Some thoughts on television

I watch a lot of television. This might be a strange thing for a college student to say, a Creative Writing student no less, but hey my dorm’s got free cable and there isn’t much to do in Selinsgrove past eight at night. I guess that says a lot about my social life, but I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah, I watch a lot of television and one show I’ve managed to catch, every Monday at ten on ABC, is Castle. It follows a crime novelist, Richard Castle, as he shadows Detective Kate Beckett looking for the inspiration behind his next big hit. It stars the magnificent Nathan Fillion, best known for his roles in Joss Whedon vehicles like Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and the prematurely cancelled science fiction masterpiece Firefly. A typical episode consists of finding a murder victim, interviewing significant others of the victim, and finding the killer among them.

Why do I watch this show, you ask? After all, it’s basically a cop procedural and if you’ve seen one of those, believe me you’ve seen them all. The role of detective Beckett is a good one I guess, the feminist in me always roots for shows with a strong female lead, and the show is actually funny in that quirky comedy-drama way. And it’s lacking the plastic acting of other cop dramas competing on other networks on the same time, David Caruso I’m looking at you. But I guess it’s the writing student at me that invariably kicks in. It is about a famous, fantastically rich writer after all.

If it’s one thing this series is good at, it’s practically deifying writers of ‘pop’ literature.

The pilot had a brief cameo of James Patterson, among other well known novelists, and Castle, when not solving cases for the NYPD, is usually shown either lounging at his Manhattan penthouse or attending some publisher’s party drinking fine wine and mingling with beautiful people. Pop Lit, detective fiction in particular, seems to be the only genre this happens with. The show makes the same claims about journalists that most other television shows do; that they’re annoying, intrusive and of questionable moral fiber. But in the Castle-verse, being a novelist brings luxury and wealth and it’s spreading the wrong messages to people that might not otherwise experience the production end of book publishing.

Being a writer, even a successful one with New York Time’s Bestseller splashed across the cover of a book, doesn’t automatically grant you wealth beyond measure. Most writers, those that aren’t freelance, tend to have other jobs going for them beside the writing thing. Many are teachers, guiding the next generation of copy editors and bloggers and probably teachers, but maybe also writers, through the murky years at University. I’ve only been in the writing program here at Susquehanna for a few months, but most of my teachers consider themselves writers before they consider themselves educators. It’s not that they don’t value their jobs, but writing is the one true calling. At least one professor has published a few novels, and has another he’s working on right now, while at the same time holding classes at least three times a week. Other would be writers end up going into publishing, working with the materials they love so much. The thing is, writing doesn’t pay so well, even when you’re working freelance or have somehow wrangled a book deal.

I want to be a writer, wanted to be one ever since elementary school when I wrote a story about a goldfish who couldn’t remember his mother’s name and had to be reminded every five seconds. It wasn’t his fault. Goldfish just have bad memories. The thing is though, I know the world enough to realize I can try all I want to be a writer, but when it comes down to it I’ll probably have a full time job too. When I was younger I would dream of myself as the next J.K. Rowling, with more money than the Queen of England and all because I was a master story teller. Now I just hope to one day be absolutely happy with a piece that I’ve written, to find success in even the smallest publication. Writing has ceased to be about something I can profit from, but something I do for the shear thrill of getting the right sequence of words on the page.

Watching Castle I can see why people smile and crack jokes about borrowing money from me when I announce my plans to be a writer. The public grants a certain prestige to those that work in the world of words and nowhere is this better characterized than on television. I sometimes think this is because the show’s writers are trying to bring worth back to their medium, and as long as this translates into something to do on Monday nights, I say go for it.

The Walking Dead

How much influence can a fan have over an author’s work?

The answer, in short, is a staggering amount. Fan response as prolonged the length of a series far beyond its accepted death time and time again. One need only look to television for the most grievous examples, the very existence of the phrase “jump the shark” proves that a show might go on being popular far after it has stopped being good. Television series are not the only perpetrators, however. Both the Rocky and the Star Wars series suffered from lackluster later installments in the realm of film and there are plenty of pulp fantasy novels that fit this trope. The Lauren K. Hamilton books are probably the greatest offenders here, but many will attest to the almost-indecipherable thickness of prose in Tolkein’s ponderous afterword the Silmarillion as another example of this trend.

But can an author be divorced from their work for the sake of the art?

