Book Review: Unless It Moves the Human Heart by Roger Rosenblatt

It's a good thing I read this book in addition to all the others I've been reading lately, or you were all going to start thinking I'm incapable of doing anything but gush when writing about a book I read and then why would you bother to trust my opinion? And that's really what book recommendations are all about, trust, so without that, I wouldn't blame you for flitting away into the blogosphere to find some other bookworm to follow. Sad thought.

That is me trying to be positive about being so greatly disappointed by this book. Unless It Moves the Human Heart is a slim volume on the craft and art of writing, as the subtitle explains, written as an account of one semester of a writing class taught by the author, Roger Rosenblatt. I think perhaps it would have been best for Rosenblatt to stick with fiction, which I'm sure he knows well.

Although there were interesting ideas scattered throughout these pages, ultimately, the book felt forced and uncomfortable. Rosenblatt was not writing from an audio recording of the semester, so naturally he substituted conversation as necessary to represent their actual discussions. This conversation, though, bore little to no resemblance to any conversation I've ever heard, be it in class or out of it:

"What is a paragraph, anyway?" asks Suzanne.
[Ok, odd question, but I'm willing to see where this goes.]
"Damned if I know. I used to think I knew what a paragraph was until a few months ago, when I did a piece for the New Yorker. My editor, Dorothy Wickenden, changed my entire view of a paragraph simply by editing the piece in a certain way. I wrote three paragraphs, and Dorothy would yoke them into one. And it read much better."
[Oooh, the New Yorker, ain't you a fancy one.]
"But a paragraph is just an idea, one complete movement," Ana says. "You write one movement. Then you go on to the next."
[Clearly it is not that simple, and this continues for approximately two more pages.]

Or, a longer passage but an even better example:

"Okay, Robert." I point to him. "You started all this. What do you think the connection between reading and writing is?"
[Ok, I'm really excited about this, because I am fascinated by the connection between the two. Personally, I don't believe they can be separated.]
"Oh," he says, "I just wanted to hear from the others."
"No, you don't. Spill."
[Excellent! Here we go! Discourse! Dialog!]
"Well," he says, "since I labor in both the dungeon of daily restaurant drudgery and the mines of weekly journalism...
[Oh, dear, people don't really talk like that. Do they? Poor listeners...]
"I was a precocious reader as a child, urged on by the intellectual aspirations of my college-educated mother, and the severe rule...of the Little Dominican Sisters, who lacked charity... When I was in the seventh grade, test results showed I read like a twelfth-grader...
[Real impressive, son.]
"I wrote poetry as a kid, probably because it seemed easier than fiction. The nuns were delighted, and this only served to solidify my reputation as a sensitive child."
"Which you still are," says George.
"Maybe," says Robert...
Kristie looks at me. "What about you? Was there an author or book that got you going?"
"Not a book. But a moment."

Come oooon, people. We don't talk like that in the real world. Maybe writing students do, I suppose, but in that case... well, I'll skip it, at any rate. Ignoring the fact that every person "says" something, when word variation is rumored to be a critical part of creative writing, this is just cliché.

Which is not to say it is all bad. There are definitely interesting ideas here, masked beneath awkward and bulky dialogue. And it's a quick read, so it could be worth it if you're looking for some interesting thinking about writing and the act of writing. But be prepared for some grimacing, and possibly out-loud groaning, and sadly, not all that much moving of your writer's heart.

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Note: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

When Work Takes Over (A Week in Reading)

Hoooo boy. Is it Sunday already? Damn. That means I have to go back to work tomorrow. Luckily I'll have a dozen bagels from Brooklyn Bagel in tow after my fly-by trip to NYC. If you have never had a Brooklyn Bagel, drop everything you are doing and start traveling. These are the best bagels in New York City, and everyone knows NYC has the best bagels in the world. We're talking bacon scallion cream cheese, bookworms. HELLO.

