811

I recently came across a poet who is new to me. Mary Oliver has written and published poems and prose for decades. I had run across one of her works, liked what I read and then went searching into the SLFL catalog. No dice. So I expanded my search to include the entire CEF system and hit pay-dirt. I made my requests online and then went back to browsing. If you want to see the collection of American poets in the SLFL wander over to the 811s in the non-fiction section of the library.

I received the first book last Friday and have been enjoying it since then. Included in the book are a number of short items that are termed prose poems. Now, I’ve used the term prose before but I realized today that I may have misspoken in the past. When I started to think about the term I realized I was unhappy with any definition I might use for the word. So I did what any librarian worth her / his salt would do: I did a search.

I checked a number of different sources including the OED, American Webster Dictionary, Encyclopedia Britannia and Wikipedia to educate myself. This is what I came up with: all writing structure can be summed up into just two categories. They consist of prose and verse (poetry). So if it is not verse (poetry) then it is prose. This definition can get rather sticky. Another way to think about it is that prose is the use of the English language in the written form when not meant to be perceived as poetry. These are both pretty broad definitions. So I continued my search and I also came across a quote that I liked and explains the issue nicely. The quote is attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and I've paraphrased it here: “prose is made up of words in their best order; poetry is the best words in their best order." Nice, huh? And of course none of that helps if the poet her/himself has put the two terms together as Ms. Oliver has done. In addition, after rereading Mr. Coleridge words and giving them some more thought it seemed to me that any writer who wanted to produce poems would have to build upon their own prose first. In other words you need to master prose prior to working on poetry. If you don’t know what the best order is then I think it would be hard to put the best words in the best order. But maybe not.

Hmmm, it has also occurred to me that what the best words might be is also a variable. I’m not sure that Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver would always agree as to what the best words or the best order for those words might be in any given situation. But both of these poets have a tremendous use of the English language. Both often wrote about nature and the interaction of themselves and others with the landscape. Both also delved into how that relationship is perceived by both the writer and then the reader. I’m also pretty sure that both would feel that they had more often then not hit the mark on what it was that they were tyring to achieve. Which is all very nice for us as readers.

And isn’t that is part of the enjoyment of coming across a new writer? Especially when finding a new, to you, poet. I think that in poetry, or even prose, the initial point of contact and following relationship of discovery between the reader and the writer can be extraordinary. All of a sudden you find someone who has taken your thoughts and put them to paper in a unique and artist way. And perhaps in a way that you yourself didn’t even realize was actually what you were thinking about before you read the work. Almost as if they had already read your mind and then run ahead, just a bit, putting the thought to paper and then just waiting for you to catch up.

See you at the Library,
Pete

Pete's Picks

I recently added a new side panel to the blog. Over there on your right you’ll see a section entitled “Pete’s Picks”. What I wanted to do was to let readers know about different books that I’ve read over the years that have had a major impact on what I read, how I read and how I think about books and other written works that have stayed with me long after I closed the cover.

As the title states these are “Pete’s Picks” and some or all of them may not be your cup of tea. Why this happens to some folks with a specific book and not to others I have no idea. I was once talking to a musician about a particular artist, long dead, who is now seen as the epitome of a specific genre. I said that I had purchased copies of his music and listened diligently to it but and before I could finish the sentence he added “To you it sounded like a dog with it’s hind leg caught in a barbed wire fence, right?” I said “Yeah”. He just smiled, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yeah, sometimes it does.” So, these titles might not do it for you. All I can say is that at one time or another they did for me. I’m also pretty sure that my age when I came across the book and whatever else was going on in my life probably had an impact on my ability to get something out of whatever I was reading at the time too.

In order to put together this list I decided that I needed a criterion to sift through all that I’ve read. So, I decided to think about all of the books that, for one reason or another, just knocked my socks off. I also decided that I was going to restrict myself to those works that I’ve read at least twice. Now, for many of the books listed I’ve actually read the book way more then twice. There was a run of about ten years when I read Call of the Wild every autumn. Like many other people I’ve read other works by Jack London. And I enjoyed some of them. But none of the others did for me what Call of the Wild did. Some of these works also lead me to other books by the same author. The Son Avenger by Sigrid Undset is the final book in a four part series. I didn’t know it at the time but I read the last book first. The series actually starts with The Axe, flowed by The Snake Pit and In the Wilderness and finishes with The Son Avenger. For me the order that I originally read them in didn’t and doesn’t matter. I can still to this day feel myself getting excited about both The Axe and The Son Avenger.

