By Hannah Cole, Literature Columnist
You can search the web and find any number of books lists and this year’s acclaimed titles. If you want to know what to read next, look no farther than the long and short lists for The Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Last year’s winning novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, has sold 300,000 copies in the UK and almost 800,000 worldwide. I highly recommend it. Any novel or collection of short stories, originally written in English and published in the UK in that particular year, is eligible to receive the Booker Prize, regardless of the nationality of their author. It might seem like a limited cross section of literature; however, that does not mean you should write the winners and nominees off your reading list. In actuality, the long and short lists are often both diverse in genre and authors’ nationality. I had no idea, until I started looking at the winners from past years, that Yann Martel’s celebrated novel, Life of Pi, won in 2002. We read novels, short stories, and poems such as Pi, often not knowing how that particular work came to be in that bookstore, on that library shelf, or our college course’s reading requirement list. It is always remarkable to think that there are as many stories about the works themselves as the plots that lie within their pages. There is a story behind that book you love so much. Perhaps The New York Times lists an author’s manuscript as one of their bestsellers, and you decide to buy it, or an unknown author wins The Paris Literary Prize and sells countless copies of their novella. It could also be the case that a professor at a small university wins a regional award, and after months of revisions and emails back and forth with an editor, they land a book deal with a publishing house. And somehow you come across the novel, and you read it, never fully realizing the long journey marked by its author’s uncertainties and his hopes, before it—in due time—reaches you. The books that end up on the shortlist for The Man Booker Prize don’t necessarily all have such arduous beginnings. Many of these novels and collections of short stories are the result of an author now publishing a book every two years or so, and the novel is oftentimes the fourth or fifth they have written. Still, these works are arguably just as important as the works we’re reading for our classes. The short list this year is as follows: Author (Nationality) Title Marlon James (Jamaica) A Brief History of Seven Killings Tom McCarthy (UK) Satin Island Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) The Fishermen Sunjeev Sahota (UK) Year of the Runaways Anne Tyler (US) A Spool of Blue Thread Hanya Yanagihara (US) A Little Life It is important to note that there is a great deal of controversy in the literature world over the short list being a cross-section of “the year’s best fiction.” Every individual is different; we all have unique tastes in literature and style of writing we prefer to read. It’s no different here. This is only one of countless awards that highlight works of great novelists. The Man Booker Prize winner will be announced on Tuesday, October 13, 2015. You can find more information about the judges and the book lists for this year’s nominees here: The Man Booker Prize 2015 Nominees and Finalists *originally posted by Lee Clarion on Sept. 15, 2015.
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I wrote last week of the books we are scared to read, and I wanted to continue the theme. In light of Convocation, I was moved to reflect on literature and its relation to how certain texts affect us.
Think of music for a minute. I'm sure you have come across the classical radio station in Cleveland, a compilation of symphonies and scores of music by great composers such as Handel, Schubert and Bach. This weekend, I was listening to the choral voices of a particularly famous movement of Mozart's "Requiem" fill my car when I was reminded of a quote from the TV series, "The West Wing." 'Words, when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music. They have rhythm, and pitch, and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can't. The written word possesses an affecting weight, and the music of literature often has the same influence on us as hearing the moving chords of a symphony. The same is true when we read literature; there is something about the joining of words and well-thought ideas, strong narratives and poignant stories that speak to us. In recognizing this, we feel that we should devote ourselves to great literary 'symphonies'' the concertos of Milton, the variations of Dante or the epic movements of Melville. And we should, written words reach into us and change us; they shape the world we see afterward, changing its pitch and rhythm. If we let them, they make us into better listeners - better people. But recall the quotation above. It is not just the music of masters that moves us; it is simply music. It could be a humble chord progression or the repetition of a few bars that stirs our souls. In the world of literature, with its many genres and acclaimed texts, it is sometimes a simple collection of words and a mere four chord melody of a novel that impact us most. I love the feeling of encountering a work and seeing part of myself reflected there in the words and narrative crafted by the author. Last semester, I read Katy Didden's poem, 'Before Edison Invented Lights.' It met me where I was, and I have read this poem countless times, pouring over the words as if it is a prayer that touches the recesses of my soul. Katy Didden is a successful poet, and it doesn't matter if I am the only one who has ever read this poem of hers or not. It doesn't have to be a Psalm of David or a Milton poem to have this effect on me. We should all read more David, Milton and Chaucer, but we should not neglect the works of our Katy Diddens. Their works may not be great 'symphonies' like those mentioned above, but they seem to hit us where we live. And for that, they are worth the read. *originally posted by Lee Clarion as part of my weekly literature column. Fact: We surround ourselves with Dante, Milton and Orwell to hide the books we are really reading. Anything from "Harry Potter" (again), to some unknown McKay's novel for the 10th time. This happens in everyday life. We are accustomed to hiding whatever novel we think people will judge us for reading, because what we choose to read, and align with, says a lot about us.