No. Not only because it comes down to the author’s decision whether or not the world in which they write needs to be revisited (in some cases, quality be damned). But also because removing an original creator from the equation is no guarantee that a lackluster sequel will be produced in order to puppet the series onward in some sort of literary necromancy.  You only need to watch one of the Jaws sequels for a few minutes to understand that Speildberg had nothing to do with them. (Though Benchley might have been the original author, most acknowledge the film as the definitive version of the story). However, what happens in the case of a story that is left incomplete, if an author passes before he is able to finish telling his tale.

In most cases, the audience takes it upon themselves to finish the story. Either in their own heads, or by actually putting it down on paper, the story needs to be finished. Dating back to the Canterbury Tales, unfinished stories tend to draw the attention of younger authors looking to provide a satisfactory conclusion to something possibly great that remains unfinished.

Douglas Adams had expressed interest in adding another book to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series before his death. Unfortunately, this was not to be so. Even more unfortunately, perhaps, this stranded the characters of the novels in a very bleak, depressing situation that it seems Adams had always intended to remedy. To this end, Adams’s widow commissioned popular Irish young-adult author Eoin Colfer to pen the ending chapters of the series.

Titled (quite appropriately) And Another Thing…, the story picks up precisely where the fifth volume, Mostly Harmless, left off, with Colfer making use of some of Adams’s notes in order to complete the story.

While many fans objected to the arrangement when it was announced (Colfer himself is quoted as being “semi-outraged at the idea of another author contributing to the series”) it seems that the well wishes of Belson, Adams’s widow, won over the public support. The novel was received to mostly positive reviews, with many crediting Colfer for “pulling off the impossible.”

However, is this sort of circumstance the rule or the exception? Should it be expected that another author will have the ability to carry off the continuation of a superbly unique story with a measure of humor and aplomb, or will this combination yield, in most circumstances, complete disaster?

This is perhaps one of the hardest things about the writing process, figuring out where a story should end. It becomes more and more difficult each passing year with the further interference of money pouring into the equation. As long as a story continues to draw a paying audience, many interested solely in the “industry” aspect of the literary industry believe that the story should never end. However, this isn’t in the best interests of the art.

There’s really nothing an audience can do to change this, the system works as well as it possibly can. A loyal audience will follow a story up until the point it becomes boring, absurd, or horrible. However, a story or series needs to reach that point in order to lose the interest of the audience. While unfortunate, it seems to be a fact that if a franchise is successful, it is likely to be pushed forward until it is driven into the ground.

Please Go Back to Hollywood

I went to the mall after Thanksgiving to check out the frenzy that is Black Friday and perhaps to find some good deals, since this college student’s pockets aren’t exactly deep. Let’s just say that after two hours of shouldering my way through store after store, experiencing concert-level mosh pits in cashier lines, and generally wishing to be someplace else, I was more than ready to escape the craziness. Borders, the only bookstore in my local mall, loomed into view and I gladly shoved my way through the double doors, welcoming the general peace within. Bookstores tend to inspire library-levels of quiet in me and I guess that goes for everyone else since Borders was surprisingly quiet compared to the rest of the shopping mall.

This made it easy to hear the woman sitting right next to the door. She was behind a card table, modest stacks of books flanking her, pen in hand. She told me what her name was. Introduced her book, told me she was doing a signing today. I think it might have been the fact that I was still shell shocked by the intensity of the rest of the mall, but all I did was nod, smile maybe, and then I passed her, making a bee-line to one of the red chairs that were beginning to look like Shangri-La.

It wasn’t until later, safe in my quiet home, when the ability to think came back to me that I realized that I couldn’t remember the woman’s name or remember the name of her new book. I don’t think I saw a single person greet her with more than a nod or a smile, and the best attempt to acknowledge her was a lazy announcement over the muffled stereo system directing customers to the front of the store. I wondered if it was the hectic nature of the day that kept people from greeting her and buying her book, or if it was something else.

I won’t try to guess at how many books were sold that day, but judging by the amount of time I spent in line, I’d be inclined to say a lot. There were signs around the store advertising various new books, but they all had one thing in common – the author’s name was a recognizable one. James Patterson had his own display, as did Stephen King and Dan Brown. The name wasn’t merely a name it seemed, but an advertising ploy, a way to grab attention for various books.

