"Adults Should Read Adult Books" - Joel Stein

[syntheticgerbil]

The first time someone used "CBT" to mean cognitive behavioral therapy, I thought he was talking about cock and ball torture. That was a bit embarrassing.

Shit, is that really a common abbreviation for that?!

[Chris]

You could just as easily say the opposite. If you're so happy with your life why are you spending your time judging superficial aspects of the lives of those around you ("Ugh, that guy on the subway is reading THE HUNGER GAMES? Get a life dude!")?

I think it's neither of these things. I don't think many people (including me) go around constantly obsessed with the things they have opinions about and actively applying them in that kind of zealous way. (I know you weren't suggesting that is actually the case, but rather were essentially presenting a devil's advocate position.)

Happiness and unhappiness I think are far too complex and circumstantial to be simply tied to one given opinion or evaluation--being happy doesn't make you not care about things you care about, and vice versa.

I do think that reading good adult fiction is one of the most effective and nuanced ways in modern society to truly gain insight into the interior lives of fellow humans. I think literature is much better equipped to facilitate this than other media like film or games or whatever--which isn't to say those things aren't valuable or beautiful, but I do firmly believe that writing that deals intimately with the circumstances and motives of people's lives and actions offer pretty unique benefits. I don't want to get mired in claims of complete exclusivity--another medium can do those things as well. But it's the real wheelhouse of serious fiction, which I think does it more regularly and generally speaking with the most depth. A skilled and compassionate author can achieve a level of true human insight that reaches a level of depth and focus that is hard to achieve elsewhere, and can do it in the context of a story that is compelling, readable, enjoyable, enriching.

I think books (at least, books that aren't attached to franchises or become mega-successful franchises in and of themselves) are less encumbered by the kind of intensely commercial structures that surround most mass media at this point. There are things literature does not do as well, and that's why we have other forms as well, of course, and there are creators in those forms who can achieve a worthwhile vision despite the large financial structures around them. I still do think there's something vital and vibrant about fiction despite that.

[brkl]

To be specific, I would say that fiction can try to simulate our inner speech, which other mediums cannot do very well. Cinema can only (practically) present stories from the third person. Games of course can be presented in the first person, but since the player character is primarily an avatar of the player, they're a completely different beast. No other medium can put you in the head of a character and present their observations and thought patterns as well as their actions.

[ThunderPeel2001]

You could just as easily say the opposite. If you're so happy with your life why are you spending your time judging superficial aspects of the lives of those around you ("Ugh, that guy on the subway is reading THE HUNGER GAMES? Get a life dude!")?

Very true. It sounds like a person who would argue something like that is projecting their own insecurities.

[Chris]

To be specific, I would say that fiction can try to simulate our inner speech, which other mediums cannot do very well. Cinema can only (practically) present stories from the third person. Games of course can be presented in the first person, but since the player character is primarily an avatar of the player, they're a completely different beast. No other medium can put you in the head of a character and present their observations and thought patterns as well as their actions.

Yeah definitely, that's what I mean by interior lives.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Happiness and unhappiness I think are far too complex and circumstantial to be simply tied to one given opinion or evaluation--being happy doesn't make you not care about things you care about, and vice versa.

I think you've missed my point: If you're recently bereaved, you might find solace in light fiction, like The Hunger Games or Harry Potter, rather than something "deep" like Ulysses or The Grapes of Wrath.

I also have to say that I think what you get out of books is a reflection a reader's intelligence. If they're only getting battles with Orcs from Lord of the Rings, or kids with magic from Harry Potter, then I think the reader is missing out.

Anyways, I'm now really curious: Could you give an example of the books which you feel have "a level of true human insight that reaches a level of depth and focus that is hard to achieve elsewhere"?

[Chris]

I think you've missed my point: If you're recently bereaved, you might find solace in light fiction, like The Hunger Games or Harry Potter, rather than something "deep" like Ulysses or The Grapes of Wrath.

Fair enough.

