and it’ll be a few shouts at the door and they’ll be out, swinging whatever is at hand and making light of our being the opposite sex or whatever.

Hardly traditional punctuation, but it works perfectly in this type of story.

Plot-wise, there are muddy politics belying the situation Suzy finds herself neck-deep in, but these are far less interesting than the way she interacts with those around her, and her observations of the deteriorating situation.

This engaging narrative voice is almost enough to get me past my disappointment with book’s ending.

It’s not that I was expecting a happy ending (there’s no hope in sight for these poverty-stricken characters locked into lives of violence), and the story’s bleak resolution certainly fits the tone of the rest of the book.

I think it’s the fact the story suddenly fast-forwards a few years and all those characters who were such a strong part of the rest of the book have all but faded into the background. But then, I guess, that too fits with the transitory nature of Suzy’s world…

Maybe I liked Suzy so much I wanted her to have some level of victory. But maybe her lack of self pity is a victory in itself?

Definitely not a book for Bec…

Sequels from different authors

How do you feel about book sequels written by someone other than the original author, usually many years later?

I’ve been chewing on that question this week, after reading an article by Rosalie Higson in The Weekend Australian Review about Australian author Colleen McCullough’s new offering, The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet, a sequel of sorts to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

McCullough (best known for the Thorn Birds and her Masters of Rome series) has re-imagined the Bennet sisters 20 years on, with the tuneless, personality-challenged Mary being the focus of the story.

In this story, Mary breaks free after her mother’s passing and, with a crusading fire in her belly, sets off to write a book about the treatment of the poor in industrial northern England. She encounters dangers and romance, before emerging as a “most exotic orchid”.

This concept of re-imagining literary characters is nothing new. A number of writers have created sequels to classics whose original authors are no longer with us. And literary critics have long turned their nose up at the practice, demeaning it as cheap way to cash in on fans’ hunger to know more about characters they hold close to their hearts.
McCullough herself admits she loves to annoy the literati, which was one of the aspects that appealed to her with this project (along with wanting to understand “why Jane Austen didn’t like Mary, to whom she devoted a whole eight sentences,” and explore “whatever happened to Mary?”).

For me, the question is not why a writer would want to write about another author’s characters. The answer is obvious: they either love or are fascinated by a character or characters, and believe they can deliver the next chapter in their lives. In popular fiction this is called “fan fic”, and is most commonly found in the world of sci and fantasy, where novels are regularly churned out featuring characters from television shows (e.g. Buffy, Angel and Star Trek) by writers who have no connection to the original creations.

The question for me, is how would the original author feel about it?

The Guardian’s Books Blog tackled the subject when a second sequel to Gone with the Wind was released. The blog author is perplexed by the way in which these types of sequels are so reviled.

The blog points out that sequel writing exists unmaligned in other formats such as film and television, where fans and critics don’t seem overly perturbed by the fact that numerous writers are involved.

The blog puts it down to literary snobbery, and asks why sequels, prequels and companion books can’t have literary merit in their own right.

But unlike the “fan fic” – whose original characters and stories were developed by a team of writers – novels are traditionally written by individuals. Characters are created in their minds and further developed on the page.

To have another writer interpret your characters and take them in directions you might never have foreseen for them could be either flattering or insulting.

It’s not about the new writer’s background, talent, or even intention. It’s a question of whether anyone other than a character’s creator can truly tell you what might happen next.

It also treads sacred ground with fans as well, who have their own ideas on what may or may not have happened after the last page of the original book. How will fans of Pride and Prejudice (who may or may not have picked up one of the 20 plus other “sequels”) feel about D’Arcy having ambitions to become Prime Minster and Elizabeth being unhappy, as is the case in The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet.

McCullough’s novel intrigues me, purely because Mary is such an under-drawn character in Austen’s classic. But I’m not sure I want my experience of the rest of characters in the original novel influenced or challenged by anyone other than Austen. And that’s obviously never going to happen.

I’d be really interested to hear people’s thoughts on the subject.

Have you read a sequel to classic by another writer? Did you love it, hate it or were indifferent? Do you not care: a good story is a good story?

The brick wall

I’ve reached a strange point in my reading journey … and it looks a bit like a brick wall.

I’m sure it will pass as quickly as it has arrived, but in the meantime, I thought I’d blog about it, as I like to put something new on this site around once a week. And, by the nature of my reading situation, I don’t seem to have anything else to write about this week!

Here it is: I’ve suddenly become indecisive about my reading choices. I have an interesting list of titles waiting on my book shelf, but I can’t seem to get excited about any of them.

I’m worried that if I start one and cast it aside, I won’t go back to it (I’m not big on revisiting books that don’t grab me – remember my ill-fated relationship with The Confederacy of Dunces?), and so forever ruin a book I may otherwise enjoy.

My current shortlist is as follows (in no particular order):
- High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (loved by my good friend the Ink-stained Toe-poker)
- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (loved or hated, depending on whose review you read)
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (I really enjoyed The Kite Runner, but not sure if I’m in the mood for the emotional commitment I suspect this book will require)
- Second Strike by Mark Abernethy (Aussie spy adventure sequel to The Golden Serpent, which I enjoyed last year)
- A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (who wrote The Curious Incident With The Dog in the Night-time) (Side-note: I grabbed this book off the shelf last night and knocked a glass of wine over my laptop - which didn’t help its cause.)

