Getting Over a Dud, or Don't Judge a Book By Its Author

Free of charge, let me provide a short bit of advice regarding a lesson I've learned as a reader: While you're busy making sure you're not judging books by their covers, also do your best to refrain from judging books by their authors. Wait, what? That seems counter-intuitive, right? How could you not? Because that name splashed across a cover is probably one of (if not THE) highest priorities in selection criteria, who wrote the thing will always influence whether you read a book, won't it?

Sure, it will. I'm not naïve. But the seedy underside of that vacuum-writer-judgment is that one reading experience can often determine your future with a writer. Let's be honest, we've all had reading experiences where we've been so put off by a book, we vow never to read that writer again. It happens all the time, and we rationalize it thusly: "There are just too many books to waste time on an author I didn't like when I tried him/her the first time" or "his/her writing style didn't appeal to me, so I'll never read him/her again."

I would argue, however, that keeping an open mind and giving second and third chances may lead you to some of your more rewarding reading experiences.

We all know that any writer, even the best, or your most favorite writers, like John Irving (The Fourth Hand, Until I Find You) and Zadie Smith (The Autograph Man), are capable of spectacular duds. The key is to not let the frustration of the time you wasted with those duds, or maybe not a dud but a book that just didn't agree with you, color your decision too much of whether to try the author's next book. Sure, that's easier said than done, I know.

But here's why I bring this up now: I read Michael Gruber's The Book of Air and Shadows a few years ago. By all rights, I should've loved it — a literary mystery about a lost Shakespeare play written by a novelist famous for his cross-genre success.  I was bored to tears. I wrote after finishing it, "It's always a roll of the dice when I try these 'literary thrillers' and this one crapped out." But then I read about Gruber's new novel — The Good Son, an international thriller about a kidnapping in Pakistan in terrorists with nuclear weapons. It sounded like a literary version of a Vince Flynn novel, so given my weakness for international thrillers, I was intrigued. It took several weeks of internal coaxing, but I managed to overcome my Gruber Trepidation, and I picked it up. You know what? I'm about halfway through it, and I'm really, really diggin' it.

By way of further example, I'd absolutely despised everything I'd ever read of Cormac McCarthy, including the famed Blood Meridian and his Border Trilogy. But, I read The Roadtwo years ago, only because it was short, it had won the Pulitzer, and it sounded a lot different than McCarthy's other work. Wow, what a reading experience! That novel is now in my Top 10 of all time. Thank goodness I didn't give up on good 'ole Cormac!  

I could cite many other examples, both positive and negative. Of course, yeah, this open-mindedness sometimes backfires — for instance, I loved Richard Powers' The Echo Maker, and so I picked up his newest novel, Generosity: An Enhancement, the day it came out. It made me kinda sleepy. But in all reality, the positive times far outnumber the negatives, in my experience — especially when you're second-chancing writers with great range, like Gruber. And the incomparable feeling of being surprised by how much I liked a book I took a big risk with is one of my favorite things about being a reader! 

What about you? Any anecdotes about a novelist to whom you gave a second or third chance, and are thrilled you did?

August's Compendium of Literary Links

In this month's edition of The New Dork's list of interesting, fun or just silly literary stories, Dayton, Ohio hands out a literary prize, for some reason. President Obama causes a literary stir. And James Patterson is richer than God. 

1. "James Patterson" Makes $70 Million — In one year, Patterson, who tops the list of most-earning authors, made roughly the payroll of an entire mid-tier Major League Baseball team. You know how much I made in one year of periodically making fun of Patterson on this blog? Zero. Advantage: Patterson. Patterson's name "emblazons" one out of every 17 books sold in the U.S. He (and his "team of collaborators") publishes eight books per year. Amazing. Good on you, James.

2. Obama Causes Literary Stir — When President Obama was spotted leaving a Martha's Vineyward bookstore with a copy of Jonathan Franzen's new novel Freedom — which doesn't go on sale until next Tuesday — Franzen fans all over the country damn near lost their minds. Apparently, bookstores were inundated with folks who thought they, too, could get the book early. But then it was revealed that Obama's copy was an ARC, so then most people (except, apparently, the one gentleman who was somewhat indignant) relaxed again to settle in to wait until the 31st.  

3. Picoult and Weiner State Their Cases — Earlier this week, best-selling female novelist Jodi Picoult caused a kerfuffle when she tweeted that the NY Times's positive review of Franzen's new novel proves that the paper only likes its "white male literary darlings." Uh huh. Anyway, the story touched off a gigantic e-argument about, as best I can tell, why the NY Times hates women and popular fiction. Thankfully (thankfully!), the Huffington Post allowed Picoult and another famous female novelist, Jennifer Weiner, to state their cases. Since like 95 percent of my readers are women, I'm treading lightly here. LIGHTLY! So, I'll say this: Picoult's comments, for the most part were thoughtful and interesting, I thought. But some of Weiner's comments are so powerfully stupid they practically drool. 