It’s not uncommon for writers to gain a loyal following of readers, but it takes a select few to attain celebrity status. Stephen King is one of best examples. You’d probably have to leave the continent to find someone who hasn’t heard of him. Dan Brown recently reached this level, with the ridiculously popular Da Vinci Code, although I personally doubt he’ll become as ingrained into our culture as King has. Stephanie Meyer can be considered a celebrity writer, although the writer part is debatable. J.K. Rowling walks the red carpets at the premiers of the Harry Potter movies and has even had a documentary about her in the year leading up to the publication of the seventh book.

That woman in Borders, selling her book, signing her book, got barely a look, while the shelves were emptied of Stephen King and James Patterson. Is a name worth more then an actual person? Celebrity status means a lot on our culture and I guess it just disappoints me that more people, including myself, would go for the big names than take a chance on something that’s new. Maybe it was just the book sales that made people rush past her table. I don’t know. But maybe this idea of celebrity has gotten too big. I’m fine with it in Hollywood, but it really has no room here in literature.

Jock Itch: Forrest Gump and The Athlete’s Problem

Describe the typical male “Jock” for me. If you were to recreate a jock archetype, what exactly would he consist of? Regardless of any individual preference for—or dislike—of sports, I’d be willing to bet that athletic enthusiasts and the “athletically uninterested” would produce a similar “Jock” model. The descriptions used would be different, but oddly synonymous.

For instance, our guinea pig Jock would most likely be boisterous (quite obnoxious), well-built (a hulking mass), athletically gifted (pointlessly fast), and so on. Notice, however, how intelligence is excluded from the list. For some reason, the jock in the 21^st century is considered a blockheaded ignoramus. Somewhere in the past few decades, and for whatever reason, the jock became dumb. We see him everywhere: the comedic, bumbling male jock. And while NFL, NBA, and MLB players are laughing all the way to the bank, for us jocks who fell short of the big leagues, the outlook is a little more bleak.

For me, the Dumb Jock label became a reality after my first viewing of Robert Zemeckis’ adaption of Winston Groom’s novel, Forrest Gump. The novel and movie both follow the narration of the titular character as he influences major political, cultural, and economic events throughout the 1960s and 70s. He is a jock. An All American football star in college, Forrest graduates only to become a celebrated war veteran and a self-made millionaire. He achieves all of this despite his borderline mental retardation. Obviously, I was feeling good for Forrest as the movie’s end credits rolled. Thinking that this was just another story about how anyone can attain the American Dream, my brother shared his own, unique interpretation, “This just goes to show…there’s still hope out there for guys like you”.

Being able to laugh at myself, I thought the joke was pretty funny. But why is it a popular belief that being athletically gifted makes one academically challenged?

I think the stereotype is a product of our culture. The Dumb Jock is a creation of our media, our literature, our cinema, our television. He is a very captivating character, after all. His illiteracy is hilarious, his ignorance, also hilarious, his stereotypical male mannerisms (burps, farts, grunts, etc.) are in some odd way endearing…and also hilarious. He is needed in entertainment. His appeal crosses gender lines. To us males, his over the top masculinity makes us wanna thump our chest and drink too much beer with the guys. To female audiences the jock is an absurd, comical character who laughs at the very nature of such overt masculinity. He is, however, in his purest form, a product. He is a product created by and for the culture that loves him.

In H.G Bissinger’s non-fiction account of high school football in small town Texas, the Dumb Jock is presented more as a tragic case than as a comedic element. In Friday Night Lights, the athletes in the small town of Odessa, Texas seemingly fizzle out after their last high school football season—their athletic achievements not enough to lift them out of their one horse town. In this story, the Jock is not so much endeared as he is pitied. To make matters worse, it is a true retelling of the Permian Panthers 1988 football season. It is not the typical Dumb Jock gig, which finds  him in a mocking parody or light hearted story. Friday Night Lights is tragic, sad, unfortunate. It was also a bestseller, and like Forrest Gump, adapted for the widescreen.

Seemingly every rendition of the Dumb Jock, fictional or not, is a commercial success. The public cannot get enough of the illiterate athlete. Our culture created a beast, so to speak, that now plagues every high school and college athlete like a stigma.

For us jocks who fancy ourselves somewhat intelligent, it is a burden we must carry. Surely, not every football, basketball, and baseball player is an idiot. Although I do know plenty of them, not all of the less intelligent people I’m familiar with strap on the pads and helmets. Instead, there’s a whole variety of boneheads that I know. After all, playing football isn’t the only thing that kills brain cells in college. It is arguable that of all of the separate demographics represented by our culture’s idiots, the Dumb Jock was the most captivating—and that is why he caught on.

