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Pushing yourself in an arena that you love means that coming up with different, new challenges is par for the course. Over the years there have been plenty of them for me in terms of literature. At eleven, it was perhaps making the big leap from the Babysitters' Club series to Gone With The Wind. At fourteen, it was all about getting *that* level 8 in my English Sats despite my teacher thinking I was unable to do so, and about writing my first full-length novel. At eighteen, I was analysing work at university level for my Advanced Extension Award and praying for a Distinction. At university itself, it was about accepting the fact that I was just more of an intrinsic reader than others, and that this wouldn't necessarily fly very well in seminars (and that neither would dissing William Blake).
After this, it was more about creativity and more trivial challenges again, with me taking part in NaNoWriMo in 2010, running a junior book club, and (in multiple years) taking part in the 50 book challenge. But as my job as a teacher got busier and I focused on other new professional and personal challenges (such as maintaining two other blogs and working towards my translation certificate), these types of literary challenges gradually fell by the wayside.
Recently, however, I've had an epiphany. While I enjoy light reading, and believe it's important to relieve the mundanity of our days with some comic relief, I've also come to realise that this often delivers little beyond immediate satisfaction. After reading, I'm in a position to enthusiastically recommend the book to others if I enjoyed it myself. But will I be able to tell them why it was good? In most cases, no - not without thinking hard, at least. And will I be rereading those same books? Again, probably not in most cases. This is where classical literature often, in my experience, has the upper hand: it may be harder and take longer to read, but it ultimately has a much greater, more far-reaching impact on the way we see ourselves and live our lives. There are reasons why these books are still talked about hundreds of years after they were written. And yet there are still so many classical works on my bookshelf that remain unread in their entirety (ashamedly, even my university studies at times required me to only read extracts from certain texts).
So this, in essence, is my challenge for 2014: read 50 classical works, and see how I feel at the end of it.
To concretise this challenge, here is the list of the books I will be reading. It's left certain things out based on what I've read before, and included certain things based on what one could consider to be important. While it seems ambitious, I'm trying to tell myself that I have no excuse. I have a long commute (around 3 hours a day) and this seems like the perfect excuse to spend less time online (although I will of course be reporting back here with reviews). If I do not possess them, I can also borrow many of these books from my workplace, or read them for free online, so it doesn't have to be an expensive endeavour either. Who knows - maybe some of you will even read along:
- The Mill on the Floss (George Eliot)
- Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
- The Rainbow (DH Lawrence)
- Tender is the Night (F Scott Fitzgerald)
- David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
- The Sorrow of War (Bao Ninh)
- Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)
- Heart of Darkness; Lord Jim (Joseph Conrad)
- Les Misérables (Victor Hugo)
- Paradise Lost (John Milton)
- Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)
- Waiting For Godot (Samuel Beckett)
- Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
- Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray)
- The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
- Ulysses (James Joyce)
- The Portrait of a Lady (Henry James)
- The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)
- One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)
- Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
- The Golden Notebook (Doris Lessing)
- The Time Machine (HG Wells)
- The Prince (Machiavelli)
- The Histories (Herodotus)
- Othello (Shakespeare)
- The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
- Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)
- The Red and the Black (Stendhal)
- Germinal (Emile Zola)
- Chéri (Colette)
- The Trial (Kafka)
- The Man in the Iron Mask (Alexandre Dumas)
- Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
- Memoirs of Hadrian (Marguerite Yourcenar)
- The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
- Around The World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne)
- Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
- Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe)
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Bronte)
- The Pearl, The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
- Eugene Onegin (Pushkin)
- The Three Sisters, The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov)
- The First Circle (Solzhenitsyn)
- The Mother (Maxim Gorky)
- The Birthday Party, The Caretaker (Harold Pinter)
- Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)
- Don Quixote (Cervantes)
- The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)
- Faust (Goethe)
Your views, as ever, are appreciated. What would you add or take away? Is the list too Eurocentric? Either way, I hope that by the end of 2014 I'll be a little less stupid and still have my game face on.