4. Literary Dayton — Look, I lived in Dayton, Ohio for two years, and that city giving out a literary prize is a bit like Milwaukee handing out a prize for sobriety or Chicago handing out a prize ethical government and physical fitness. And what's more, it's a lifetime literary achievement award! At least the novelist who won — Geraldine Brooks — is a well-deserving recipient. It just slayed me that Dayton, Ohio, whose public schools were ranked last in the state of Ohio both years I lived there, and whose only downtown bookstore is called Exotic Fantasies, would hand out a literary prize. Stranger things have happened, I suppose. But not much stranger.

5. The Ape's List for the Textually Diseased — I loved this post from The Reading Ape about strange (or normal?) habits of obsessive readers. Read the comments — you'll find it heartening to learn you're not alone in your literary quirkiness. My favorite comment was Kenneth Griggs, who says he uses the same bookmark over and over again, until he reads a bad book. Kind of like a baseball player wearing the same underwear during a hitting streak. I've actually had the same bookmark since 2004 — it's a ticket stub (now, well taped up) from a Marquette basketball game.

6. Help Other Book Blogs — Cool idea on Twitter today (pointed out by Man of La Book): Use the hashtag #helpotherbookblogs and tweet a review from another book blogger you enjoyed. By the way, you can find me on Twitter here.

A Bout of Literary Schizophrenia

I'm not sure how this happened, exactly, but I think I may be in the process of accomplishing a literary feat the world has never seen. There's no question this defies any literary logic and, presumably, precedent, as well. I'm reading Gravity's Rainbowand Harry Potter at the same time. Yep, Pynchon and Rowling — hanging out, one on top of the other on my coffee table. Isn't that just silly?  I mean, I understand that the literary mash-ups are all the rage these days, but this combo is absurd, even by the standards of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

And you know what? Harry Potter's kind of entertaining. And so here is one of the great ironies of my literary career: I like the kids book, but I'm absolutely despising the novel I should be loving. Gravity's Rainbow is the novel that brought postmodern literature from the fringes to the mainstream, and was a huge influence on my favorite writer of all time, David Foster Wallace. But I'm now into my fourth month with this ridiculous train wreck of a book, and I hate it. I really do. It's worse than homework. But I'm committed to finish. I can't not finish a book — especially one I've put so much time into, and the one book I declared to be my ultimate to-be-read. I cannot freakin' wait to throw it on my shelf, tell people I finished it, and never have to open its pages again.

But back to "the boy who lived." For years, I've been promising my girlfriend that I'd give Mr. Potter a try, but why now? I'm not sure, except that I think maybe some part of my literary subconscious thought it'd be funny to play a joke on me; sort of payback for forcing it to ingest pages of Pynchon's non-sensical prose. And so last week while I was laying around watching baseball, I found myself wandering over to the bookshelf, grabbing The Sorcerer's Stone, and settling in. But the joke's back on you, stupid literary subconscious, because I'm not kidding at all — I like it!  Maybe I wouldn't if I didn't need it as a Pynchon-balancer, but with a straight face and a clear conscience, I can tell you that I'm enjoying it.

I haven't yet decided whether to continue with the Harry Potter series after the first one (The Sorcerer's Stone), but maybe. Maybe I'll start Ulysses and the second Harry Potter (The Chamber of Secrets) at the same time, just to pull off another goofy literary stunt.

You ever done anything so literarily absurd? Anyone out there want to make a case that I should continue on with the Harry Potter books?

36 Arguments For the Existence of God: A Hard Work of Fiction

This here is one of them there smart folk books. And as such, in order to enjoy it, you have to really enjoy weeding your way through smart folk stuff, like mazes of logical proofs, esoteric Jewish mysticism, faith vs. reason debates, and metaphysical philosophy. Believe it or not, though, 36 Arguments for the Existence of Godactually is a work of fiction with characters and a plot and the whole nine yards.

To be clear, it's not "a novel," it's "a work of fiction." And you have to believe that someone as intelligent as Guggenheim fellow and Harvard faculty member Rebecca Newberger Goldstein would choose her words carefully when deciding how to describe her book on its cover.

My guess is that she is hoping to subtly signal to her reader not to expect a novel, as one would normally conceive it. Instead, because the characters on which Goldstein's builds her work of fiction are almost too easily recognizable, too typical, it's pretty clear they are just vessels. The real point of this work of fiction isn't the fiction, it's the work required to understand the ideas. That's not inherently a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

Cass Seltzer is our protagonist — a middle aged college professor, and best-selling author of an atheist tome titled The Varieties of Religious Illusion. Despite his fame (notoriety?) as an atheist, Cass's charisma and humbleness have earned him the label "atheist with a soul." Cass is brilliant, but for all his logical faculties, he can't quite seem to reason out love. His first marriage ended when his wife got sick, and then fell for her doctor. Now he's dating a fellow academic, and he's trying to decide if he loves her. "Romantic infatuation can be form of religious delusion, too," Cass realizes at one point.