I don’t think the Dumb Jock will disappear with time. His appeal has evolved from the pages of our books and the performances on our screens, and he has saturated our reality—making the Dumb Jock an actual label in our schools and society. He really has become a social phenomenon, and one that sells, sells, sells! For any jock, dumb or not, that stereotype is an unwelcomed weight. And until someone writes a book about the Smart Jock we’ll just have to grit our teeth and bear capitalism’s greed.

tHaT iS tHe LaMeSt!!!11!!1!!! The Detriment of Blog Comment Wars

I know that at least some of us are hesitant about the move from paper to wireless, but I have found at least one positive result from the switch: the wonderful world of blogging!

With the advent of the internet has come a new phenomenon that has created an unprecedented space for people – average, everyday people – to express their own thoughts and opinions about whatever they please. Whereas traditionally this sort of expression was reserved for newspapers, scholastic journals and the like, now you can find any number of sites that provide tons of different perspectives from anyone with access to a computer and the web. It’s pretty insane, and it’s very cool to experience.

Anyone can create one of these blogs, and they can literally write about anything. I’ve seen blogs that are more like online journals (à la LiveJournal and Xanga), blogs that help friends keep up with one another (I myself started a blog about my senior year as a way to keep my friends in the loop about my life), and blogs about food (serious eats), humor (Lamebook, textsfromlastnight, FML), random acts of awesome (1000 Awesome Things), and any number of ideas you might want to explore.

Most recently, I’ve been reading opinion pieces on blogs about cultural phenomena like Star Wars and Twilight. And while these blogs are great because they allow people who previously might never have been heard of to get their own ideas out there, the backlash is starting to make me a little wary.

How many times has this happened to you:

You’re aimlessly surfing the web when you stumble across a random post that seems like it might be interesting. You read the the post and it’s as you suspected – awesome! You love the idea, the way it’s written, and that you found it on a blog that you can now follow. You scroll down to the comments to see what other people think about it, and to your dismay you find a raging flame war.

It’s the most frustrating feeling in the inter-world, finding that people have reverted to childish antics and hurling curses, insults, and whatever they possibly can to denigrate the opposing party. Let’s look at Twilight. (Am I sensing a theme in my blogs here?) A lot of bloggers have risen up in protest of Meyer and her vampire saga, offering criticism based on what they feel is wrong with the novels. These writers have garnered a generous number of supporters, generally referred to as Antis (anti-whatever they dislike, in this case anti-Twilight), who express similar thoughts on the subject in the comment section. They tend to be logical and well-composed, but they’re also incredibly condescending and group all Twilight fans together into some kind of subhuman entity, making sweeping generalizations that they’re all brainless and that their thoughts and opinions don’t count. These Antis are met with a passionate defense from “twi-hards” and “Cullenists” who claim that Antis are just jealous of Meyer for her writing ability and newfound wealth, Bella for getting a gorgeous guy, and Edward for being hot. They accuse Antis of thinking too much and fabricating a problem where there isn’t one.

Both sides make statements like this: We’re entitled to our own opinion, and if you don’t like it, then SHUT UP!

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure flaming someone else into silence is the best way to talk about a book. I like the internet because it promotes discussion and encourages people with different perspectives to offer their opinions and insights – I wasn’t aware that it’s just another place to find people who agree with you and hate on everyone else. I’m not so hot on Twilight, either, but I’m certainly not attacking anyone who disagrees with me. I much prefer to have a debate about why I don’t like it and to read what someone might say to defend the series than call someone an idiot because they’ve expressed an interest in a book that I don’t like.

Luckily, a lot of bloggers recognize this, and they warn in their posts not to flame. They monitor the comments, or they shut down the section altogether when discussion gets out of hand. This is encouraging, but it doesn’t stop people from trying shut each other down.

I’m happy to see that people are passionate about topics and about what they believe, but I’ve got serious doubts about the effects of flaming. The internet is an opportunity to have your voice heard, but that’s not going to last long if people keep burning each other so often and so thoroughly. I can only hope that these wars will go the way of dial-up connections and fade into obsolescence before people are shut down so many times that they just don’t express their opinions in the first place. Then the potential of the internet for sharing ideas will be completely lost.

