My wife is going to Cambridge this weekend for her book club with her Mount Holyoke friends. They read books together in college and talked about them and still love doing this. She also reads two newspapers every morning--more out of loyalty to the idea of a paper newspaper, I suspect, than out of true affection--she was a newspaper reporter back in the day.
But, apart from those members of her generation, who read on paper as well as on Kindle, are paper books really still where the best in the world of literature appears?
There is a difference in the experience in reading a book and seeing the Huck Finn or the Brett Ashley of your own creation, in your own mind and seeing actors on television. Reading demands more of us, and some argue, it returns a deeper, more visceral, (or should I say ?),a more cerebral reward.
My son has read Game of Thrones and tells me I should not be content to simply watch the series, but can I commit the time and effort to each of the 5 fifteen hundred page novels?
And where among all the 80,000 books published in a given year in this country, can I find anything as rewarding as The Wire? Of, for that matter, House of Cards, or Doc Martin or Foyle's War or The Killing or even, I blush to admit, Downton Abbey? Well, scratch Downton, but you get the idea.
There were two pieces, side by side in last Sunday's New York Times Review of Books, arguing the case for the continued centrality of the printed novel, but I was unmoved.
Thinking of favorite books--A Farewell to Arms, The Bell Jar, Final Payments, Play It As it Lays, The New York Ride, Gone With the Wind, Peyton Place, The Stranger, Huckleberry Finn, The Big Sleep, West With the Night, Catch-22, Great Expectations, each of them enthralled me for a time, at a certain point in life, but only one, (West With the Night) still enthralls me. All the rest have not weathered well, as I've moved from one point in life to the next. Likely, this is because the single author of each was writing from a particular point in his or her life.
But TV is made as a joint venture by many people and it will, I suspect, wear better. The Wire will be seen and enjoyed and inform for generations to come, and through generations--people will see it in their 20's through 60's and thrill to a new aspect of it in each decade.
Sorry, but that single author effort just cannot compete.
Phantom,
ReplyDeleteI like your choices for favorite books-I've read several of them and liked them as well, especially GWTW and Great Expectations. Which of course got me thinking last night what books I would choose as favorites, there were so many contenders. But I guess I'd go with East of Eden, My Antonia, Wuthering Heights, David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring--loved them. Then there were all the novels I read in the 80's and 90's instead of TV( not a golden age of television) The World According to Garp, The Hotel NH, The Prince of Tides, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Sophie's Choice, The French Lieutenant's Woman. I enjoyed them so much at the time, I wonder if I still would. It's funny, the only books I've read somewhat recently and would add to the list is Olive Kittredge and Dry. Probably the two books that stunned me the most when I read them were Le Grand Meaulnes/The Wanderer and An Unfinished Woman. You studied French so maybe you read Le Grand Meaulnes in French. Since I could barely conjugate verbs in French I read the English translation in a foreign lit class when I was 19 or 20 and remember thinking it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever read. The fact the author was killed in WWI shortly after writing it only added to it's mystique. I read An Unfinished Woman as well as Pentimento in my 20's and was in awe of both Lillian Hellman's life and her writing style. I'm not a re-reader of books-once they're done, that's that, but I would like to reread these to see if I still find them as inspiring as I once did. Have never read West With the Night but it sounds fascinating and Beryl Markham's life is one of those truth is stranger than fiction cases where you couldn't make up a life more interesting and exciting than hers...
Although I agree that the TV dramas you mentioned contain the same elements as really great novels-and I agree Downton can be scratched even though I can't stop watching it- I don't think they'll be replacing novels-nor should they. As you say novels provide a different experience- a more personal one-than a TV show no matter how great it is. I know, I know not if it's The Wire, that entity which has no peer-do I understand you correctly that you prefer The Wire to not only every show you've every seen but also every book? Now that's devotion. Guess I have to return to it and try and understand the draw...
Maud
Maud,
ReplyDeleteAlmost all these volumes have been around my house, but were likely among the hundreds of books we gave away when we moved to NH years ago. I will download Le Grand Meaulnes and Manon of the Springs and the French Lieutenant's Woman and an Unfinished Woman to Kindle. There seems to be a definite thread running through these. My wife loved Garp and called me Garp for years after reading it. Apparently, we shared some traits. Personally, Irving never did much for me--Although, I know he's local and I've seen his picture among the wrestling team photos at the PEA gym.
You read West With the Night and I'll pick one of those. I tried My Antonia when I was 15 and could never understand that one.
That is one difference between the novel and The Wire or Call The Midwife--the broad appeal across gender, across experience of TV vs the very idiosyncratic connection you find in matching a novelist to the soul of an individual reader.
Phantom.
Phantom,
DeleteAgreed. I'll get on it. If it's Manon of the Springs you choose you'll need to read Jean de Florette first since Manon is a sequel.. I know what you mean about My Antonia-I read it in my forties and I appreciated it's quietness and found it lovely, but I think if I had read it at 15 I would have found it exceptionally dull...
Maud