Cass studied for his doctorate under the eccentric, mercurial Extreme Distinguished Professor of Faith, Literature and Values, Jonas Elijah Klapper. Goldstein takes us through several scenes that flashback to Cass's graduate school days. When Klapper learns that Cass's family came from a relatively famous ultra-Orthodox Hasidic sect, he insists Cass take him to visit. Klapper becomes infatuated. We get our first real signal that he has gone off the deep end when he tells Cass his doctoral dissertation must be on the specific symbolism and or Kabbalistic meaning of traditional Jewish foods — like kugel.

Then, there's Azarya, the child genius "imprisoned" in that Hasidic sect. The kid is a math prodigy, proving that there's no largest prime number at the age of 6. Azarya's purpose in the book seems to be to give Goldstein a vehicle for discussing the philosophy and ethics behind "wasted genius." Will Azarya waste away in the insulated religious sect or will he be permitted to leave and enrich the world with his gift?

Much of this work of fiction is told as conversation, or, like the first scene of the novel, Cass standing on a bridge in Boston doing an internal review of his current state of affairs, much is also told through characters' contemplations. There is also quite a bit of description of Jewish mysticism and Hasidic ritual, much of which is a real slog, frankly. The novel is capped off by a Harvard debate between Cass and another guy about the proposition "God exists." Who will win?

It should be pretty clear by now that this novel isn't exactly beach reading. I'm not going to lie, it's hard work at times to keep up with the arguments and concepts. And so to use a cliche, you get out of it what you put into it. I was a lazy reader on this one and didn't expend the necessary effort to really enjoy it. So I didn't. But you might...

Tip on reading the work of fiction, should you decide to: The Appendix contains the 36 Arguments for the existence of God Cass included in the appendix of his book. There are (surely not coincidentally) 36 chapters in Goldstein's book, so I read one argument in the Appendix after each chapter. That seemed to work out nicely, and made them more interesting and manageable. I can't imagine reading all 50 pages of those 36 Arguments after finishing the story.

The Hype Machine: Love It or Loathe It?

Personally, I hate it, and yet this time, I'm uncontrollably drawn to it. The hype machine: It makes people, at best, skeptical, and at worst, cynical — but let's face it, the hype machine always works.

For the purposes of this post, if you'll permit me to back up a second, let's define the "hype machine" simply as the glut of articles, interviews and other press that make their way across our Starbucks tables and computer screens during the lead-up to a "publishing event." Sure, publishers drop millions on marketing for books they know will be hits, and novelists have publicists who carefully manage that writer's image in the media. Many times, though, the hype machine builds on itself naturally, as each new media outlet notices a trend that's drawing readers and wants to make sure they're not left out.

So now to the meat of this post: Unless you've been living in Dan Brown's basement, you're probably aware that Jonathan Franzen will publish his follow-up to 2001's The Correctionsin approximately 348 hours, 14 minutes, and 23 seconds. (That would be August 31st, for you non-mathletes.)  The hype machine for Freedom has been churning along at near break-neck speed all summer. In fact, I can't ever remember the anticipation for a literary novel as intense as it is for this one.

The hype for Freedom peaked late last week when Time published its Aug. 23rd issue with Mr. Franzen eruditely and intellectually gazing off to the side of the cover. The headline: "Great American Novelist." It's the first time in 10 years a living American novelist has been on the cover. Stephen King was the last in 2000. (Unfortunately, you can only read part of the story online — another sure sign that Time feels like the story will grab readers and newsstand sales.) I thought it was a great article, especially the parts about Franzen's friendship with David Foster Wallace and how, with Freedom, Franzen's realized that story and characters matters most, and has laid off the literary tricks and fireworks.

Also, the NY Times' Michiko Kakutani big-worded her way through a really positive review that appeared yesterday — for a book that doesn't come out for two weeks! In fact, most reviews so far have been very positive — feeding the hype machine even more.

There are tons of other examples of the hype: a Huffington Post piece about why books still matter framed around Freedom; the fact that the film rights have already been sold. Franzen is everywhere. And, as usual, the hype machine is working. At the time of this writing, Freedom is #8 on Amazon's bestsellers list — a full two weeks before it's published. 

Frankly, I can't get enough. It may diminish my enjoyment of the book (which is what people who hate the hype machine are known to claim, right?), but I love the fact that a literary novelist has so pervaded our consciousness. And so I continue to devour every clip I can find. Yes, normally I hate the hype machine — but this time, the end justifies the means. 

So, what say you? Can you remember a non-Twilight, non-Harry Potter, non-Girl Who novel hyped as much as Freedom? What's your take on the hype machine? Cynic? Skeptic? Loathe it? Love it?