Over-reading

As students in an English class, we have all learned the basics about literature.  I would go as far as to say they are engraved in our mind.  We cannot escape them.  Literary terms and devices chase us down the street.  Symbolism beats us, showing no mercy.  To look at a piece of literature through this lens runs through our veins.  It is almost impossible to read a book of choice – one purely for enjoyment purposes only – without contemplating the skills we’ve been honing since elementary school.  It has become a habit, this art we are being trained in.

In each class, every day of the semester, the same thing happens: we discuss the reading from whatever book, poem, or article assigned the previous day.  Most times, discussion is not grueling.  We employ our knowledge of literature and being to pull apart the writing.  However, there are those few times where the discussions takes a turn in a completely new direction.  The speaker, almost always a fellow student, begins analyzing the material in a whole new, very deep and profound way.  It’s so deep and so profound that I need to question whether or not this actually relates to what we read, and to ask:  Is there really such a thing as over-reading a text?

I’m not a creative writing major.  In fact, I have never taken a formal writing class here at Susquehanna.  The only background I have in the area is a half-year course in high school, plus the writing we had to do in our typical English classes.  But from my little experience as a writer, I find it hard to believe that authors can spend so much time and thought filling their work with limitless amounts of symbols and meaning.  When I write, I do not sit there and ponder about the bigger picture and the meaning of all the little things I incorporate into a single story.  My stories are plot driven.  The characters are influenced by people I know and I form them to be the kind of character who can not only fit into the plot, but to do so very well.  I want my characters to be realistic.  I like figurative language and try to use it whenever I can.  But there’s a point where I stop with my literary devices.

People write differently, that’s obvious.  If they didn’t we wouldn’t have the variety of literature that we have today.  While I don’t fill my work with symbols and such, other writers do.  Maybe it’s those who have been educated in the field.  Maybe it’s the people in another field, like religion or philosophy, who do.  But there has to be some point where the meaning stops.  A writer can only put so much into his writing.

This is a problem on the reader’s side.  We’ve been told that as long as we find textual evidence to support our assertion no one can say that we are wrong.  We are told it’s all about what we get out of the writing.  The writer’s intent does not matter.  But is this true?  To some extent, a writer’s intent does matter, and scholars are now starting to shift back to considering it. What writers put into the work consciously is what you should get out of their writing.  I’ll even go as far as to agree that they include some unintentional messages.  But if the idea you find in the text is really obscure, then that is over-reading.  Our interpretations have to be relevant to authors’ ideas, their point of view, politics, and other influences.  Even if you find textual evidence, if your reading is out in left field do you really think that the writer actually sat there and worked that idea out? Odds are, the answer is no.

Take this into consideration tomorrow when you sit in one of your English classes.  Keep this in mind when you’re reading.  There is such a thing as over-reading, and to do so means you are pulling something out of the work that is not there or meant to be there.

Electronic Reading Devices…Just the New MP3 Player?

To play music back in the day, a record player and the record were required.  Then, came cassette tapes, followed by CDs, and now there are MP3 players.  Apple’s iPod, Microsoft’s Zune, and SanDisk’s Sanza are just three different types of MP3 players out of many.  To listen to records, you needed a lot of space in which to put the stereo equipment, but now it all fits in your pocket.

If you can do it with music, then why not books? Shouldn’t books fit in your pocket?  Instead of iPods there is the Kindle, in competition with Barnes and Noble’s Nook.  And don’t you worry, Apple, of course, is following close behind with some sort of “super iPhone.” Books are heavy and can be difficult to lug around.  When you think about it, it only makes sense to digitalize books.  Picture this: You’re sitting at the airport, waiting for your flight, and you finish one of the paperbacks you happened to stick in your bag.  Luckily, you brought another, but the flight gets delayed overnight and sitting in your hotel room you finish that book too.  You are left frustrated not only because of the airport system, but also because you are now bored.  With an electronic reading device, this situation would not happen, because hundreds of books can fit on that little thing.

This blog is not meant to be an advertisement for electronic reading devices, but when you think of books the way you think of music these devises really only make sense.  At first, some did not like the idea of downloading music, especially because artists got tired of the music getting pirated, and that got in the way of making money.  This idea is also behind digitalizing books. Publishing companies and authors are worried about not getting the money they usually would from selling a hardcover book, but somehow things like this will get worked out.  Of course, there will probably still be some pirating of books as there is with music, but ways to prevent this will be established.  Music artists still make money, and now downloading music helps promote those artists.  This is done by recording how many times a song has been downloaded within a week and so getting it on the “Top 20.” This also makes it easier to share the tunes, thereby creating more fans.  These same concepts can work with authors.  How many times a book got downloaded will help promote authors, popularizing them and getting more fans interested.  You’ll be able to share a book with a friend by sharing the PDA, and you still get to keep your copy.