Does anyone else hit these sorts of reading walls? If so, how do you break through of them?

This is quite new for me, and is probably more a reflection of where I’m at in my brain at the moment, than anything else. I have no doubt it will pass….

So, apologies for the lack of intellectual stimulation in this post. Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting for you next week!

Life of Pi explained

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is one of the most analysed, discussed and debated books of recent years, not just because of its plot, but because it makes the reader question what they have read and what they believe.

The Booker Prize winner author was one of the major draw cards at last weekend’s Brisbane Writer’s Festival, and he didn’t disappoint. He spoke about his motivation for writing Life of Pi, and how researching the story changed his life along the way.

In this post, I’m going to share a few of the things he spoke about. Those who haven’t read Life of Pi – and intend to – may want to look away now. Don’t spoil the experience of discovering the book’s talking points for yourself.

Life of Pi provides the kind of literary experience fans tend hold close to their hearts. Yann understands that, and opened his talk by promising to try and do “the least damage” to individual interpretation of the story. Because the interpretation of this story is everything.

The tale begins with Pi, the son of a zookeeper in India, who becomes curious about religion and simultaneously practices Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, much to the consternation of his respective religious teachers.

Pi’s religious instruction is interrupted when his family decides to relocate – along with a large menagerie of animals – to Canada. Tragically, the ship sinks during a storm.

What follows is a fascinating, perplexing and occasionally disturbing story of survival.

When Pi finally washes up on the shores of Mexico 227 days later, he recounts two versions of his story. The same facts are offered, with a different interpretation.

In the first, Pi is the sole human survivor on a life boat with a zebra, hyena, orangutan and a huge Bengal tiger called Mr Parker. The second has no animals and is far more brutal. One requires suspension of disbelief, the other is “reasonable”.

Yann said the very structure of the story itself is designed to force the reader to subconsciously choose whether they are prepared to walk away from the “reasonable” to accept the better story. In other words to have faith, when to do so makes no sense.

The background to how the novel came about is interesting in itself, but this post is more concerned with the story what makes it such an original piece of narrative fiction.

The key for Yann was the question posed by Pi at the end of the book to the Japanese shipwreck investigators: which is the better story? For the author, this is the question at the heart of choosing a life of faith.

While researching Life of Pi, Yann – who describes himself as being “secular” before writing the book – read a lot of scripture and books about scriptures. In doing so, he started to ask himself “what would it be like to have faith?”

To find the answer, he put aside the aspects of religion that repel him and went to India’s diverse holy places “pretending” to have faith. He candidly admits that once inside that space, he didn’t want to leave.

Up to that point, Yann says he’d always considered himself a “reasonable” person. “When you’re reasonable, you have to make sense of everything.”

But he said being reasonable didn’t leave a lot of room for religion. “And when religion is ignored, art suffers. Society doesn’t dream when it is being uber reasonable.”

Life of Pi was his personal protest to stop making sense. To believe in a reality beyond the chemical.
One of the great moments of the session on the weekend was Yann’s explanation of the purpose of “the island”, one of the more obtuse plot developments in modern literature.

He said it served the sole purpose of making the “animal” version of the story harder and harder to believe. Even more so than the chance of a blind boy and blind tiger, coming across another blind shipwreck survivor, it’s at the point of the island that disbelief breaks down and the reader wants rationality kicks in.

“Many readers assume it is something deeply symbolic they just don’t get, or it’s an hallucination –they need a reason to prop up the fiction.”

But in his own words “religion goes beyond the confines of the reasonable”.

The second story – the one without animals and strange flesh-eating islands – involves no faith. “It’s all about man’s inhumanity to man. That’s not the reality I want. I want to go back to the first story and choose to believe.”

For him, life is a matter of subjective interpretation of objective reality. Ultimately, Yann presents a very post modernistic perspective (all stories have equal validity – there is no ultimate truth, only what you believe).

Having said that, the author admits that after looking at all major religions, he’s become “pretty comfortable with Jesus”, although it’s safe to say he is not a member of any organised religion.

Regardless of whether you share his views on religion or philosophy, there’s no denying Life of Pi is an amazing use of narrative structure to encourage readers to think beyond the story – to even question what they believe and why.

Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil: my review

Twilight series - the verdict

Given that the web is awash with reviews and comments about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, it seems almost superfluous for me to weigh in to the discussion.

However, I’ve spent more than 2,300 pages and the past three weeks working my way through the four books, so to not discuss them would seem a waste!

Now, I know people either love or hate this series, so I’ll say upfront I generally enjoyed the overall experience (and yes, I hear the ink-stained toe-poker howl in pain).

For me the first book, Twilight, remains the best from a tight storytelling perspective (perhaps not surprisingly, it is also the shortest). New Moon and Eclipse develop the mythology and progress the story arcs that all come together Breaking Dawn, the fourth book.