I also have to say that I think what you get out of books is a reflection a reader's intelligence. If they're only getting battles with Orcs from Lord of the Rings, or kids with magic from Harry Potter, then I think the reader is missing out.

I sort of agree in theory, but in practice, it's hard for me to see much going on in (for example) Lord of the Rings on any really meaningful level. That's not to say there definitely isn't, and it's been a number of years since I've read it so I can't be utterly confident here, but it kind of strikes me as a pretty quintessential example of a straightforward story whose characters have fairly little depth.

Anyways, I'm now really curious: Could you give an example of the books which you feel have "a level of true human insight that reaches a level of depth and focus that is hard to achieve elsewhere"?

Among contemporary fiction I've recently read: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Sight for Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendell, Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante.

Not all of those works are equally excellent, obviously, but they're all at least good. They all have a lot to say about being a human being in a world filled with other people.

[Roderick]

David Mitchell released a book after Cloud Atlas called The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. It's about the Dutch Dejima colony in Japan and so I have to read it. Hopefully it's good! I haven't read anything from him, but I decidedly will.

[Orv]

The only good thing to come out of this thread is the guy with the Mao ZeDingdong avatar being the one calling out a grammar nazi. Somehow poetic.

(The guy with a Third Street Saints Mao ZeDingdong no less.)

(I have nothing meaningful to add beyond my already stated belief, I'm so sorry!)

E: In fact I know that exact avatar...

Edited April 17, 2012 by Orvidos

[juv3nal]

David Mitchell released a book after Cloud Atlas called The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. It's about the Dutch Dejima colony in Japan and so I have to read it. Hopefully it's good! I haven't read anything from him, but I decidedly will.

It's ok, but I liked Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten more.

Also, for Mitchell at his most Murakami-like, see Number9dream (wikipedia, spoilers ahoy). Hell, it even takes its title from a Lennon song a la Norwegian Wood.

[Chris]

David Mitchell released a book after Cloud Atlas called The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. It's about the Dutch Dejima colony in Japan and so I have to read it. Hopefully it's good! I haven't read anything from him, but I decidedly will.

Yeah, I've been meaning to get around to that as well.

[Ben X]

The only good thing to come out of this thread

I thought we got some interesting discussion out of it.

[Squid Division]

It's ok, but I liked Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten more.

Also, for Mitchell at his most Murakami-like, see Number9dream (wikipedia, spoilers ahoy). Hell, it even takes its title from a Lennon song a la Norwegian Wood.

I agree. I just finished Jacob de Zoet tonight and it was great, but pales in comparison to Cloud Atlas. Do you recommend Ghostwritten?

[juv3nal]

I agree. I just finished Jacob de Zoet tonight and it was great, but pales in comparison to Cloud Atlas. Do you recommend Ghostwritten?

I do. I think I prefer it to Cloud Atlas. Ghostwritten IMO has a more eventful plot and is less concerned with developing character, which in a capital-L-Literature sense makes it inferior, probably, but I think the difference serves to make it more entertaining. YMMV.

[Chris]

I was browsing around a bookstore today and as I was leaving I saw a hardcover copy of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet on sale, so I bought it. Hooray!

[Roderick]

Book cast episode 2 confirmed

[Squid Division]

I was browsing around a bookstore today and as I was leaving I saw a hardcover copy of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet on sale, so I bought it. Hooray!

Would something that length (about 500 pages) be open for the bookcast, or are you guys aiming shorter?

Also, would you ever do an episode on a book none of the three of you has read before?

[Chris]

Would something that length (about 500 pages) be open for the bookcast, or are you guys aiming shorter?

Also, would you ever do an episode on a book none of the three of you has read before?

That's a more typical length for a novel so yeah I'm sure there will be selections in that ballpark. Our first book wasn't chosen because it's short, although that did seem like a tertiary benefit for a debut.

We will definitely consider episodes on books none of us has read. I think we're probably roughly going to be alternating between the three of us when it comes to suggesting books, and someone could easily nominate a book he hasn't read.