But what will happen to bookstores, to books in general?  Have no fear, bookstores will stay here!  I highly doubt that once electronic book readers become more popular there will be a mass book burning.  Think about it. Barnes and Noble, a bookstore, has its own electronic reading device.  They are not worried about losing their stores; instead they are enhancing them.  CD stores have not disappeared, and there are still record stores around too.  Yes, vinyl records are a sort of novelty these days, but perhaps this sort of thing will happen with books too.  Libraries will still be used and hardcopies will still be needed.  But things are advancing—people are moving faster and technology also needs to be fast.  If hundreds of books can be at your fingertips why should this be considered a bad thing?

Perhaps instead of being worried about digitalizing books we should be embracing it.  I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have my MP3 player instead of my clunky, hard to carry around booklet of CDs just to have a variety-CD player. My back has all sorts of problems from having had to lug around heavy textbooks in high school and college. An electronic reader would help save me a lot of pain.

So instead of fearing the electronic reader, be excited for it.  In 1999 people worried that Y2K would destroy the world and that all computers would crash.  This, people, was ridiculous, and did not happen.  Nobody is going to be able to completely destroy books. There is a magic to picking up a book, the way it smells and feels.  Books will remain important.  But with electronic readers, books will become more accessible and easy to carry around.  What’s more comfortable, running in the park with your headphones and MP3 player or running while carrying around your vinyl record player?  Books will not disappear, they’ll just be easier to carry around.

The Texas Textbook Massacre: a Tounge-twister.

Now that I am facing the end of my time as an undergraduate creative writing major, I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of the published word. After all, this is what I am aspiring to do: have my work published. I tend to forget that there’s more to the book world than just artful literature; there are books like dictionaries, encyclopedias, and so on. These books are considered reference books. Can we really claim that these kinds of books can ever be completely objective? No. The writers of reference books are like elves — happily doing all the dirty work behind the scenes and getting no recognition for it. The only people we can name off the top of our heads are long dead, cough cough Webster cough cough.

While I am not out to condemn the writers of reference materials for not being 100% objective, I am interested in the influence these texts have on us. With oral traditions consisting of mostly urban legends in modern America, history books seem to be the keepers of history itself.

About a week ago I attended a lecture on the separation of church and state as it applies to public education. Richard Katskee, the lecturer, is an attorney and acts as the Assistant Legal Director for a group called American’s United for the Separation of Church and State. While much of the lecture centered on the science and the legal issues of this debate, Katskee raised an interesting point about textbooks. He talked about a debate over what should be included in public school textbooks, and how one state can affect an entire nation.

Any book to be used in the public school classrooms of Texas MUST be approved first by the state of Texas itself. In attorney Katskee’s lecture, I learned that Texas happens to be the nation’s largest market for textbooks, due to it massive size and population. Two of the largest textbook publishers, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin, want to sell their books to this large market, and so they tailor their textbooks in ways that will make them more likely to be approved by the Texas state education board and thus purchased. Textbook publishers aren’t going to print different versions for every other state, so the rest of the nation ends up getting textbooks tailored to Texas’s standards. Kind of unfair, right? Texas politics and ideals are not necessarily the same for Maine or California or Rhode Island. But these states end up getting Texas’s textbooks.

Right now, people in Texas are arguing to change what (and who) is included in history books. Attorney Katskee touched on this in great detail during his lecture. Reverend Peter Marshall, while not a writer of actual textbooks, has argued that certain people mentioned in history, like Thurgood Marshall, are not important enough to be included in our children’s textbooks. Thurgood Marshall was the first African American to serve on the American Supreme Court—apparently that is insignificant to Peter Marshall. Reverend Marshall has taken matters into his own hands, writing books in a series he calls Restoring America Leader’s and Learner’s Guides. He names the men and women (mostly white Christian men to be more specific) he feels are worthy of being in the textbooks. Knowing he can’t leave out pivotal pioneers like the founding fathers, he goes as far as making up false quotes and attributing them to Jefferson, who most of the world now knows to have been a deist, to prove his point that the founders intended the nation to be a Christian nation from the get-go and that the Constitution should be interpreted that way.

