First, I read Annie E. Proulx's The Shipping News. Years ago, my friend Tony that I. Had. To. Read. It! He sang its praises and waxed rhapsodic about how much I would love it if I gave it a chance. For whatever reason, I never got around to it but always had it sitting on my mental bookshelf, ready to give it a try when the opportunity came. Well, I came across a used copy for a quarter at Goodwill a couple of months ago and figured I wasn't going to get it any cheaper than that. Taking it home, I read the whole thing, dutifully, patiently, waiting for the chapter or passage or plot twist that would ignite my inevitable love for the book.
I'm still waiting.
Honestly, I am not sure why in the world that book was a big deal to anyone. It won the Pulitzer Prize when it came out, was made into a Hollywood movie with Kevin Spacey, and was loved by many, including Tony who told me to read it in the first place. The language and syntax were unusual and idiosyncratic and I guess there's a certain pleasure to be had in that -- reading things that are said in a different way that what you're used to -- but overall, my thought was, "So what?" Nothing really happens. No one event really leads to any other event. For a book called The Shipping News, the story is remarkably rudderless. Maybe the news is that there's no plot. Anyway, I felt, in the end, that is was a waste of time. I felt nothing, learned nothing, and never felt that spark that I read books for. It was like finishing a really bland meal just because you've already paid for it and because you don't have anywhere else to be for an hour.
Second, I read A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. Like The Shipping News, it too won the Pulitzer when it came out and was also made into a less-than-successful Hollywood film. As you probably know, it is a modern version of Shakespeare's King Lear told from the perspective of the daughters. It's a dark book to be sure, not a feel-good read by any means. But the prose is confident and lovely, and the story itself shoots along, moving lower and lower as these people are taken over by greed, jealousy, lust, fear, and their own past. It's a good book the way Schindler's List is a good movie. It's powerful and well-made but dark and hard to find traditional enjoyment in at times. But still, it was big step up from TSN.
Three or four days ago, I finished Stephen King's 11/22/63, a time-travel fantasy in which an everyday joe goes back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK. Size-wise, the book is a monster at 850 pages, and yet I flew through it much faster than I made it through The Sleeping News. Suzy can attest that, if I had even a spare moment, I had it open. The characters were distinct, the dialogue was authentic, and the story just propelled me right through to the end. I cared about the characters, I cared about the outcome. The story and the people in it mattered to me.
These days, Stephen King is getting a lot of respect and accolades for his work and I'm glad. For a long time, he had a bad rep as just a twisted ghoul who happened to be able to crank out really big books. But now even some of the snootiest critics have acknowledged his 30+ year career. He's won some nice lifetime achievement type awards but it's a safe bet nothing he writes will ever win a Pulitzer or Nobel. And yet, I am struck by how much more I enjoyed his book over Proulx's or even Smiley's.If TSN was granola, 11/22/63 was a really fatty, carb-laden steak dinner. It may not have been as literarily healthy for me but it was a heck of a lot more satisfying and enjoyable. Shouldn't that be what matters when we read stories?
1 comment:
loved 11/22/63, although I cheated and listened to it instead of good old fashioned reading.
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