--The blurb--
"It is the summer of 1943 and war continues to rage. For Rose and her
sister Diana, it’s a time of independence and self-discovery as they
find first loves. But when Rose unearths a love story from another war,
she realises that wartime intensifies emotions, and maybe she isn’t in
love with Derry as she first thought she was. Rose is about to discover a
secret that will change everything..."
--The review--
With the centenary of World War One's beginning now less than twelve months away at the time of writing, it can at times be difficult to believe that something that still seems so close, in that it affected the lives of many of our grandparents, is yet so far back in the past. Michelle Magorian's 1991 novel A Little Love Song helps to revive certain aspects of how life was for young people at this time - pivotal not only for being in the synapse between childhood and adulthood, but also pivotal due to taking an important place in a changing world.
This wartime setting is typical of Magorian's novels, and here it plays a background rather than mainstream role, while still not being without significance: as a result of the difficulties of the mid-war period, young people are reflected in the novel as more independent, down-to-earth and capable. Even when confronted with challenges, Magorian's characters are still prepared to rise to these and to do their best, even when they are finding these moments tough. Even if this is not an accurate reflection of how adolescents actually were during the early 1940s, this depiction serves not only to give the book's teenage audience an example of good character, but also to inspire readers to admire the characters' resilience.
Equally, though, there is much in A Little Love Song to resonate with today's readers - not just in terms of burgeoning independence and sexual awakening, but also in terms of feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy, which are perennially adolescent problems. Magorian is a master at building up sympathy and revulsion in equal measure: in our heads, we rebuke characters for being silly, recoil at arrogant and misogynist behaviour, relate to their feelings, and rejoice in their triumphs. The pace at which this is done is carefully constructed and concise, and we will the characters to cope and to move towards the outcomes that we hope for.
All of this shows just why Michelle Magorian has been one of the most successful children's writers of the past forty years, thanks to her reach not only across present generations but also her ability to extend a hand into the hearts of the past.
other works by Michelle Magorian
Goodnight Mister Tom (1981)
Back Home (1984)
Waiting for My Shorts to Dry (1989)
Who's Going to Take Care of Me? (1990)
Orange Paw Marks (1991)
In Deep Water (1992)
Jump (1992)
A Cuckoo in the Nest (1994)
A Spoonful of Jam (1998)
Be Yourself (2003)
Just Henry (2008)
--The blurb--
"Adrian Mole's first love, Pandora, has left him; a neighbour, Mr. Lucas,
appears to be seducing his mother (and what does that mean for his
father?); the BBC refuses to publish his poetry; and his dog swallowed
the tree off the Christmas cake. "Why" indeed."
--The review--
Epistolary novels - such as, most popularly, Flowers for Algernon, the Bridget Jones series, and The Color Purple - have been enjoyed by the public for centuries, with Bram Stoker's Dracula arguably being one of the first. However, perhaps nobody could have estimated the explosive impact that Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole series would have when it first appeared on the market in the early 1980s. It was perhaps the first series to truly encapsulate teenage awkwardness and pretension, and it all kicked off with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, set during Margaret Thatcher's time as prime minister, when protagonist Adrian is approaching his fourteenth birthday.
Townsend convincingly portrays the naïveté and arrogance commonly associated with one's teenage years, using Adrian and his friends as conduits, while simultaneously showing adults as imperfect, with humour and panache. Despite this, though, there is also affection: we don't look down upon Adrian (too much - the rule of superiority still applies in Townsend's comedy), but rather sympathise with him in recognising elements of ourselves in his emergence from childhood's chrysalis.
The fictional diary format and inclusion of dialogue helps to keep up The Secret Diary's pace, and we are keen to know what will become of the book's burgeoning romances and characters' ambitions (both trivial and serious) against the background of the 1980s' familiar political landscape. Regardless of the reader's own feelings towards the Thatcher administration, it is possible to gain an insight into family life at that time, which is particularly valuable for those with no first-hand experience of Thatcher's Britain. Equally, though, this does not dominate to the point of exclusion: the stories of Adrian and his family and friends always come first.
