An Embarassment of Riches?
May 27, 2008 at 9:24 pm | In Books! Books! Books!, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentI read a news report from London this morning that details how Doris Lessing views her Nobel prize for literature as “a bloody disaster.” Lessing goes on to say that the amount of media attention she has received in the wake of winning the prize has siphoned away much of her writing time, and that it is now unlikely that she will ever write another novel length work of fiction. Lessing cautioned young writers to appreciate their literary gifts, saying, “Use it while you’ve got it because it’ll go. It’s sliding away like water down a plughole.”
It’s the kind of story that normally would have struck me as a bit sad. Anyone who’s everwritten knows that the muse is often fickle and that hitting a solid wall of writer’s block is one of the most frustrating experiences one can have outside of a DMV or a calculus class. This story didn’t bother me so much. Why? Lessing is 88 years old, has published 50+ novels, numerous volumes of short stories, memoirs, and even plays. All writers should be so lucky, to maintain literary relevance for a period of time during which most authors would have found themselves well past their sell-by date. And to have enjoyed acclaim in multiple formats and mutliple genres…well, perhaps what Lessing suffers from is simply an embarassment of riches.
I admit that I have only a passing familiarity with Lessing’s works. I do know that she began began writing science fiction some years into her career, only to be chided by some critics. I also know that she is often called a feminist writer, a label about which she was apprehensive. I also know that she has enjoyed much more critical acclaim and longevity than many of my favorite writers. Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Edgar Allan Poe, and Raymond Chandler all died well shy of their 88th year. But then again, they never had to feel the pain of the muse slipping down the drain, and maybe that’s a pain most writers would rather be spared…at any age.
The Stolen Child: Avid Readers’ Discussion 05/01/08
May 3, 2008 at 4:41 pm | In Avid Readers, Books! Books! Books!, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentFor the first time in three months, our book club meeting wasn’t assailed or even threatened by inclement weather. Discounting the near fog-like haze of pollen in the air that was wreaking havoc with the sinuses of a couple members (your faithful blogger included), it was a pleasant Thursday evening to relax, enjoy some snacks, and discuss Keith Donohue’s debut novel The Stolen Child. I’d been looking forward to reading and discussing this book for months. It is the first instance of real genre fiction that we’ve approached, and I was both nervous and excited about the reactions. I’m a great reader of genre fiction. I devour large chunks of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and noir mysteries for my pleasure reading, but I knew from prior discussions that the other Avid Readers were not great fans of the stuff. So it was with some eagerness and some trepidation that I opened the discussion of The Stolen Child.
Donohue’s novel, named for a William Butler Yeats poem in which a child is tempted away from the world of humans by a persuasive faery, is the story of a group of hobgoblins living in the forest somewhere in the northeaster United States. These faeries of the woods are eternally young and live a hardscrabble life in the forest, each waiting for his or her turn to switch places with a young human child and return to the human world. The story begins in the late 1940s with the abduction of Henry Day. Young Henry runs away from home one day and hides himself in a hollow tree, where he is seized by the hobgoblins, transformed through magic rites into one of their kind, and replaced by a changeling who is able to adapt himself physically to take the place of Henry Day. And so the young Henry Day becomes Aniday the hobgoblin/faery, and the changeling takes over Henry’s former life. The novel details the dovetailing development of both characters: Aniday’s search for his lost childhood and coming of age as a complex individual trapped in a child’s body, and Henry’s quest to find his place in the human world and discover the secrets of his long-lost past prior to his life as a changeling.
If all this sounds very outlandish and far-flung, it’s really not. Donohue uses his fantastic premise as a springboard to tell a story about the difference between an idealized childhood and the reality of life in modern America. Likewise, the hobgoblins of his novel are not the characters of Disney fairy tales: rather than living carefree in the forest, they brave the brutal elements and struggle to preserve the secret of their existence from the encroaching modern world. Above all, the strength of the novel is its ability to depict honest human emotion and ground the fantastic plot devices in a realistic setting. While hobgoblins and magic are most certainly the stuff of fantasy, the ephimeral nature of identity and the basic human desire for acceptance and belonging are not. At one point, a character in the novel mentions that many myths and legends are simply different modes of expressions for the human condition. It could be inferred by the reader that this is exactly what Donohue is attempting with The Stolen Child.
For a debut novel, The Stolen Child is a surprisingly polished and cohesive read. All the members of the group mentioned that they would read another of the author’s books. Even those members who were initially reluctant about reading a book categorized as fantasy reacted positively to The Stolen Child. In the end, I think those members walked away with a different impression of what fantasy literature could entail. I suggested also the works of Neil Gaiman and Christopher Moore as other works of fantasy that ground many of the genre’s tropes in the real world and use them to speak about the human condition.
I was very happy indeed that everyone approached this book and its genre with an open mind. I was even happier that their open-mindedness paid off and they enjoyed the book. We all agreed that one of the purposes of our club was to read things we normally wouldn’t read.
Next month, we’ll discuss another debut novel: Michael Cox’s The Meaning of Night. Subtitled A Confession, this novel is set in Victorian England and contains the first-person account of a man plotting the death of his sworn enemy. Despite weighing in at a hefty 700 pages, it promises to be an enthralling read if the numerous glowing reviews are to be believed. We’ll meet on Thursday June 5 at 6:30 for light refreshments and discussion. As always, we welcome and encourage all newcomers. Book club copies of The Meaning of Night are available for extended checkout at the information desk. Drop in and pick up a copy, and we’ll look forward to seeing you at our next meeting.
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