In an editorial by Lee Fang that can be found here, we can see that Texas Board of Education committee members are being urged “to remove biographies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen F. Austin, and César Chávez, and instead add history about the ‘motivational role the Bible and the Christian faith played in the settling of the original colonies.’” While inserting the role of the Bible into the history textbooks is outright unconstitutional, removing the biographies of Washington and Lincoln is a possibility. And if it happens to Texas, it will happen to us all.

Many have written on the power of the written word, but textbooks have monumental power as children are required to read and learn from them. Many in my generation, the children of the late eighties, grew up thinking that Christopher Columbus was a hero, when in reality he did a lot of horrible stuff. Why? Because the textbooks said so.

Some have argued that putting historical figures into textbooks sets them up as heroes. As students, especially those in elementary school, we tend to trust that what our teachers and textbooks tell us is true. If we take people like César Chávez out of history books we are deeming them unimportant. I didn’t think Columbus was a hero simply because he was in the textbooks, but rather because of what the textbook left out about him.

Textbooks can include factual information without warping a child’s mind. If the information is presented factually and objectively, a child can decide for himself whether he wants to look up to Chávez or not. This is an important topic to think about for those who are part of (or want to be in) the publishing world, because what we produce is going to have an affect on those who read it. History textbooks can essentially rewrite history.

Vintage Books

While there has been a lot of debate about how e-books will change the world and literature as we know it, I have to admit I’m still stuck in the past about books. And I’m not even talking about paper vs. electronic, I’m talking about current book publications vs. vintage publications.

As someone who frequents used bookstores and antique shops on a nearly weekly basis, I’ve seen my fair share of vintage books. And even here at Susquehanna University, our library is filled with ancient books and publications. And I’ve noticed something. Vintage books are a lot more simple, both in presentation and in the structure of the book itself, while today’s books primarily act as posters for intellectualism.

Today’s books are excessively colorful, made with thicker paper, and are full of extra pages to fluff them up. They are also much larger. This is reflected in the price. It’s appalling when a paperback costs over 15 dollars and it isn’t a graphic novel. It’s a plot to make more money. If the book is more attractive, the public will be more likely to buy it, even if it costs a lot more than it should.

The focus in vintage books seems to be the work itself—just the author, the title, and the story. The books are rather small. The simplicity of the book made it less costly than books today. I currently own a book of criticism about J.D. Salinger from the 196os. It cost 50 cents, which is approximately 4 dollars by today’s value. It is over 300 pages long. I sincerely doubt that a book of such length would cost less than 10 dollars in today’s market.

Now, books convey the illusion of intelligence and satisfy the consumerist desire of owning interesting, eye-catching books, rather than on owning books for the work itself. Books contain so many forewords and afterwords, and introductions and appendices that they add hundreds of pages, raising the cost, rather than letting the work stand on its own. This seems the fault of critical theory and snobby elitism, but I digress. The point is, books have lost touch with what they are.

I recently purchased a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass published in 1970 for a dollar at a local used bookstore. The cover is plain, white, and has green lettering in the top left hand corner that reads “Leaves of Grass: Selections. Whitman.” And then, in tiny print, the editor of the edition. That’s it. The title of the work, the author, and the editor. There is no fluff in the book’s presentation.

A current copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass has a close up of grass as the cover, with a large central plate that looks like old paper, with a bright red border. In the middle of this plate is the title and the author’s name in large fancy font.  Is this really necessary? We all know what grass looks like, do we need to include it on the cover? Does it add to our enjoyment of Whitman’s words? Not really.

Are we no longer drawn to the works themselves? Only by the images or ideas of them? Yes, it is true that book publishers did not include fancy pictures and type settings on their old books because they didn’t have the technology to do so. However, just because they have the technology doesn’t mean they have to use it. There has to be a marketable reason to use it, otherwise the cost outweighs the profit. As humans, we are drawn to pictures rather than words. In the “old days” the books that primarily had cover art were pulp novels and science fiction, usually showing some damsel in distress getting attacked or stalked by an alien or a man with a gun. These covers were used to draw in the readers and sell these penny-dreadfuls. Now, nearly all covers are marketing ploys, with some author’s face plastered on the cover, reaching out to the easily swayed. For a fantasy fan, a book with a dragon on the cover may be the reason to buy it. This is kind of sickening. Literature has fallen to the same level of marketing as a box of cereal.