Now, my criteria also stated that the book had to change the way I thought. What I mean by that is that the work had to change the way I viewed books, reading and writing. The work had to bring something new to the way I viewed the experience of reading. I had to readjust the reading experience to make room for the work I had just finished. For whatever reason the new work had succeeded in making me see the written word in a new way, the work didn’t fit neatly into any of my old parameters. The book had to challenge what I thought I knew about reading and writing. The book had to make me go beyond what I already knew. Two books that did these things for me are One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Beloved by Toni Morrison. I also had to enjoy the experience. I wasn’t about to inflict something that I had to grind through onto someone else.

Do I still read what I consider “fluff”? Of course I do. And I still enjoy it. Who wouldn’t? But every now and then as a reader you come across something that causes you to think, and to think long and hard. And you don’t begrudge the effort to make sense of what you are reading one little bit. The work, the characters or the setting just stays with you. It all works for you. These books have all stayed with me. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be expanding the list. Yesterday, a book came across the circ desk and I immediately remembered the work and I also remember the experience of reading it long, long ago. I then realized that this particular book had stayed with me even though I hadn’t stayed with it. I checked it out on my card. Know what? It’s still pretty good.

See you at the Library,
Pete

THe 3 Cs

Early last winter I read a particular book. And a few days ago I saw that a patron was checking out the same book. There are a number of things that made this read memorable for me. The first is that I read the book in pretty much three long sittings. I remember starting on a kind of dreary, washed out, snowy Saturday afternoon and finished the book the following Sunday evening just as it was getting dark. As a rule I don’t read this way. But with this book I did.

The title of the book is Born to Run and it is written by Christopher McDougall. Now what made the read so enthralling to me was that this particular work has all of components I look for in a book. It has the three Cs: crafting, characters and content.

Now, all reviews have subjective components. I am no different from anyone else. But what I do have is that I read a fair bit. I read across wide subjects and genre. And I also look for how well the author builds and develops her / his characters and story. I also look for those things you learned about in English Lit. like metaphors, symbolism, foreshadowing etc.

The first thing I look for is the crafting involved in the book. This can be as minute as the use of a particular word in a critical point of the book, or sentence. Yep, I also look at sentence structure when reading. Just how well are the strings of words put together? This builds to the next supporting structure the paragraphs and then to the chapter. If the detail to each word is there and you can find it in the sentence there is a good bet you’ll also find it in the paragraphs and then in the chapters. If the writer has taken care of the details in each sentence then it is a good bet that the whole book will usually taken care of too.

The characters you find in a book are often the most memorable parts. Now, sometimes a physical place can be a character but usually it’s the people that you meet who stay with you, so for whatever reason the author has connected with you through her / his characters. Maybe we recognize a bit of ourselves in the one of the protagonists or antagonists. (Yep, I sometimes use those terms when talking about books too.) Or perhaps we see who we would like to be or how we once were. But there, right between the covers we recognize the character ‘cause she / he is us.

The third aspect of what makes a good read is content. If the book doesn’t reach out and grab you then you might as well be vacuuming the house. At least that way you’ll be doing something useful so you can then go do something worthwhile or fun. What is interesting is that this third component is not dependent on the first two. It is a stand alone aspect of the read. Without it even the best crafted works with the most memorable of characters just doesn’t measure up.

Born To Run has the three Cs. I’m really glad I was on the desk the other day. I was able to reach back into my memory and think about the book. Not only did I remember the wording, characters and settings I also remember the way the book grabbed me by the neck, gave me a good shake and then took me along on a ride that lasted for over twenty-four hours.

See you at the Library,
Pete

The Very Best Answers

A little while ago I received a book in the mail. I had been told about the work by the person who had read it and she had given me a taste. So my interest was peaked and I was looking forward to reading the book.

I do need to say right up front that I don’t want to ruin the read for anyone. So, I’ll only give the stingiest of a story outline here.

I read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot in two long pulls. The story is one of those where life is stranger then fiction. No one could ever make any of this up. And if someone did we would immediately classify the book as fiction. It isn’t. The book chronicles the real life events to real flesh and blood individuals. The work centers around the recovery of live cells from an African-American woman shortly before her death in early 1950’s Maryland and how those cells became the first human cells to be prorogated outside of a live person. The live cells, know as HeLa, provided the ground work required for almost every medical advance in the last 50 years. The propagated cells also made it possible for progress to occur in not only the medical fields but also in technological, industrial and military applications.

But the book goes well beyond a retelling or documenting of cell recovery and propagation. Ms. Skloot brings us face to face with an incredible array of individuals. We do meet researchers, doctors, technicians, scientists, administrators and lawyers. We also meet Ms Lacks’ husband, children, cousins and other neighbors and assorted relatives from Clover, VA and Baltimore, MD. Each has an individual perception and very human reaction to the harvesting of Ms Lacks cells.