There's a distinct lack of bagel offerings down in suburban Maryland. It's not even that they aren't good bagels (because I am a bagel snob); there just aren't bagels (except the ones at the grocery store, but screw that). I'd like to try making my own someday - anyone know how? Any good recipes? Tips? Thoughts? Must start planning before the next round of severe bagel withdrawal.

It's been a crazy week for me with work again (still?), so my apologies for being scarce out there. I'm looking forward to taking some time today to catch up on comments and other posts and some general bookish news. I'm also hoping to have at least a few minutes to get further into The Memory Palace. It's taken the place of Homer and Langley on my shelf - as much as I love Doctorow and want to read this one, it just wasn't working at the moment. Presto! New book selected. I'm also listening to The Help during my commutes, which is excellent thus far. Remind me again why I've waited so long to finally get to this one?

Despite the chaos, I did manage to catch up on a few reviews: Great House (which had been lingering on the shelf, waiting to be reviewed since I read it in November) and The Great Typo Hunt. Sadly, I found neither to be great, per se, although I wasn't completely against either, either.

Monday sparked quite the debate on whether or not it is acceptable or even encouraged to write in books. Me? I write in them. All the time. I open a book with pen in hand, and start the trend by writing my name and the date on the first page. Join the discussion and let us know what your thoughts are. And if you're interested in marginalia (or avidly against it), this New York Times article on the decline of margin notes is well worth the read (thanks to Ellen at Fat Books & Thin Women and Steph at Bella's Bookshelves for pointing out the link).

Here's to another great week of reading and writing. Happy almost-March!

Paradise Will Be a Kind of Library (Quote of the Day)

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." -Jorge Luis Borges

Book Review: The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck & Benjamin D. Herson

Dear friends, I am one of those people that so many booklovers loathe: I write in my books. I wrote about this in more detail last week, so if you want to join the do-you-write-in-books-debate, click on over and check it out. I love click-throughs. But here, I just wanted to mention that even when I am not taking notes in my books, underlining and marking passages to revisit later on, I mark the typos.

And there are inevitably typos, people. You know that.

Which is why I was thrilled to receive a copy of The Great Typo Hunt for Christmas this year. Two friends changing the world one correction at a time? Sign. Me. Up. I want to go back in time and roadtrip with them, actually. Can we make that happen?

Seems the best we can do is a recap of that very trip, which is exactly what The Great Typo Hunt is. Only with more pontificating.

This pseudo-memoir, pseudo-case-against-mistakes-in-the-English-language covers the epic three-month roadtrip in which Jeff Deck drove all the way around the country - not just across it, but around it - with various friends in tow, correcting the inevitable typos of the world.

Though I myself am obsessed with typos and grammar mistakes (and I love to correct them, and - god forbid! - be corrected should I make one), this book fell a little flat for me. Though I understand that the obnoxious, overstated manner in which it is written was intentional hyperbole, it was grating at first, and only bearable by the end.

"I shall skip describing the scene at the Minneapolis airport, where Jane [his girlfriend] and I bade each other farewell, lest the upwelling of your tears streak the ink of these pages and damage this highly collectible book." (159)

I get it. Really, I do. It's supposed to be funny overstatement, grandiose claims on the importance of this journey and this book to account for the importance of speaking and writing correctly. But really, get over it and just tell me about the typos.

Luckily, in that regard, the book did not disappoint. Typos abound - mostly in stories and pictures of those they spotted and corrected across the nation, but also one on page 99 where a space is missing between the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next. See? I told you I spot them. And circle them, too.

Deck's and Herborn's account of correcting typos is often humorous, sometimes laugh-out-loud so, and occasionally disheartening, as we come across people who just can't seem to care. Grammar is important, people! Spelling, too! And punctuation changes the meaning of a sentence. Really, it does.

Not everyone sees it like that, of course, which accounts for the artist who didn't mind selling "art" that read "Bon Appetite" or the court case filed against Deck and Herborn for changing a National Park sign without permission. Yes, an actual court case. In a real court. This is what the National Park Service is doing with their limited budgets.

Deck and Herborn often descend into the trap that is pontification (I just can't resist using that word), which, though dragging at times, is somewhat inspiring, too.