Granted, this is a generalization based on personal experiences, but I have actually met people who have purchased a book solely on the cover art. Bookstores are not galleries. We are not buying the art, we are buying the words. Bookstores have become capitalist ventures, even more so than they already have.

We don’t need the extra presentation or the extra cost. Go to a used bookstore or a thrift store and buy the classics for considerably cheaper prices and you won’t lose any of the impact of the works themselves. An older edition might have some fascinating differences from the updated versions.  Literature shouldn’t be about money or fancy pictures. Yet it has become so, and now with the advent of e-books, it has also become about convenience and keeping up with technology. But that’s a blog post for another time.

Cosmos, Oprah, and Books

My mother has been in a book club for over two years now.  Once a month on Friday evenings they meet in the clubhouse in our development, drink wine, eat food, and possibly talk about a book.  Book clubs were all the rage for a while, partly due to Oprah’s influence.  Books were printed with questions for discussion and publisher’s websites for authors often included book club questions.  This is still the case, but book clubs aren’t in fashion as much now.  I think this is partly because the fad has simply worn off, but perhaps the trend will pick up again with Oprah’s announcement of a new Book Club pick.  Book clubs are a great institution because they boost the popularity of books, increase reading, and allow the discussion of literature to remain lively.

My mother’s book club consists of other mothers in our neighborhood with children of similar ages.  My sister is thirteen so many of my mother’s friends also have children in middle school.  They started out reading books like We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (an Oprah pick) and The Bonesetters Daughter by Amy Tan.  Each week someone would bring wine, an appetizer, and some questions printed out about the book.  They would discuss the book for about half the time and then talk about their husbands and kids for the other half.

As time went on less women would bother finishing the chosen book.  Our close family friend, Darlene, would complain the books were too depressing.  Other mothers would say they just didn’t have time and the book didn’t keep their interest.  Even my mom would occasionally be unable to finish the book if she was too busy with work.  That’s when Darlene started bringing cosmos instead of wine, and the conversation became wholly centered on husbands and kids and, frequently, teacher bashing (much to my mother’s disappointment seeing as she is a teacher).

In book clubs there is usually a schism in the group because certain people like reading Nora Roberts and certain people prefer books that are a little more mentally stimulating.   In our culture there always seems to be a natural divide between people who read for pleasure or entertainment and people who read to challenge themselves. And then there is always a Darlene in the group who prefers to drink and gossip and have a good time.  Book clubs allow for both types of people to come together.  Even when my mother’s book club is reading a book that is literary fiction and doesn’t appeal to everyone, they gather together as a form of entertainment and to enjoy themselves.

Book clubs in the movies, like The Jane Austen Book Club and in Little Children (which were both also books), seem to do better centering on classic books that people may have read before.  I love the idea of a book club reading one author’s entire work.  It could get boring after a while, but it would probably feel like a great accomplishment.  In a collegiate setting we have the opportunity in literature classes to read a book and have an intelligent discussion with other people about it.  After college, that experience is lost if you aren’t continuing your education.  Book clubs are a wonderful way to have that opportunity.  My mom is a middle school English teacher and she has always loved reading and books.  Her book club allows her to enjoy literature, besides the kind that is read by 12 year olds, and to have a reason to socialize with her friends in a meaningful way.

With the popularity of Oprah’s Book Club, Oprah seems to have become the poster child for book clubs.  The books that Oprah picked in the past were far from your beach read, but somehow the busy women of America were picking up Love in the Time of Cholera, The Sound and the Fury, and The Bluest Eye. When you have the stamp of approval from Oprah, books sell in great numbers.  Publishers loved this.  In 2002, Oprah stopped endorsing so many books saying, “It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I find absolutely compelled to share.”

In September of this year, Oprah announced her 63^rd book club selection.  This was the first short story collection she chose, titled Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan.  There is no question that Akpan’s book will sell much more than the 32,000 copies sold since it was released, especially now that Oprah has endorsed it.  I personally wouldn’t consider Oprah an expert on literature, but she is doing something admirable, something that more people should do.  She is compelled by literature, and she feels the need to share with others the books that compel her.  I’m not saying that Oprah’s Book Club isn’t a big money making machine, but she at least has the right idea of what purpose a book club serves.  Reading is a very private thing.  But literature doesn’t have to be academic and solitary.  There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a cosmo when you discuss a book.