Your first impression of me could differ greatly if I said my favorite book was "The Longest Ride" by Nicholas Sparks as opposed to a book such as "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte. It is common among students to cast aside the books we really do love to take on the guise of reading 'more intelligent' literature. There is nothing wrong with loving a good story that is well written, even if professors tell you it will never stand a chance against "The Great Gatsby" or Faust. Not many novels do, but that shouldn't stop you from reading the books and literature you truly love. There is a notion in society that we want to be well read, and people's bookshelves reflect this. I know someone who is a grad student studying the middle ages. He plans on studying the written word that spans thousands of years compiled from fragments of old vellum and parchment. If anyone's bookshelves should contain great literature and serve as a model to structure your own after, it would be his. However, tucked away in the dusty corners where you might not immediately look, are various novels bearing the names of unknown "Star Wars'" authors that are strategically placed to divert attention from them to "The Complete Works of Plato" instead of the science fiction novels hiding on the bottom shelf. If you take a closer look, you would see that the spines that have been opened thousands of times belong to the sci-fi and "Star Wars" novels. Many of the erudite 'English major books" have spines that show little evidence of being opened past the title page. I'm reminded of the image of someone reading a 'distinguished' literary text with a comic book hidden inside the open pages. His bookshelves are a real life example of this, and I'm sure he is not the only one. My bookshelves are like this too. I choose to leave the books that will possibly be judged at home and bring the nice copies of things that make me look cultured to school with me each fall. By carrying around an untrue persona, we deny ourselves the possibility to connect with other people outside of the fake realm we have created. There is something dishonest and unethical about pretending we care more about Anna Karenina's death than acknowledging the truth of how upset we were when Remus Lupin died. The books we are scared to read are often the ones that have changed us, and impacted us. Reading what we truly like to read is good, because it reminds us why we study new texts. It is often in cheap McKay novels that I am pointed to ideas that go beyond the author's okay-writing and his clichés. So, the next time someone asks me what I'm reading, and what's hiding on my bookshelf, I'm going to be honest and tell them it's probably not what I'm reading for English class. And that's perfectly okay. *originally posted by Lee Clarion on Sept. 15, 2015. “‘I can always tell when you’re reading somewhere in the house,’ my mother used to say… I never heard it, this extra degree of hush that somehow travelled through walls and ceilings to announce that my seven-year-old self had become about as absent as a present person could be… As my concentration on the story in my hands took hold, all sounds faded away.” – Francis Spufford A few weeks ago, I came across a book called The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading by Francis Spufford that immediately spoke to me as someone who loves literature and who was shaped by a love of reading. It is interesting to read an author who writes thought-provoking literature that extends from deep insights concerning theology to conversations about the books that made him who he is.
I am excited to have the opportunity to write the literature column this semester for the Lee Clarion. This column will focus on works you might be interested in reading, up-and-coming authors, reading/writing related events at Lee, etc. There is always so much going on in the world of literature, and I look forward to sharing those things with you. Whether you fell in love with The Berenstein Bears when you were four years old, The Great Gatsby in high school, or Long Day’s Journey into Night freshman year, stories are important to us. They connect us to the children we were when we walked the mystical aisles of bookstores and libraries where the experience of choosing a book was as important a matter as Harry Potter choosing his wand. Whether you reread the same book a hundred times in your youth or you read everything from cereal boxes to road signs, I was the stereotypical kid who read books by flashlight telling myself “Just one more page.” It seemed fitting that I would become an English major. I’m not entirely sure why I love books so much, or namely—rereading them. This summer I found myself in a used book store having picked up a copy of InkHeart (one of my favorite books growing up) and stashed myself away somewhere to leaf through it in reverent nostalgia. Ten minutes later, I walked out the front door with my newly purchased old friend in hand. So, in the midst of reading Orwell, Shakespeare, Milton, or Augustine for one of your classes this semester, remember that these authors, and their writings, have the same potential to impact you as the books you read when you were younger. If you’re looking for a short novel to read, I recommend: Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury The Giver series – Lois Lowry The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald Autobiography of Red – Anne Carson The English Dept. is hosting a book group on Monday nights at 7pm in the Vest lounge. You certainly do not have to be a part of the English department to attend; it is open to anyone who loves to discuss literature. Email Dr. Brown if you are interested ([email protected]), and he can provide you with more detailed information. *originally posted on leeclarion.com as the first article of my weekly literature column. |
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