By the end of The Secret Diary, readers want to continue following Adrian's life with earnest - and with over 20 million copies sold of this volume alone, it's clear that Townsend's germination of a successful epistolary series has worked better year on year than perhaps anyone could have imagined.
other novels by Sue Townsend
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1984)
Rebuilding Coventry (1988)
The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (1989)
The Queen and I (1992)
Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993)
Ghost Children (1997)
Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999)
Number Ten (2002)
Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004)
Queen Camilla (2006)
The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001 (2008)
Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (2009)
The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year (2012)
Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (2012)
--The blurb--
"'If I turn out to be mentally deranged in adult life, it will be all my mother's fault.'
Adrian
Mole continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of
growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life in this
second volume of his secret diary."
--The review--
A question that dogs university students of literature everywhere is this: should we read literature intrinsically, or extrinsically? Is the time period in which a text was written important? Or do plot, characters and so on matter more? Is all literature reflective of the time period in which it was created, regardless of whether or not it deliberately set out to do this? Children of the 1980s may not have grown up with Sue Townsend's classic Adrian Mole series, but now that they are older, it is a shining example not only of comedic British literature, but also a good representation of life for many people throughout their early childhoods. And as protagonist Adrian ages, Townsend - who is renowned for her skilled social commentary - continues to do a sterling job of documenting the United Kingdom in which we have lived, and continue to live today.
Now, nearly thirty years on from the 1984 publication of the series' second volume, entitled The Growing Pains Of Adrian Mole, even those who are not fans of extrinsic reading must surely concur that it not only successfully encapsulates aspects of British life in the 1980s, as lived by their parents or even older siblings, but equally that it sums up the navel-gazing attitude that's particular to adolescence. Adrian Mole, though, is not a mere navel-gazer: his pseudo-intellectualism means that comedy is found at every turn from the fact that he is not as clever as he thinks he is. This approach to her protagonist makes Townsend's work highly reminiscent of that of the Grossmiths, with the latters' most famous main character (Mr Pooter in another British comedy classic, The Diary Of A Nobody) drawing many parallels with Master Mole.
However, the fifteen-year-old Mole's character assassination is done mainly in kind: we laugh with him, not at him, when we recognise signs of our adolescent selves, and Townsend regularly impels us to empathise with him as his family undergoes fundamental structural changes. As set up in the first volume of the series, Adrian remains an ultimately caring young man who strives for moral decency, and it is this carefully-controlled balance of tender moments and witty one-liners that creates an immensely readable sequel to the original Adrian Mole volume. While not all loose ends are tied up, this is easily forgivable, as many of life's problems are not easily resolved, and this is, after all, a record of Adrian Mole's life (and, indeed, a valuable social record and reflection of our own). It in the end makes for compulsive reading, and readers today need not even wait for the next volume to be delivered, as they can of course finish this volume and, in the next breath, download the next to their e-reader. One wonders what Adrian would say to that.
other novels by Sue Townsend
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (1982)
Rebuilding Coventry (1988)
The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (1989)
The Queen and I (1992)
Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993)
Ghost Children (1997)
Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999)
Number Ten (2002)
Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004)
Queen Camilla (2006)
The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001 (2008)
Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (2009)
The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year (2012)
Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (2012)
--The blurb--
"Prize-winning novelist Mark Haddon, author of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF
THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME and most recently THE RED HOUSE, explores his
childhood fear of swimming and his adult fear of flying in a[n..] essay that unfolds into [...] reflections about the craft of
writing and about life itself."
--The review--
A quick search on Amazon reveals a staggering choice of nearly 592,000 results in the field of biography - so you'd think that the market was saturated. However, in the midst of all the celebrity fluff and traditional chronological structures has come a breath of fresh air in the form of Mark Haddon's effort, entitled Swimming And Flying. While some cunning individuals have uploaded it to the web as a PDF, it is unfortunately only officially available as a Kindle Single, which is a shame, as this could potentially block out a significant number of Haddon's fans: those who don't own a Kindle, mainly, but also those who just prefer 'real' books.