[pabosher]

That's a more typical length for a novel so yeah I'm sure there will be selections in that ballpark. Our first book wasn't chosen because it's short, although that did seem like a tertiary benefit for a debut.

We will definitely consider episodes on books none of us has read. I think we're probably roughly going to be alternating between the three of us when it comes to suggesting books, and someone could easily nominate a book he hasn't read.

Have any of you guys read Mitch Albom's work? Considering your preference to Adult literature Chris, I figure it might be something you're interested in.

[Corelli]

For what it's worth, this isn't really why I think someone like Franzen writes more vital fiction than someone like Tolkien. In Freedom, Franzen's powers of human observation are astonishing. That book genuinely affected the way I see other people and the world. There's a depth of humanity present in the work of a fiction writer like Franzen that I have rarely encountered in genre fiction--that's absolutely not to say it doesn't exist, but I don't think genre fiction writers treat it as their highest responsibility the same way literary fiction writers do. When you're writing in a genre you're necessarily beholden to whatever tropes and conventions exist in your genre; you certainly may try to transcend or subvert them, and may do so successfully, but to me those elements can't help but be the centerpiece or at least steal a lot of the show. (That is after all why people read a particular genre.) I think this is especially true when (as is the case for many, many genre writers) you're writing these series that seem to go on forever, with book after book, and then your responsibility becomes to this self-contained universe you've created, which exerts its own pressures on itself in terms of needing that world and its characters to remain viable as an indefinitely-lasting or at least fairly long-term concern, which to me is at odds with how fiction operates at its best.

I know this is all highly subjective, and I don't claim any of this is automatically the case for any one given author. But having read a whole lot of various kinds of genre fiction during different stages of my life, it is part of why I have largely abandoned it.

To me it sounds like you haven't read much good genre fiction. Just from the standpoint of science fiction, if you've read Zelazny or Stephenson or Pynchon or whatever, you wouldn't be conflating genre fiction with bad fiction, which, even though you say you're not doing, is pretty much what you're saying when you say genre fiction is not "adult".

To put it another way, you're not looking at the cemetery. Sure, Franzen is great. I'm not disputing that. But there is lots of awful literary fiction, just like there is lots of awful genre fiction. For every Franzen or Updike there are ten Gutersons. Just like for every Zelazny there are ten Star Wars Expanded Universes. Or something.

[vimes]

Not all of those works are equally excellent, obviously, but they're all at least good. They all have a lot to say about being a human being in a world filled with other people.

That's interesting; I picked up Cloud Atlas when you mentioned it last year on twitter and struggled to finish it. It seemed to me that the book was overly commited to each local tone/genre and pointlessly obsessed with meshing everything together through detail rather than theme. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with English Literature and each style is actually very genuine, but it didn't completely feel that way to me.

This made it very difficult for me to see what was the focus point of the book and what was the use of the structure beyond a few gimmicky (but effective) tricks it pulled.

If I put those issues aside, each piece is fairly interesting; but honestly, having read a huge amount of collection of short stories recently; they wouldn't really stand among the bests. It's a good book; but given its structure I was expecting something more.

Edited April 19, 2012 by vimes

[Erkki]

I haven't read this thread, but I have a question.

Is "Catcher in the Rye" young adult fiction?

[pabosher]

I haven't read this thread, but I have a question.

Is "Catcher in the Rye" young adult fiction?

Yes, I'd say so.

[Corelli]

Yes, I'd say so.

I suspect that a legion of English professors would vehemently disagree. Not that I necessarily do, it's been a long time since I read it.

[pabosher]

I suspect that a legion of English professors would vehemently disagree. Not that I necessarily do, it's been a long time since I read it.

Well, it's about coming of age, isn't it? That age wherein everything is just 'meh' and things just seem to happen to you. I remember very little of note happening in CitR, but it was totally written for my age (around 14, I think.)

Just because it's a classic doesn't mean it's not for Young Adults.