Seems like one of those days where I’ve got lots of little things but nothing I want to take a whole post to talk about. It is a day for bullet points!
- The TLS has a review of the Patricia Meyer Spacks book I started reading, On Rereading and a book by Jonathan Yardley called Second Reading. It makes me more excited about Spacks’s book which I haven’t had time to pick up since I began it last weekend. Not sure if I’m interested in Yardley’s book. From the review:
However, the ends to which the two books’ personal reading histories are turned are markedly different: Spacks sets out, quite deliberately, to approach from several angles the relationships between sameness and difference (or, as she calls it, “the stability–change continuum”) across a life of reading and rereading; Yardley’s revisitings of forgotten books, on the other hand, can often read as attempts to save those books not just from obscurity, but from the erroneous and fickle tastes that put them there in the first place.
[…]In the long term, neither the supposed fiat of academics and “literati”, nor the consensus of non-professional readers, will, in isolation, define the lasting value of books; if rereading (whether Spacks’s exhilarating meditations on pleasure or Yardley’s no-nonsense empiricism) teaches us anything, it is that the conjunctions between readerly and textual lives will always be unpredictable and promiscuous ones. “What did you make of that book?”, runs the conventional phrase. As we revisit the objects of our reading, like recognizable but weathered landmarks, there can be no full going back, because we are not exactly the same people we were; but the consolation of rereading is the knowledge that we are these different people in part because of what those books have made of us.
I am also happy to report that I have Anne Fadiman’s Rereadings on my bookshelf as well as Wendy Lesser’s Nothing Remains the Same. I had not anticipated the pursuit of the idea of rereading to become a mini-project, but it appears that it is about to.
- There has been much in the news lately about the US Department of Justice suing Apple and six publishers for price-fixing on e-books. At first I thought the suit was a good thing because retailers should be allowed to price the items they sell however they want to. But while price-fixing is bad, big companies like Amazon being able to undercut the competition and narrow the market for e-books to almost exclusively be sold by Amazon, well, that’s not good either. Author Charles Stross has a blog post that helps sort things out a bit.Here is a taste:
If the major publishers switch to selling ebooks without DRM, then they can enable customers to buy books from a variety of outlets and move away from the walled garden of the Kindle store. They see DRM as a defense against piracy, but piracy is a much less immediate threat than a gigantic multinational with revenue of $48 Billion in 2011 (more than the entire global publishing industry) that has expressed its intention to “disrupt” them, and whose chief executive said recently “even well-meaning gatekeepers slow innovation” (where “innovation” is code-speak for “opportunities for me to turn a profit”).
And so they will deep-six their existing commitment to DRM and use the terms of the DoJ-imposed settlement to wiggle out of the most-favoured-nation terms imposed by Amazon, in order to sell their wares as widely as possible.
Dennis Johnson at Melville House has some things to say about Amazon too at MobyLives. Johnson also has another great post on what is currently happening with the lawsuit and what publishers might be able to do to defend themselves with a post on How to Fight the DOJ: a possible defense.
- You’ve probably all heard the Pulitzer for fiction was not awarded because the judges couldn’t come to an agreement on which book of the final three should be chosen. I was very disappointed and I think it’s really stupid to not be able to choose a winner. Ann Patchett says it best (via) though in her NY Times piece:
So far I’ve been able to come up with two [reasons the prize was withheld]: either the board was unable to reach a consensus, or at the end of the day the board members decided that none of the finalists, and none of the other books that were not finalists, were worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.
What I am sure of is this: Most readers hearing the news will not assume it was a deadlock. They’ll just figure it was a bum year for fiction.
I agree with Patchett, most are going to assume it was a deadlock and that none of the fiction finalists were any good. This hurts not only the authors but publishing too. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during the deliberations. I find it hard to believe that none of the panel was passionate enough about a particular book to sway anyone else in its favor. Or has the Pulitzer panel been taking lessons from the US Congress where everyone takes a side and refuses to budge?
A little variety today. Hopefully you’ll find at least one of them interesting.
This is Patchett’s remark about the prize that really hit the nail on the head for me:
“Imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.”
I am sorry, I didn’t quote the first part of Patchett’s remarks:
“Let me underscore the obvious here: Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.”
She explained the importance of fiction quite succinctly and elegantly didn’t she? I thought the whole piece was nicely done.