This is also a great shame due to the fact that Swimming And Flying, as mentioned, truly refreshes the biography genre thanks to its clear yet 'patchwork' style: Haddon's structuring of the text into short passages, rather than chapters, allows for true pauses for thought, and the text's genesis as a series of speeches (or 'stand-up serious', as Haddon himself dubs it) lends this biography an especially intimate, down-to-earth aspect.
There is, equally, plenty of mileage not just in this autobiography's style but also in its premise of 'swimming and flying': while Haddon does address his fears of these two pursuits (as a child and as an adult respectively), the metaphorical translations of 'swimming' and 'flying' through life itself is also heavily implied thanks to Haddon's ability to overcome these fears and to deal with other good and bad times in his life so far. This wide basis of the memoir ensures that all readers will find something within it that they can identify with, and, moreover, repeatedly: the accessible method of using short passages means that rereads are merited, as readers can dip in and out, making further connections between different sections and between the author's life and theirs.
By laying his fears bare, Haddon shows that he is as flawed as anyone else. However, by also showing details of how he has overcome them, he is inspirational without being smug. Tales of determination are always of value - and it is simply to be hoped that this mini-memoir will eventually be published beyond the Kindle Single format, so that many more readers can benefit.
other works by Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003)
A Spot of Bother (2006)
The Red House (2012)
--The blurb--
"This [...] novel describes the post-war summer of 1946 - and
follows the growing-up of three young women in the months between
leaving school and taking up their scholarships at university. Una Vane,
whose widowed mother runs a hairdressing salon in her front room
('Maison Vane Glory - Where Permanent Waves are Permanent'), goes
bicycling with Ray, the boy who delivers the fish and milk. Hetty
Fallowes struggles to become independent of her possessive, loving,
tactless mother. And Lieselotte Klein, who had arrived in 1939 on a
train from Hamburg, uncovers tragedy in the past and magic in the
present."
--The review--
With today's teens glued to their smartphones and with more material privilege (in many cases) than their parents had, it can be difficult to remind oneself at times that in fact not everything has changed so drastically for present-day youths. With students in their final year of school now in the thick of university applications and interviews, and wondering what to do with the rest of their lives, their emotional locus is, in many ways, in much the same place as the female protagonists of Jane Gardam's 2000 novel, The Flight of the Maidens, which sees seventeen-year-olds Una, Hetty and Lieselotte making pivotal choices as they stand on the cusp of adulthood.
Through these characters, Gardam puts paid to the idea that is perhaps held by many young people today: that all teens in the immediately post-war years were obedient, non-rebellious and totally responsible. While the girls are stoic in the face of adversity, they are also feisty, engage in passionate relationships, and disagree vehemently with their parents. This is all set against the backdrop of the Second World War's consequences on everyday people, but it is the protagonists, not the historical context, that take centre stage, making the teens' exploits relevant to today's readers.
Enhancing all of this are Gardam's witty turns of phrase and the very human characteristics of the personages inhabiting The Flight of the Maidens. In all of these characters we recognise less-than-pretty aspects of ourselves or of our acquaintances, and we are encouraged by turns both to celebrate and to change these attributes. By placing our faults as human beings under the microscope, Gardam arguably creates the novel's most important message: of being kind to others, as we have no idea what they are going through, or of what will happen to all of us next. This applies perhaps most significantly and equally to Lieselotte and to Hetty's mother.
This could suggest that Gardam's main reason for writing is didacticism, but the novel's sheer readability and lack of a nagging tone implies that the primary purpose is escapism and nostalgia. In indulging in Una, Hetty and Lieselotte's various exploits, we are reminded of ourselves and of how crucial a time being seventeen is. Light yet soul-searching, The Flight of the Maidens is therefore essential bedtime reading not just for today's seventeen-year-old girls but also those who are still seventeen at heart.
other novels by Jane Gardam*
Bilgewater (1977)
God on the Rocks (1978)
Crusoe's Daughter (1985)
The Queen of the Tambourine (1991)
Black Woolly Pony (1993)
Faith Fox (1996)
Old Filth (2004)
The Man in the Wooden Hat (2009)
Last Friends (2013)
*Jane Gardam has also written a number of short story collections, as well as books for children.
