Reading Fiction Because of the Author

When I pick up a new book it's often because I've enjoyed books by that author before. I've been having a grouchy spell with my reading--nothing I was reading struck me as much good--so I picked up some recent books by three different authors I've enjoyed in the past.

The first one was Megan Whalen Turner. I loved The Thief, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia, so when other book bloggers (like Stella Matutina) told me that she had a new one in that series out, A Conspiracy of Kings, I found it and read it immediately. It was as much fun as the second and third ones. If you like adventure stories and you haven't read these, go find them.

The second author was Susan Beth Pfeffer. My daughter and I both loved Life As We Knew It, as much as you can love any post-apocalyptic novel. Then I read The Dead and the Gone and told her not to bother, that I didn't like it much. After I read the third one, This World We Live In, I went out and bought the middle one for her so she could read it purely for the sake of enjoying the third one fully. She's the same age as the heroine of the first and third novels, 16-year-old Miranda, and that probably adds to my interest in this YA series.

The third author was Umberto Eco. My husband has read many of his books, so I've read a few of his essays here and there, but I hadn't read any of his fiction since The Name of the Rose, a thoroughly wonderful tale (and a best-seller when it came out). I came across The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana in the audiobooks section of the library, translated by Geoffrey Brock and read by George Guidall, and listened to it during my commute. I didn't realize what an unlikely audiobook it is until I took down our copy from the built-in bookshelves (the ones you can see at Scene of the Blog) and flipped through it to see all the comic book illustrations. And the irony, of course, is that I'd never have read it if I'd seen those, because I don't care for books that depend too heavily on anything other than text.

The first half of the novel is mildly interesting, all about memory and how a man who has read avidly all his life, Yambo, is affected by a stroke so that he remembers only what he's read, and none of the details of his personal life. The title comes from a comic he discovers to have been "the most insipid tale ever conceived by the human brain," but one that had built up in his mind until it became a symbol for memory and immortality, the "mysterious flame" of recognition when he doesn't remember what is being recognized, but feels the emotion of it.

The second half, although finally revealing what the "fog" he has been unable to penetrate previously is hiding, ultimately peters out. Yambo remembers the events that shaped him as a boy, and then apparently has another stroke, blends memory with all that he's read and then re-discovered through rereading, and dies. It's not a success as fiction; it reads as thinly veiled autobiography, and the ideas might have been better explored in his essays.

So in two out of three cases, picking books by an author I'd previously enjoyed meant that I enjoyed the new one at least as much. How well does it work for you to pick books by a tried-and-true author when you want a particular level of satisfaction from your reading?

Are These Books Worth Mentioning?

Some books I read, I don't want to talk about, usually because they aren't worth mentioning, but occasionally because they're so good, there's just not that much to say besides "read this!"

The Last Colony, by John Scalzi, is a whiz-banger of an ending to the wonderful story begun in Old Man's War and continued in The Ghost Brigades. As late as the last fifty pages, I didn't see how he could resolve all the conflicts he'd set up. And then he resolved them in grand style, and I was highly gratified. It is a fitting end to a great series.

Then I read Zoe's Tale, which is the same story from the 16-year-old daughter's point of view. There were a couple of really interesting additions, but for the most part, I'd already read this story, so I didn't find it that compelling. I'll leave it around for my kids to discover, I think, despite the risk that it will spoil The Last Colony for them--they might as well read this one while it's fresh, because no kid wants a huge backlog of books that they "must" read.

I was sorry I'd read The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer and Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan because they didn't resolve the conflicts they set up, and they were bleak stories to begin with. Why immerse yourself in gloom when there won't be a resolution and the writing isn't especially enjoyable?

Amy's mom sent me Nora Robert's Tribute, and I enjoyed it. It's a good car book. (One of the important things about car books is that the plot is not so complicated that you can't pick up the book a week later and immerse yourself again in what was going on.)

The first part of The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, by the ever-prolific James Patterson, strikes me as so unpromising that I may just take it back to the library unread. If Walker picks it up and likes it, maybe I'll think again, since this is a book written to interest more boys in reading.

More Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Eleanor found a new book about what happens after the apocalypse, this one happening because an asteroid hits the moon and knocks its orbit closer to earth, causing tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. It's called Life as We Knew It and is by Susan Beth Pfeffer (see her blog here).

Eleanor read the book in one morning and was then very happy to come out of her reading trance and find that the sun was shining, it was summer, and we could have lunch. I read it in one evening, soon after. I found it less interesting than Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now because its scope is necessarily smaller (the characters stay in their small Pennsylvania town). There are some interesting parts, though. When the 16-year-old narrator, Miranda, does some research on the moon before the asteroid hits, she finds that

"lots of people didn't really care that there were men walking on the moon [in 1969]. They all watched Star Trek (the original, old lousy-effects Beam Me Up Scotty Star Trek) and they were used to seeing Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock hopping around the universe so real people walking on the real moon wasn't as exciting.
I think that's funny. Men were walking on the moon for the very first time in history and people preferred watching Dr. McCoy say, "He's dead, Jim," for the thousandth time.
I wasn't exactly sure how to turn that into a paper, so Mom and I talked about it, about how fiction can have more power than reality and how in 1969 there was a lot of cynicism because of Vietnam and the sixties and all that and there were people who didn't think men were really on the moon and thought it was a hoax."

The narrator simplifies issues in a way that does remind me of listening to 15 and 16 year old girls talk. But also, as a 9-year-old in 1969, I remember being allowed to stay up late to watch the moon landing, mostly at the insistence of my younger brother (who has always been more aware of reality).

Just after the asteroid hits, Miranda goes into town with her mother and brother and sees the first changes:

"When we got to the road with McDonald's and Burger King, we saw there was hardly any traffic. We drove up to McDonald's, only it was closed. So were Burger King and KFC and Taco Bell. All the fast food places were closed.
'Maybe they're just closed because it's Sunday,' I said.
'Or because tomorrow's a national day of mourning,' Jonny said.
'They're probably just waiting for the electricity to run full time,' Mom said.
It felt weird, though, seeing them all closed, the same kind of weird when you see the moon and it's just a little too big and too bright.
I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's would still be open."

I was reminded, in reverse, of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale at the moment when the handmaid sees a dish towel in the kitchen of the house where she is living, and it's jarring to her, that something so ordinary could look just the same when her life has changed so much.

In addition to the compliment I'm paying Pfeffer by saying that anything in her book reminds me of The Handmaid's Tale, one of my favorite books, I found moments when her narrator not only sounded authentically 16, but also phrased something in a way that was both amusing and frightening, like "Here's the funny thing about the world coming to an end. Once it gets going, it doesn't seem to stop." Or, towards the end, "Do people ever realize how precious life is? I know I never did before. There was always time. There was always a future." One of the most appealing ironies of Life As We Knew It is that Miranda and her younger brother, who are used to being regarded as the future of their family, keep having to reassess what kind of future that can be. That's what makes this book a compelling read, and will be especially appealing to the young adult audience.