Ms. Skloot uses the visual cue of a timeline to help the reader along their journey. And it is a good Idea that she does. The different chapters do move around in time a bit and the visual cue helps to center the reader. Along the way Ms. Skloot also becomes a character in her work and is no longer a dispassionate, third person observer. We read her emotional reactions to events as they unfold. And when she does enter into the work, it is completely appropriate that she do. It provides the reader with another perception of events and individuals.

Along with the very human stories that unfold we are also given a window into the ethical and legal ramifications of what took place and what continues to occur in the world of medical research today. These sections of the book provide the reader ample ground for continuing discussions that range from bioethics to personal moral obligations; to the role of corporate responsibilities to perceptions of individuals towards institutions and the need for historical accuracy in the documentation of research to the right to an individuals’ privacy. None of these discussions have any easy answers and all could continue long after the book is closed. And that is what leads to the title of this post because the very best of answers always leads to many, more questions.

See you at the Library,
Pete

Scout, Jem & Atticus Turn 50

Somehow I had never gotten around to reading To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. When I read that there were a number of celebrations this summer to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of the work I decided it was time to find a copy and read it. When I casually mentioned to others that I hadn’t read the book, or even seen the movie, they all looked at me in sort of a stunned disbelief. I’m not exactly sure how I had gotten to this point in my life without ever reading the work. But I did know how to remedy the situation. The copy I read I found in the oversized paperback collection just to the right of the paperback carousels and just to the left of the VHS collection at the SLFL.

I’m not going to review the work from the storyline standpoint. There is no need. The book won a Pulitzer Prize; it is considered an American classic and has been in print continuously for fifty years. If it wasn’t good on a number of different levels it never would have lasted this long. What I do want to talk about is my personal experience to the crafting of the work and the development of the reader that the characters and the events written about provide.

Ms. Lee leaves nothing to chance. The work is crafted in the most wonderful of ways. Part way through the work the reader realizes that when Ms. Lee brings in a new character, encounter or setting you can be sure that this character or event will reverberant forward and add to the unfolding of the story. As a reader I found that nothing was wasted and that, if I choose too, I could delve into what might be coming round the bend. I didn’t. And the reason I did not was because I was happy to leave my imagination and intellect in the good hands of Ms. Lee. She did not disappoint me and like all good reads, she did at times surprise me. She also caused me to wonder. I thought about the characters, time and setting. I also thought about when the work was published and about life in America right now. The story takes place in 1935. The work was first published in 1960. It is now 2010. A lot has happened in the past 75 years but the story still has power. The moral and ethical questions examined and pursued in the work continue to be wrestled with even today. I would not doubt that human beings will continue to raise and think about the issues surrounding human dignity and the frailty of human institutions for many centuries to come. At least, I would like to think so.

I am still confused as to why I had never read the book prior to this week. I must have been in the wrong English or American Literature classes. What I will say is that I’m glad to have met the characters in To Kill A Mocking Bird. I’ll also say that I personally believe that when you read you only get out of the book whatever you are ready to take in from that work. Now, because of my age, education and experiences I can appreciate the Ms. Lee’s efforts on a number of different levels. It is rich writing and rich reading. You can also be sure that I won’t wait another fifty years to reread the book.

See you at the Library,
Pete

The Past Isn’t Even Past

Two weeks ago I read a recommended review of Hellhound On His Trail by Hampton Sides. I was attracted to the review because of the title; as a guitarist I recognized the reference. After reading the review I dashed off an email recommending that the library purchase the book. The next day I was told that the book had already been ordered. Two days later it arrived. Over the weekend I read it; even though I already knew the story.

The book recounts the intertwining of the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Earl Ray. I’m old enough to remember what happened in Memphis on April 4, 1968. So before I ever opened the book I knew what was going to take place and who all the principle individuals were. The book begins with Ray’s escape from prison in 1967 and ends with his death in another prison in 1998. Along the way the author reveals how Ray’s life would be forever bound with that of Martin Luther King.

Like many working writers today Hampton Sides writes non-fiction as if it were fiction. When discussing his work Sides quotes Shelby Foote who said he “employed the novelist’s methods without his license”. It’s a good description of what you will find when you read the book. And it’s not a bad way to read fiction.