I once read an interesting piece on the Guardian website about the Booker Prize. They talked to people who had been on the committees in various years and most of them had stories about their difficulties in picking the winner. Different members felt strongly about different books, and it often ended up turning into political horse trading to actually get a winner.
How interesting Ed. I have no doubt it frequently gets political when making prize decisions especially when it comes to whether the same author should win more than once or whether now is the time for another frequently nominated author to finally win. But to not be able to pick a winner at all just seems silly. I wonder if a group of average readers would be able to do better?
For crying out loud, it’s not like it isn’t all the same crap every year. They could have drawn lots from a hat for all it matters.
It is ridiculous, isn’t it? You’d think they could draw lots if they were equally divided between three books. It will be interesting to see what happens next year.
I think its daft for the Pulitzer people to ignore fiction.There does seem to be a sort of anti-fiction mood about; fiction is exhausted and what we have is “reality hunger” though that manifesto seemed to me to be very similar to past proclamations that “the novel is dead”. I don’t really get this; surely a good reading life includes both fiction and non-fiction ( and poetry and reference books and fan fiction too). I find it hard to believe they could not nominate a winner- heaven knows there have been some clunkers that have won the Booker and the prize survives.I must admit I am not that keen on all this prize hype anyway but it probably does still help sell books.
Heh, Ian, daft is a good word
I think you might be right about the anti-fiction mood. I thought Reality Hunger had some interesting points to make but I agree that Shields was way off on his assessment of fiction. Personally, I think we need fiction just as much as we ever did, if not moreso. And I am with you completely that a well-rounded reading life includes a wide variety of material. As to prizes, I don’t rush out to read the winners, but I do appreciate them in that they, however briefly, shine a national and even global light on books.
Rereading might have to become a study of mine, too. I read the Fadiman book and loved it, and now you’ve given me others to read. I’m convinced that the Pulitzer judges read the blog post I wrote the day before the winner was to be announced and were too embarrassed to award a winner
!
Ha! I think you might be right about the Pulitzer judges reading your blog post. It was a most excellent one btw
I shall be very interested in your rereading project. I wrote a paper once that involved the theory of rereading (and wish now I could recall the name of the theorist I used – I’ll drop it by here when it comes back to me). And the Pulitzer thing is a shame – make it a three-way split for the prize, why not? If it’s going to be an unusual decision, it could at least be a positive unusual decision.
Oh if you remember the theorist, please let me know! I think Barthes has said something about rereading, is he who you are thinking of maybe? I like your idea of a three-way split of the prize. It would be unusual but as you say, why not?
What a coincidence that you mentioned Yardley’s book Stefanie. I picked that up yesterday afternoon and am having a ball. It is different from Spacks as he designates which books deserve a first or second reading but reading him in conjunction with Spacks is very pleasurable. My library does not have Fadiman’s ‘Rereadings’ but I got the itch to reread Ex Libris and am dipping into that one now and again.
Glad to hear that Yardley’s book is enjoyable! I might have to see if my library has it. Ex Libris is a wonderful little book, isn’t it? Enjoy!
Although I don’t generally follow the awards, I did find it pretty stupid that they didn’t award a prize for fiction this year. The only message any author could take away from that is that they weren’t good enough. Definitely not a good message for the author, the readers, or the book publishing business as a whole. I’m all for not awarding prizes to undeserving books, but if there were books that deserved a nomination, then there should be a winner. If there are no books good enough to win, declare it a non-category BEFORE nominating works.
Carl, you should be on the Pulitzer committiee next year with your practical and sensible approach!
I think the first time someone would suggest something foolish like, “let’s just not award a work of fiction a prize this year”, my head would explode.
Ha! Carl, we can’t have your head exploding, that wouldn’t do. I guess we’ll just have to leave the Pultizer committee to their lameness
Some days that might not be a bad thing.
Boo to the TLS for dissing the Yardley book. I have it on my night table (well on the shelf below it) and dip into it now and again (but I like rediscovering books–no matter how fickle tastes are or have been in the past). I think maybe I’ll grab it this week and read a bit as a matter of fact. I agree with Ann Patchett–while I wouldn’t want to be on a committee to choose a best book, it is important to not present literature as being unworthy in some way and put potential readers off.
I didn’t realize you had the Yardley book Danielle! And it’s pretty good? I might have to add it to my rereading project after all then. And literature already has a hard enough time, doesn’t it, without prize committees giving the impression that there is nothing good to read.