It's been said by several, in one way or another, including by Paul Theroux, that "a day without writing is a wasted day". That could be true in more ways than one: as well as practically being a no-brainer for anyone who wishes to write professionally (even if this is easy to say and less easy to do), it's vital to do so for those who struggle with their feelings and their state of mind, as it could mean the difference between getting through the next day and not.
The form this could take, however, is becoming increasingly varied. While paper diaries themselves are still a popular format when it comes to expressive writing, the rise and rise of blogs, Facebook and Twitter naturally means that venting one's spleen online is also growing in popularity. The crucial difference between these formats is the public nature of the internet, and personal experience shows that this can do harm: keeping an online diary at the age of seventeen, in which I outlined in some detail my crush on my English teacher, meant that I was rumbled when classmates not only found it but then told the member of staff in question. One excuse for this could be that blogging was newer then, and that we as a generation were a little less schooled in keeping our details private when using the web.
 |
| Hannah Smith |
So, one could ask, why am I writing all of this down here, now, again in public? Partly because I believe that the subject of protecting oneself online needs to be discussed openly, particularly in schools where no social education classes are given, and particularly in the light of prolific cyberbullying cases such as that of Hannah Smith. Hannah was not writing a diary online - but anyone who chooses to have a presence online (which, in the Western world, is most people) exposes themselves to criticism by others, even without revealing their deepest feelings.
You'd think that this would be a vote for the traditional paper diary. But even those can be found and read by others - so it's worth remembering that you take a risk the second you commit your feelings to paper. But does that mean diary-writing (or 'journaling', as the Americans irritatingly call it) should be abandoned altogether?
Not at all. One study, conducted in 1986 by Professor Pennebaker, found that encouraging people to write expressively to vent their feelings was better for their mental health than bottling up traumatic experiences. This effect proves timeless, as found in subsequent research. However, research carried out this year in Israel by Professor Barak has uncovered an interesting twist: those who blog about their feelings in a way that is set up to invite comments benefited most from expressive writing compared to those who blogged privately, and those whose blogs were open to readers but closed to comments. This takes diary-writing in the direction of 'group therapy', even if this is carried out remotely when compared to traditional counselling: people are invited to comment and advise, which may lead to them sharing their own experiences, arguably allowing one's most intimate feelings to be directed in a more constructive manner than a private diary.
However, it would be naive to assume that the risks of the internet automatically disappear in this situation, with Professor Barak still advising caution. Anonymity is still possible online, but is growing increasingly difficult to maintain thanks to many websites using Facebook, Google, or OpenID as online 'passports'. Possible anonymity for the writer also means possible anonymity for bullies, and when bullies fear no repercussions, the results can be disastrous, as in the case of Hannah Smith. But these cases are unusual, and that is why they make the news: Professor Barak maintains that of the hundreds of online comments made during their study, only a few were deleted for being abusive - and that the very act of writing one's feelings down remained significantly therapeutic.
So whatever form your diary-writing takes, how can you be sure it will help and that you will get the most out of it? The positive use of writing as therapy will require individuals to vary their techniques in order to find a method that works for them. As a long-term diary-writer myself (1997 to 2005 was probably my most intensive period of it), I can only offer what's worked for me and hope that some of it may work for others:
- Public or private? Weigh up the benefits and consequences of both options. Publicly-accessible online diaries could attract positive and constructive comments, or negative and abusive ones. Private online diaries can be password-protected, meaning that people who you don't want to see your feelings can stumble on them less easily, while still providing you with therapeutic benefits. Finally, keeping private paper diaries, while less secure, can feel more 'real' thanks to the actual act of writing something down by hand, and later can prove valuable hard evidence of how far you've come if you ever feel a bit shaky again. I've done both and can see the benefits of both - even if I'd now use a different modus operandi to my seventeen-year-old self when proceeding online.
- Don't just stick with the usual 'Dear Diary' format when writing for therapy. Poems, lists, and drawings (even if you can't draw!) are all equally beneficial when trying to find a way through the muddle of your thoughts.
- Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar or repetition. And I say that as an English teacher! Diaries aren't a school assignment - they're therapy. And repetition can actually be vital in helping you to sort through your feelings. It's not written to be an entertaining read, but to help you.
- Write whenever you like. Diaries don't have to be an everyday thing. You may find yourself writing every day (or even multiple times a day) if you are feeling particularly distressed, but there's no rule. Play it by ear and relax.
- Be patient. As with any therapy, you won't see results overnight. I won't go as far as to say that "time heals all wounds", as we all have aspects of our lives that have made us who we are today and that we won't forget. However, to say that "time is a healer" is closer to the mark, and to come back to one of the major pluses of paper diaries, it is greatly valuable to be able to look back over, say, six months' worth of entries, and to be able to see development and progress in your thought processes.
--The blurb--
"Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper, and the gentle butt of
everyone's jokes, until an experiment in the enhancement of human
intelligence turns him into a genius. But then Algernon, the mouse
whose triumphal experimental transformation preceded his, fades and dies,
and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only
temporary."
--The review--
The recent news story about miniature human brains being grown in laboratories has the potential to spark a flurry of debate. The positives and negatives of such developments are equally legion. On the plus side, such in vitro experiments could allow neurological disorders such as autism and schizophrenia to be much better understood, and also enable a reduction in animal experimentation (ever a hot topic). However, on the more sinister side, others may argue that such experiments are the stuff of science fiction: they play God, pose a threat to our moral and ethical codes, and are the beginning of a slippery slope towards experiments that could have catastrophic consequences (such as the growth of fully-sized human brains). But forty-seven years ago, in true dystopian tradition, novelist Daniel Keyes was already predicting some of the disastrous after-effects of tampering with the human brain, in his debut, entitled Flowers For Algernon.
The narrator, Charlie, who tells of his experiences epistolary-style through a series of progress reports, seems part-inspired by Lennie Small, the developmentally-delayed protagonist in John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men (published nearly 30 years before Flowers For Algernon, so already a classic by the time of Keyes' publication), thanks to the two characters' similarly well-meaning, easy-going attitudes, and their limited means of oral and written expression. However, Keyes does not produce a carbon copy of Lennie in Charlie, who is all his own character thanks to his keenness to learn and the unusual nature of the situation in which he has been placed. Despite Charlie's basic literacy, both his personality and the situation are expressed clearly, inspiring immediate affection in the reader. Sympathy is also invoked, as we are able to see aspects of the way people treat Charlie differently to how he views it; this, though, naturally changes as the story progresses.
As well as Charlie's understanding of the world around him, the style in which he writes also develops, with vocabulary choices becoming more sophisticated and spelling and punctuation errors disappearing, indicating his increasing intelligence. Keyes does not always manage this transition between entries smoothly, but this can be forgiven thanks to the largely uncharted nature of the surgery undergone by Charlie - in these circumstances, the notion of rapid or erratic progress is not entirely unrealistic, especially in the context of the unpredictable behaviour and progress already mentioned by Charlie in relation to murine test subject Algernon.
Algernon the mouse is key to the novel in more ways than simply providing an intriguing title. He provides a realistic basis for the surgery carried out on Charlie (scientific tests and new medicines are always carried out on animals before being tested on humans), but also a powerful precursor and foreshadow of Charlie's own fate. Less literally, the mouse - often perceived as modest and insignificant in both life and literature - symbolises the equally vulnerable position occupied not just by Charlie but by the disabled in general, who often find themselves at the mercy of those who are more powerful or simply more numerous. This is perhaps an even more significant symbol given that the disability rights movement and independent living movement were just beginning to get going in the decade in which Flowers For Algernon was published.