The ironies found within the book are almost overwhelming. A practitioner of non-violent protest is murdered in an extraordinarily violent way. By the time of his death King who had earned a PhD, founded and lead a national organization, received the Nobel Peace Prize and was internationally known and an inspiration to generations of people. He had come to Memphis to bring attention to a garbage workers strike. To assist individuals who earned their living in perhaps the most menial of labor. Ray’s life as a small time criminal and his attempts to begin a porno business as a photographer and distributor are documented. Throughout the book many individuals who spent time with Ray remark on his ability to be so non-memorable as to almost not exist. Prior to attending the Memphis garbage workers strike, King had been working on his plan to bring the Poor People’s Campaign to Washington, DC. King’s idea was that the PPC would bring to the nation’s attention what the effects of chronic poverty were to all people, not just Black Americans. Ray’s early life and upbringing was mired in generational poverty. The consequences of which were to set the path of his adult life.

The entwining of these two lives is best told via a book. And I will go further. It is best read, not listened to. When you read you are given time to reflect as you go. You can reread. You can refer back. And once finished you can pick up the book again. And by doing any or all of these things you become an active participant with the written words. Sides’ writing certainly has something to do with your ability to do these things. With another writer you might not finish the work; you already know the individuals and the ending before you begin. But these words stuck with me and I’ve continued to think about what I read; and how these two people and the events of their lives continue to affect mine. What more can you ask of a book?

See you at the Library,
Pete

Good Bad Guys & Bad Good Guys

Yesterday I did something I rarely do: in a few hours I read a 300 page novel from cover to cover. I usually characterize myself as a moderate reader speed-wise but yesterday was different.

I cruised through Gone ‘Til November by Wallace Stroby. I think my ability to read the novel quickly might be due to Mr. Stroby’s skill as a former newspaper writer and editor rather then my skill as a speed reader.

The book is a murder mystery based on an event that brings together a few sheriffs deputies in rural northern Florida with gangsters from Newark, NJ and big city southern Florida. Some of the events and background are predicable, but that provides the reader with a starting-off point with each character. We already know stuff about these folks before we even open the book. The story moved along quickly with a few twists and turns until everything climaxes in the final dozen or so pages.

In the story, the two main antagonists are individuals who we might normally easily type-cast. We have a bad guy who on occasion does good or at least “honorable” things and a good guy who does bad or “despicable” things. To add to the confusion the bad guy often does terrible things to horrible people, implying that they deserve exactly what they get, and the good guy has done only one bad thing that has lead to the complete downward spiral of his life. Of course, we find that the protagonist of the story has had a love interest relationship with one antagonist and in a weird sort of way develops a concerned relationship while trading pistol shots with the other.

However, the murder and mayhem depicted throughout the story is not what I was thinking about once I had closed the covers. It was the idea that we have now transmuted a “Robin Hood” type character so thoroughly. The concept of the good person forced to be an outlaw who does only good has been transformed here into a person who doesn’t have the baggage of the good person forced into banditry. Being on the wrong side of the law is where this individual intended to be all along. And as another twist, in the “Dirty Harry” movies we have a cop who “lives by his own rules” to do good and we’re all now very familiar with that individual. In this story we have the same individual, living by his own rules, who uses his talents for nefarious purposes and does bad.

There was plenty of eye-brow raising and internal confusion on my part all along the way. And once finished I had a couple of questions including: who really was the intended protagonist of the book? I could also be easily reading way more into the book then the author indented. There are plenty of chase scenes, lots of gunplay, along with sex, drugs and reggae music coupled with enough back stories among the characters to keep the reader busy for a while. So you might want to mosey over to the Seven-Day Book Shelf and give the read a spin.

If you’ve read a book that left you scratching your head about the motives of the characters lately, be sure to post a comment.

See you at the Library,
Pete

Murder, mystery and mayhem in Northwestern Alaska

Twice this past week I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish a book; both of which were written by Stan Jones. The first was White Sky, Black Ice and the second was one of our newest arrivals here at the SLFL: Village of the Ghost Bears: A Nathan Active Mystery. In it we meet Alaskan State Trooper Nathan Active who in a stroke of bureaucratic irony is stationed in his birth village of Chukchi, a remote Input village in rugged northwestern Alaska which happens to be just about as far from the bright lights of Anchorage has he could have been sent.
There are enough interesting folks living in the middle of nowhere that things are never boring for Trooper Active. And once you throw in political intrigue, murder, bush pilots, hunters, guides, emotional baggae and the complicated family trees and responsibilities of the region, you have the recipe for a good read. I also liked that all of the folks living in Chuckchi seemed to get around by either snow machine or four wheel ATV depending on the season.
To find the book just look for it with the other new arrivals on the 7 Day Book shelves. Or if you can't get into the library right away come to our web site www.saranaclakelibrary.org/ and make a request.


And here is Mr. Jones official website: www.sjbooks.com/vogb.html