A hard-hearted reader

 

Word count: 347              Reading time: 1-2 mins.

Recently, as I struggled to read a library book, I found someone’s forgotten bookmark at page 50. I fanned through the rest of the pages, looking for any traces of wear. They were pristine, which should have been a warning. It was a new release and I had waited weeks for it so this sign of early abandonment intrigued me. In spite of that alarm bell I kept reading. Finally I’d invested so much time I refused to put it aside. I finished it.

Victor Hugo said, “Short as life is, we make it even shorter with the careless waste of time.” To me, that book was a waste of time. I should have held to my usual rule: if a plot or character doesn’t grab me in the first half hour it’s time to move on. I won’t let a bad book rob me of precious minutes and hours again.

The other side of this coin is when I fall for a book, I fall hard. I borrow from the library to test-drive literature. When I find something I love, I buy it because I know I’ll want to read it more than once.  

So can I answer that party question: ‘what is your favourite book’? Nope. I can’t even list my five favourite books or authors. Neil Gaiman summarized my feelings when he said, “Picking five favourite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose.”

I can list my five favourite books of the past six months, the books I have bought or will buy, because they have transported me to exciting new places, times, and emotions. In no particular order they are; The Fault In Our Stars (John Green), Perfect (Ellen Hopkins), The Winter Palace (Eva Stachniak), Plain Kate (Erin Bow), and All Good Children (Catherine Austen).

Do you have one definitive favourite book or author? What are your criteria for a good read? Are you perseverant with dull books, pushing through to the end even when they don’t enchant? If not, when do you cut your losses?

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 Photo by: Tamás Ambrits

Words Fail Me

Word count: 218                  Reading time: 1 min.

Years ago, I saw the Bangarra Dance Theatre perform at the Theatre Royal in Sydney, Australia. The Aboriginal troupe performed Rations and Rush, pieces that explore the torturous path indigenous people have walked since the arrival of European settlers. Dancer Russell Page spoke of the agony and triumphs poignantly with his strong, lithe body. I left the theatre uplifted and saddened.

When I heard of Page’s suicide the very next morning, words failed me. Inexplicable, profound grief, for someone I’d never met, flooded over me. Ten years and one international move later, the program from that performance remains preserved on my bookshelf. The sorrow I felt that sunny winter morning is renewed whenever I remember Russell Page. I don’t claim to mourn him every day but his memory lives at the edge of my consciousness. The words to explain my feelings still escape me.

To paraphrase T.S. Elliot, it’s strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the writer must struggle for words. Or maybe, as the Bee Gees sang, “It’s only words and words are all I have.” Maybe I expect too much of them.

When have words failed you? What have you done to capture an elusive emotion you want to bring to the page or share with a friend?

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Photo: Bear66

Three Days to Save Planet Earth!

Word Count: 320 words  Reading time: 2-3 mins.

Last week I tossed a pile of junk mail onto the kitchen table and these words jumped out at me: Three Days to Save Planet Earth. I blinked and looked again. The flyer actually read: Three Days to Save. I don’t remember what was being advertised because I was too busy catching my breath from the false alarm that the entire planet was three days away from annihilation. I know it’s polluted and overcrowded but I mean, really?

At times my imagination seems to be the most active part of my body. Jules de Gaultier said, “Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.” By those standards I guess I’m well armed.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry thought a rock pile ceased to be a rock pile the moment a single person saw in it the image of a cathedral. As a child I passed many hours building castles on the gray sands of Kye Bay. They housed magical creatures that carried me far away from my dull, earth-bound existence. Those creatures deserted me for a while when I grew up. I’m glad they found me again.

But when I misread that flyer, I immediately started wondering what I should do with my last 72 hours. Very quickly, reality slapped me down with a thud, as it often does. I don’t mind though; in fact I’m grateful that my imagination still launches itself in random directions like this. Without it, that pile of mail would have been nothing more than a stack of paper on its way to the recycling bin. Instead it was a rich opportunity to contemplate an alternative reality.

That flight of fancy wasn’t all that unusual for me and it made me wonder: is this a form of mild dyslexia? Do other writers see things that aren’t there? If you’re one that does, has your distorted reading, hearing, or seeing ever led you to a great story or plot twist?

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Photo by: Len Green

Once more - with feeling!

Word count: 329                                                   Reading time: 2-3 mins

Australian author P.L. Travers said, “A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.” She learned so much that her Mary Poppins book series has realized every author’s dream: it thrives long after her death.  

World Read Aloud Day came and went this week and I wondered how many writers were even aware of it. [I wasn’t until today.] Its primary focus is global literacy and surely that is important to writers. Who are we without readers? Who are we without listeners?

Reading aloud lets writers pick up weasel-words that sneak in and repeat themselves monotonously. It lets us hear the flow. It’s difficult at first so when we sit down in writing groups and stumble through our stories and poems, we hope our listeners are forgiving. A reasonable expectation for emerging writers.

What about readings by professional writers? Surely they work to a higher standard. On our epic Outback adventure a few years ago, my husband and I took along Bill Bryson reading his book Down Under. His wry style enlivened hundreds of miles of long dusty roads. When Angie Abdou read at the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival last October her quarrelling characters sprang to life around her.

But I’ve also squirmed through sessions where it sounded like the writer was seeing the words for the first time. One writer in particular turned her head to the page and obscured any view of her face with a broad-brimmed hat. She didn’t lift her eyes once as she mumbled her way through pages of prose. Shouldn’t writing professionals polish their reading before they step in front of a mic? After all, a writer is only half the performance, the other half is the audience.

Have you read your work aloud recently? Did you discover things in it that you hadn’t seen before? Have you heard a writer bring their work to life with a spirited reading?

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Photo: somethingway

You can't say that

 Word count: 307                                   Reading time: 1-2 mins

Remuda – the word rolls off the tongue gently and sensually. Unless you’re a rider in North America, you may not know that it refers to the herd of horses from which ranch-hands choose their mount each day. I learned it after watching a video of the late, magnificent mare Whizard’s Baby Doll in a bridleless reining exhibition. That was a sad way to add to my vocabulary. Yet remuda is a word that will probably never make it into my fiction.

Years ago a friend gave me the book They Have a Word for It by Howard Rheingold. This gift has tortured me ever since. It offers a feast of delicious words that I can never use without sounding like a pretentious prat. I mean really – where would I use the Huron word orenda (the powerful voice that can be called upon to combat the blind forces of fate – the opposite of kismet)? While I think the Yiddish word berrieh (rhymes with dare ya) for an extraordinarily energetic, talented, and competent woman should be used daily to describe my remarkable friends, how many people would understand what I was talking about?

Some of the expressions like esprit de l’escalier and zeitgeist have come into more common usage since Rheingold penned his book in the 1980’s. Maybe in time some of my other favourites will be bantered about if not in conversation then in the written word. I can’t wait until we can finally say good-bye to the tired cliché, the elephant in the living room, and talk about getting down to the mokita of the situation.

Do you have words that slipped into your vocabulary because of some significant event in your life? Or have you come across words that you simply like a lot but know they are too esoteric to be used?

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Photo by: YazolinoGirl