At the core of the series is the romance between teenage Bella and her impossibly attractive classmate Edward, who also happens to be a vampire. Edward and his “family” have chosen to abstain from biting and killing humans, but Bella’s blood is so appealing to Edward, that even though he loves her, he’s terrified he’ll kill her if he loses control.

Their relationship is one of restraint and longing, filling the pages with sexual tension. As the story progresses, particularly in the third book, the focus becomes on Bella’s growing desire to become a vampire, which Edward opposes.

For those who haven’t read the books, I won’t spoil the twists that arrive in the final 754 page instalment. Some readers have complained the first three books are a little too much the same, but – regardless of any other criticism - there can be no such complaints with the fourth book.

It takes the story in a different direction and has more sex and violence than the other three books combined – but still falls a long way short of being a “horror” story. It also sets the scene for further stories (although Meyer has said she won’t write any more from Bella’s perspective).

I’ve read Meyer talk in interviews about how much she loves her characters and loves spending time with them, and my greatest criticism with these books is that she indulges that love more than she should – or needs to - from a narrative perspective.

Plot points are demonstrated more than once, because the author clearly loves how the characters interact on the page. I grew continually frustrated – particularly in the middle two books – when it was obvious a scene or chapter was simply reiterating something that was already well established (for example, that the werewolf Jacob was in love with Bella … and don’t get me started on that relationship. Never been a fan of romantic triangles, and this one really annoyed me – but it does resolve itself with a nice sense of ironically in the end).

At nearly 800 pages, Breaking Dawn is longer than it needs to be, but, in fairness, an enormous amount happens plot-wise.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how Bella and Edward’s relationship was a metaphor for sexual restraint, and while that symbolism continues through the bulk of the story, it takes a back seat to the growing mythology. (Although, maybe her desire to be a vampire is symbolic of the transformation after marriage...)

When Meyer set out to write these stories – inspired by a vivid dream – I doubt she imagined she’d sell the number of books she has, or spark the kind of rabid fans and critics who now populate blogland.

I think she’s a writer who loves her characters and loves writing them. Enough people are devouring the series to send a message she’s not alone in her affection.

I may not be willing to don a “I love Edward Cullen” badge, but I can’t pretend I didn’t enjoy large slabs of this story.

So bring on the jibes…

Expectations met - Markus Zusak

We’ve talked on this blog about whether or not as readers we’re influenced by the way an author presents themselves in person.

The general consensus is that it shouldn’t matter: stories should be judged on their merits alone. However, it’s fair to say that when it comes to our favourite authors, we often harbour a secret hope their personalities somehow do their stories justice.

Regular readers of this blog know Markus Zusak is among my favourite writers (not just for The Book Thief – which still tops my list – but for his other four books as well). Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to spend time with him at a literary breakfast, and then writers’ workshop (hosted by the very author-friendly Logan Libraries in Queensland). And the news is all good.

One of the things I love most about Markus’ books is the honesty, warmth and poetic use of language that infuse his narrative. It turns out those qualities don’t just exist on the page.

It's not often fans get to know an author beyond their publicity blurb, but those who gathered for the sessions on the weekend – fans and writers alike – were given that rare opportunity.

Here’s a writer who openly talks about his self doubt, how he doesn’t have all the answers about writing and style, and that the secret to success is to have a deep passion for telling stories and a willingness to put in the time necessary to craft something above the ordinary.

In a truly remarkable moment, Markus read the opening chapter to his new novel. The reading was remarkable because the story is still a work in progress, and the final version may have little resemblance with what he shared (particularly given his penchant for continuous editing).

The reading didn’t disappoint. Fans lapped it up, hopefully realising how rare it is for a writer to share something not yet completely polished - particularly from a writer of Markus’ international reputation.

Gutsy move. (Hey, even the Ink-stained Toepoker was impressed...)

Of course Markus also spoke about The Book Thief, and the endless drafts he worked through (re-writing the first 90 pages between 150 and 200 times) before he finally found the narrative voice that would elevate the novel to realm of a classic: by having Death as the narrator.

People either love or hate that book. Here’s what I wrote when I finished reading it back in 2006:

It is one of the most beautifully and uniquely written stories I’ve read. So many writers have crafted stories in an attempt to capture the power of words, but this story did that better (and more profoundly) for me, than anything else I've read. It also clarified for me the unique role literature has in storytelling, and how it differs (or at least should differ) from other forms, like film and theatre. I laughed, I cried, and thought about life, suffering, and hope.

Ultimately, Markus Zusak is a great storyteller who loves the power of words. He's prepared to spend as much time as it takes to craft his story, making sure every sentence, every word -every piece of the puzzle - does what he needs it to.

I certainly walked away inspired, and motivated to be a better writer. I'm also now a little more patient in my wait for his next work ... I'm willing to bide my time until Markus Zusak to be happy enough with his new project to hand it to his publisher and share the story with the rest of us.

(And yes, I’m actually including a proper photo of myself for the first time on this blog. That’s me on the right with Markus and my favourite librarian – and breakfast/workshop organiser – Janet Poole.)