Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Still Hot
On the first day of class in my Young Adult Fiction course, I read "Where the Wild Things Are" to my students. I do this because it introduces many of the themes we will encounter throughout the semester and also because I love to have the excuse to read the book aloud. But the book brings into the classroom much more than the practical and the pleasurable. When I read those words and turn those pages, a magic is released and reminds all of us, if any of us had forgotten, that literature written for young people plucks at our souls and makes them sing.
Where the Wild Things Are is a wonderful place in the truest sense of "wonderful," but I have always found the most magical part of the book to be the last line. Max sails back home, in and out of weeks, to find his supper waiting for him: "and it was still hot."
My students and I talk about why this is such a perfect ending to the story, and I often make the argument that it all hinges on the word "hot." If the food was warm, we would know that Max's mother had set the dish in his room but then had wandered away, turing her attention to something else. Because the supper is "still hot," we can be sure, as can Max, that his mother has taken special care with his supper. She knows what he needs and when he needs it. She doesn't need to be in his room, or in the final illustration, because Max knows she is there for him. The hot food makes her love plain.
Lots of children's books, for young readers and older ones, are about journeys away from home, and these are fascinating and wonderful. But sometimes the journeys that move us most are the returns. When Wendy flies back into the nursery, when Alice runs inside for tea, when the Pevensie children tumble out of the wardrobe, when Harry goes to bed in his four-poster, readers are reminded that part of the magic of going away is the magic of coming back. Sendak captured this magic with beautiful simplicity.
Maurice Sendak has gone away, and he sails off "in and out of weeks," my heart breaks because I know he won't come back. But I take comfort, as will countless readers for years to come, from the simple fact that his words will never leave us, and we can always come back to find them waiting for us. Still and always hot.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
A 200th Birthday
Charles Dickens was born two hundred years ago today on February 7, 1812. Few literary figures have achieved such lasting renown as Dickens, a writer at once widely respected and popular both in his own time and now. Even children of the twenty-first century who may never have read a word of Dickens are familiar with Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Most people recognize, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" and "Please, sir, may I have some more?" Dickens left a mark not only on English literature but also on Western consciousness.
So, I wonder in this vaguely public forum, what sort of mark did he leave on me? As an academic who specializes in Victorian literature, I am not a typical reader of Dickens. I have read many of his novels (though fewer than I'd like to admit), taken and taught graduate seminars on his works, and published a chapter on his use of archaeological imagery in my monograph, Excavating Victorians. However, I am writing, as I try to do in "The Wardrobe Door," as an author of children's fiction, so I ask again, what sort of mark has my reading of Dickens left on my writing?
I think the answer has to do with people and places. I suspect Dickens' impact on me is greater even than I might realize, but I can acknowledge with certainty an influence on the way I craft characters and their homes.
A striking physical trait can define a character quickly and effectively. This can be some aspect of the character's appearance or a habit of movement or a speech pattern. Flora from Little Dorrit is a good example. She speaks in unending sentences that strain syntax, delightful to read aloud. She has other qualities, certainly, but this is the one that defines her. I have a character in the book I'm writing now whose speech pattern is nearly the opposite of Flora's: he speaks in clipped phrases. When he reappears at a key moment, my characters and my readers recognize him immediately because of his distinctive way of speaking.
The spaces people inhabit tell us a tremendous amount about them and their world. So much attention is given to Dickens' people that we often forget to attend to his places, which are just as highly wrought. Take Coketown, the fictionalized version of Manchester where Hard Times takes place. In a chapter title "The Key Note," Dickens describes Coketown as follows:
It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.
Those mad, melancholy elephants amaze me every time I read this passage. What genius to offer such an unsettling, alien image of an industrial town! I don't linger over whole towns in my writing, or I haven't yet, but I do give careful attention to my characters' most intimate spaces: the pile of books on Micah's bed is probably the most striking example. In fact, because my characters have to draw places, details of space are important for them to notice and make use of. In other words, such images are not only thematic or atmospheric but essential to my plots.
Thank you, Charles Dickens, for Miss Havisham, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the megalosaurus waddling up Holborn Hill, Bill Sykes' dog, Bleak House, and those melancholy elephants. I join the many who write in your wake.
