inthelouvre.org

March 13, 2008

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is: How about a chance to play editor-in-chief? Fill in the blanks:

___ would have been a much better book if ___.

Where do I begin? On the Road by Jack Kerouac would have been a much better book if

• it wasn’t one long sentence.
• it wasn’t so boring.
• it actually was a story.
• it could be summarized in any way except by saying “it was long.”
• the main character travelled eastward instead of westward.
• the language wasn’t so long-winded that I fell asleep after every word, only waking up to realize that I’m in the same location as I was 10 pages ago, still pondering the same thoughts and ideas, still wondering about life.
• it was at all possible to enjoy this book during a time when I was happy and settled in life.

With all this in mind, though, I know that if I were allowed to edit On the Road before it was released into the public, it wouldn’t be as popular as it is today. I’m quite aware that some of these points are the reason why a lot of people like it (except the boring part, I think they just don’t want to admit that they didn’t have any fun reading it!).

Some bloggers’ answer to the question this week involve saying things like, “it’s not my place to change someone else’s work, that’s how they wanted it written!” and other things similar to what I just said above. However, it’s not a crime to have an opinion, especially if your opinion is right. Like mine is.

In all seriousness, though, what are your thoughts? Have you ever read through a book that pushed you in all the wrong ways and thought about how you could have made it better? And for that matter, what did you think of On the Road?

March 6, 2008

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is: Who is your favorite male lead character? And why?

1. Cliff Janeway from John Dunning’s Bookman mysteries. He’s cocky, but usually right. Some of his decisions may have stressed me out sometimes, while I was sucked into the books and hoping for a happier ending than the last one, but he always pulls through. Well, almost always. Plus, he falls in love with smart, beautiful, bookish women, and what smart, beautiful, bookish woman wouldn’t love to read about that?

2. Marius de Romanus from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. It’s been a while since I’ve read any of her vampire books but Marius still always sticks out as one of my favorite characters. He’s the first I’ve read that has had an appreciation for art, love, and beauty since the beginning of time. (How many other people can say that they’ve even appreciated the same things throughout just one lifespan?) To boot, he’s Roman. You can hardly get better than that.

3. Samwise Gamgee from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. It seems as though I’ve unintentionally picked entirely from series of books, as if a character couldn’t be my favorite unless I’ve read a lot about him! In any case, Sam probably wouldn’t be third on my list of 10 but he needs to be mentioned nonetheless. It goes without saying - he’s your best friend. He’s your right-hand man. He’ll always try to protect you, even in the direst of moments when it seems like the world is about to end. He brings you back from evil just by being so damned good. He is the truest of them all even with his faults, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to be by my side in an adventure.

(I had to keep it uniform and pick three or else my head would explode.) I don’t know if it was harder or easier than picking my favorite female character, because while in that case I had to choose from limited selection, in this case I have to choose across the boards. There are a lot of male characters who aren’t written well, but much more who (I think) are. In fact, most of the lead characters in my stories are male - why are they easier to write? Even the most complicated man in the world is easier to write than the least complicated female, to me. I wonder if other authors feel the same, and that’s why Pandora’s book (Anne Rice) was page after page of male influence.

Something to think on.

February 28, 2008

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is: Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)

1. Lyra from the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. She’s just so… badass. At thirteen years old she not only saves her own world, but saves other dimensions as well (okay, with a little help…). She has the strongest mind of a lot of female characters I’ve read in the past few years, and though her age shows, she’s nonetheless selfless and helpful. Her mission in life is to do the right thing.

2. Lucy from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I’m going for the L’s here. But seriously, she was the most willing to believe in possibility. As I understood it, she liked to make up stories, but when she became one it excited her all the more. None of it ever seemed odd to her - it fit right in place with her life - and I like that about her.

3. Cordelia from Shakespeare’s King Lear. Off the bat, she’s disowned for refusing to praise her father like her other sisters do. She’s the most level-headed in the whole play (in my opinion) but also the most strong-willed. She’s married based on her virtue, and her loyalty to her father (despite being kicked out of the family) strengthens throughout the play. She still refuses to give empty flattery to King Lear, but in the end she ends up forgiving him for his idiocy.

It must be very difficult to write female characters with any dimension or personality - either that, or I’m reading the entirely wrong books. I had to dig through my past reading lists just to think of these (except Lyra, who has always stood out in my mind). I had to remind myself whom I admired. There just weren’t a lot that I really loved. I spent last year trying to read more female authors; maybe this year I’ll try to read more female characters.

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