It is hardly surprising that the book has never been out of print since its initial publication in 1966. As well as the pathos evoked and the taut narrative arc being worthy of commendation, there is also the fact that the issues addressed by Keyes are as relevant today as they were almost fifty years ago. The novel's ability to alter perspectives on disability rights in a hard-hitting yet accessible style means that it should be read by every man, woman and teen, with Keyes successfully getting across his message that "foresight may be vain", and that "the best laid schemes of mice and men/Go often awry" - and all through a sci-fi-style ode to a man and a mouse.
other works by Daniel Keyes
The Touch (1968)
The Fifth Sally (1980)
The Minds of Billy Milligan (1981)
Unveiling Claudia (1986)
The Milligan Wars (1994)
Until Death (1998)
Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey (2000)
The Asylum Prophecies (2009)
--The blurb--
"O, What a Luxury: Verses Lyrical, Vulgar, Pathetic & Profound is the first poetry collection written by Garrison Keillor, the celebrated radio host of A Prairie Home Companion.
Although he has edited several anthologies of his favorite poems, this
volume forges a new path for himself as a poet of light verse."
--The review--
Garrison Keillor's eccentric reputation as a humorist, author and radio presenter tells us to expect the unexpected from this media personality. (This is the same man that played The Beach Boys' "Help Me Rhonda" non-stop as part of a live on-air protest at the radio station where he worked, and who is partly known for his controversial comments about Methodists and the gay community.) It's therefore unsurprising that his first poetry collection, entitled O, What A Luxury!, promises the eclectic mixture of lyricism, vulgarity, profundity and miserable inadequacy, perhaps in an attempt to appeal to as many people as possible. And a mixed bag is just what readers get, with the poems grouped into categories to apparently shape stories from smaller groups of poems - even though these are not always immediately understandable or apparent. This dissonant style makes it unclear as to whether the collection is for adults or children: the sometimes-profound titles of the groups of poems suggest the former, while the unsophisticated nature of the poems' immature subjects and reliance on tongue-twisters implies a more childish audience. Serious poems sadly turn silly at their end, cheapening their premise and making them bathetic rather than amusing. Ultimately, then, this dissonance is unsuccessful, with the multiple layers that Keillor apparently attempts to integrate into his poetry in the end lacking in harmony.
This lack of a clear purpose in this collection is evident throughout, both structurally and semantically. Keillor's rhymes frequently seem juvenile, right from the very first poem, entitled Unification, which debases his talent and makes the poetry at times unmemorable. Equally disappointing is the manner in which he chooses to make his political points, which is unbalanced, deploying either too much force or not enough. However, in a strange way this highlights a strength of the poetry, indicating that tone of voice may be key and that these poems may be better in performance (particularly as in the case of Nobody Loves You and Thong Song). Some poems seem to have deeper meaning (Episcopalian) but lack lucidity and an overall place within the collection, as they don't cohere well with the other poems, reinforcing the volume's lack of purpose.
Aspects of Keillor's poems, though, such as On The Road, are Philip Larkin-like, which proves that Keillor is at his best when being observational in a more serious way. However, this style is unfortunately not always sustained thanks perhaps to his over-keenness to pack the poem with unnecessary quotations from popular culture. Keillor also does well when focusing on real intensity of emotion and solemnity of feeling throughout a poem, as he does in Love Poem, which is further enhanced by truly effective imagery ("Above your head, the universe has hung its lights"), to create something that all people can sincerely relate to and which has a chance of standing the test of time. This is infinitely better than the many pages of forced 'wit' that have gone before. Political name-dropping and casual scattering of brand names across the stanzas do not improve the situation, and in fact serve to make poetry less, rather than more, accessible. Tapping into the vicissitudes of the human spirit gives Keillor more likelihood of posterity. Some sage advice in his 2008 address to graduates arguably demonstrates what one suspects Keillor had hoped to show all along - that he can combine seriousness and flippancy: "Failure is essential, a form of mortality. Without failure, we have a poor sense of reality...And learn what Harvard cannot teach you/Whether you get a bachelor's or a master's:/The fact that being a traveler means learning to weather disasters."