"We speak, and write, in one of the most diverse, gloriously ecumenical tongues on the planet. In English, there is a word or phrase for pretty much anything we want to say, and if there isn't, we make it up, and it is welcomed into the family. We can express ourselves as complexly or simply as we like. We can be magniloquent didacts, or we can talk plain." (156)

Bottom line: Us bookworms love our language, and, like Deck and Herson, strive to see it used correctly. That means you. That means spelling, grammar, and punctuation. That means correcting errors and learning why they were wrong in the first place. Though at times subjective, there are rules to language for a reason - to allow us to communicate clearly. In the end, Deck and Herson realize that this is their ultimate goal - to improve communication. And this end goal, though worthwhile and important, is bogged down in overwritten passages and standoffish text. The concept is a good one, but the book fails to stand up to its potential. That, and it has a typo in it.

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As an afterthought, I would also mention that the book has a not-so-useful appendix in the back, detailing various grammar rules, how to spot them, and how to use that particular device correctly (apostrophes, commas, etc). I question whether or not Deck and Herson - and their publisher, for that matter - really understood their readers on this point. After all, wouldn't someone drawn to reading a book about typos not being interested in a bare-bones how-to guide? One can safely assume we already know where to place apostrophes, and a part of us gets off on telling other people where they go. We don't need step-by-step instructions here.

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Thoughts from other bookworms:

Citizen Reader, Not so great

In place of this, you might like:

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

The Advantage of Authors

One day when Franklin was dining out in Paris with some friends, one of the diners posed the question, "What condition of man most deserves pity?" Each guest proposed an example and Benjamin Franklin said, "A lonesome man on a rainy day who does not know how to read."

And he said, "I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first."

From the Jan 17th issue of Writer's Alamanac

Bookworm Stool

I'm not convinced that a cardboard stool would actually make a very sturdy seat, but I love this anyway.

Available from Form, Function, Style for $59

Book Review: Great House by Nicole Krauss

Ok, bookworms. I read Great House on my honeymoon - that was the first week of November - and I'm only now figuring out what to say about it. Still figuring, even as I write this. Do the math: that's four months later, people, which does not bode well for my thoughts. I usually finish a book and immediately start singing its praises (or problems, even) to the world, whether they want to listen or not.

But this book took some mulling. Not necessarily a get-under-your-skin and stay-with-you kind of mulling, but an I-really-don't-know-how-I-felt-about-that kind of mulling.

As expected, Krauss' writing style is strong. As with History of Love, there are passages here that leap off the page and stand alone, beautiful in their own right:

"No, I don't harbor any mystical idea about writing, Your Honor, it's work like any other kind of craft; the power of literature, I've always thought, lies in how willful the act of making it is." (p. 18)

"But don't you feel, deep down, that there's something special about you? he asked me, carelessly swinging his legs while down below us swimmers, or perhaps dogs, tried to make their way against the current. No, I whispered, trying to hold back tears, No, I don't, while Daniel Varsky looked at me with a mixture of bewilderment and pity." (p.205)

The characters here, all tied loosely together by their association with an antique writing desk composed of drawers of various sizes, struggle with their human condition: they are imperfect, they are unsure, they are growing old, and dying, and losing their families. These emotions are familiar, and thus, I found that I identified, in some way, with nearly every one of the many characters littering the pages of Great House.

Despite this, however, the novel as a whole lacked the substance to hold it together. Though the lessons to be learned on aging, family, and acceptance are powerful ones, the tie of the desk was not nearly as alluring as I had hoped it might be. I turned the last page of the book expecting more, still waiting for the story to end.

Bottom line: Perhaps the muddled nature of Great House was intentional, for even though this book ranks low for me, I do not doubt Krauss' skill. Maybe I missed something, or maybe I wasn't in the right mindset, or maybe my expectations were just too high after falling head-over-heels for History of Love. But ultimately, Krauss' most recent novel left me slightly confused, waiting for resolution, and still unsure of what I'd read.