This mixed bag is therefore worth reading for a few hidden gems, but would be even better if it had been streamlined significantly by a more scrupulous editor, with only the best poems being published. The slightly wry tone of Keillor's work also means that fans would do better to seek him out live in action; sometimes poetry isn't written to be read in one's head, and this collection would make a far better performance on stage than book club selection.
other works by Garrison Keillor
- Happy to Be Here (1981)
- Lake Wobegon Days (1985)
- Leaving Home (1987)
- We Are Still Married (1989)
- WLT: A Radio Romance, (1991)
- The Book of Guys (1993)
- The Sandy Bottom Orchestra (with Jenny Lind Nilsson, 1996)
- Wobegon Boy (1997)
- Me, by Jimmy "Big Boy" Valente (1999)
- Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 (2001)
- In Search of Lake Wobegon (2001)
- Good Poems (2002)
- Love Me (2003)
- Homegrown Democrat (2004)
- Good Poems for Hard Times (2005)
- Daddy's Girl (2005)
- Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon (2007)
- Liberty: A Novel of Lake Wobegon (2008)
- Life among the Lutherans (2009)
- 77 Love Sonnets (2009)
- A Christmas Blizzard (2009)
- Pilgrims: A Wobegon Romance (2009)
- Good Poems, American Places (2011)
- Guy Noir and the Straight Skinny (2012)
--The blurb--
"In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the witty, gregarious editor of French
"Elle", suffered a stroke that left him totally paralyzed, able to
communicate only by blinking his left eye. By doing so, he was able to
compose this book - at once a record of appalling suffering and a testament to the endurance of the human spirit."
--The review--
Occasionally cases of locked-in syndrome and paralysis make the news. In 2005 it was British man Tony Nicklinson, who campaigned tirelessly in the press for the right to die with assistance (he died naturally mere months after losing his case in the High Court). In 2010, Times journalist Melanie Reid fell from her horse, making her an instant tetraplegic. Her position as a writer for one of Britain's most respected broadsheets has enabled her to not only raise awareness of tetraplegia but also to chronicle her day-to-day existence with humour and pathos. In the late 1990s, memoir The Diving Bell and The Butterfly served a similar purpose, drawing the public's attention to locked-in syndrome as experienced by former ELLE editor Jean-Dominique Bauby. Through painstaking blinks of his eyelid, he was able to describe his days in hospital near Berck-sur-Mer thanks to the dedication of Claude Mendibil, who took down Bauby's story letter by letter after he had memorised each pithy chapter in his head.
Bauby certainly takes pithiness to extremes in this tiny volume, which barely attains 140 small pages, with wide margins. However, this is no bad thing, as the concision of his writing enhances its artistry and poignancy. This combination of brevity and beauty makes the book a portable masterclass for anyone wishing to know how to write well. In spite of the devastating position in which Bauby finds himself, his unique view of the world he now inhabits and his voyage through memory is simultaneously accessible and elegant - a feat in itself considering how despairing such a text could be.
Naturally, though, Bauby does acknowledge the most painful aspects of his new existence, including getting used to feeling like he has a diving bell for a head, not being able to communicate even his most basic needs without someone patient enough to sit through his blinking, managing the vast quantities of saliva that his mouth now suddenly produces, and trying to rebuild his relationship with his children. Readers are buoyed, though, by the fact that he is still so lucid and descriptive, and the butterfly of the book's title seems to represent not only the freedom that he still has in his mind, but also the delicately dancing beauty of his prose and the ever-increasing acuity of other senses (such as his hearing - at one point he marvels "I must have the ear of a butterfly!"). This instils us with the belief that in spite of his near-total immobility and lack of physical independence, he still has so much to live for - and, furthermore, gives us hope that he may recover, which is fuelled by small signs of progress in his physical condition.
Thanks to the dense layering of stunning images and very real emotion with which The Diving Bell And The Butterfly is packed, Bauby leaves a stunning literary legacy which is already rightly remembered even more than his successful career as a magazine editor. While this degree of physical limitation is not what anyone would choose for themselves, Bauby's memoir - which neatly flits, like a butterfly, between his past life and his present experiences - is an inspiring reminder of the fortitude of the human mind and spirit, which is indeed a legacy that writers like Melanie Reid can take even further strength from.