So, I wonder in this vaguely public forum, what sort of mark did he leave on me? As an academic who specializes in Victorian literature, I am not a typical reader of Dickens. I have read many of his novels (though fewer than I'd like to admit), taken and taught graduate seminars on his works, and published a chapter on his use of archaeological imagery in my monograph, Excavating Victorians. However, I am writing, as I try to do in "The Wardrobe Door," as an author of children's fiction, so I ask again, what sort of mark has my reading of Dickens left on my writing?
I think the answer has to do with people and places. I suspect Dickens' impact on me is greater even than I might realize, but I can acknowledge with certainty an influence on the way I craft characters and their homes.
A striking physical trait can define a character quickly and effectively. This can be some aspect of the character's appearance or a habit of movement or a speech pattern. Flora from Little Dorrit is a good example. She speaks in unending sentences that strain syntax, delightful to read aloud. She has other qualities, certainly, but this is the one that defines her. I have a character in the book I'm writing now whose speech pattern is nearly the opposite of Flora's: he speaks in clipped phrases. When he reappears at a key moment, my characters and my readers recognize him immediately because of his distinctive way of speaking.
The spaces people inhabit tell us a tremendous amount about them and their world. So much attention is given to Dickens' people that we often forget to attend to his places, which are just as highly wrought. Take Coketown, the fictionalized version of Manchester where Hard Times takes place. In a chapter title "The Key Note," Dickens describes Coketown as follows:
It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.
Those mad, melancholy elephants amaze me every time I read this passage. What genius to offer such an unsettling, alien image of an industrial town! I don't linger over whole towns in my writing, or I haven't yet, but I do give careful attention to my characters' most intimate spaces: the pile of books on Micah's bed is probably the most striking example. In fact, because my characters have to draw places, details of space are important for them to notice and make use of. In other words, such images are not only thematic or atmospheric but essential to my plots.
Thank you, Charles Dickens, for Miss Havisham, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the megalosaurus waddling up Holborn Hill, Bill Sykes' dog, Bleak House, and those melancholy elephants. I join the many who write in your wake.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
We Are What We Read
When I was in my mid-20s, I had a nasty case of the flu and was laid up for about two weeks. I felt pretty awful, so I curled up in comfy pjs, under comfy blankets, and surrounded myself with comfy books.
I had always been a big reader and prided myself on being able to read hard books. In fact, I was in graduate school pursuing a PhD in English, which means I spent my time reading lots of complex and brilliant literature. While this was deeply rewarding, the books I spent most of my time with were not comfy. So, for the first time since being a child, I went back to the book I had loved most when I was young: Madeleine L’Engle’s A Ring of Endless Light.
My copy of this book was a battered paperback, a library discard. It had been loved into fragility by many readers before me, and in my hands, the cover fell off, and the corners of the pages grew soft. Like a security blanket or a stuffed animal, the book offered comfort simply with its presence. The feel of it, even the smell of it transported me into a sort of cocoon, a strengthening safe space where I could recover from the flu but also grow into a fuller understanding of who I am.
Re-reading the book revealed a sort of archaeology of myself. I found the origins of beliefs, attitudes, even vocabulary. From my use of the phrase “hair-colored hair” to an abiding love for Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” to a firm belief that when someone needs you, you come, who I am was shaped by A Ring of Endless Light. Going back to this childhood favorite in my early adulthood got me through the flu, but much more importantly, it carried me into a richer knowledge of myself.
We are what we read. Some books matter much more than others. As their pages soften, we grow stronger. We grow into ourselves.
Which book made you who you are?
I had always been a big reader and prided myself on being able to read hard books. In fact, I was in graduate school pursuing a PhD in English, which means I spent my time reading lots of complex and brilliant literature. While this was deeply rewarding, the books I spent most of my time with were not comfy. So, for the first time since being a child, I went back to the book I had loved most when I was young: Madeleine L’Engle’s A Ring of Endless Light.
My copy of this book was a battered paperback, a library discard. It had been loved into fragility by many readers before me, and in my hands, the cover fell off, and the corners of the pages grew soft. Like a security blanket or a stuffed animal, the book offered comfort simply with its presence. The feel of it, even the smell of it transported me into a sort of cocoon, a strengthening safe space where I could recover from the flu but also grow into a fuller understanding of who I am.
Re-reading the book revealed a sort of archaeology of myself. I found the origins of beliefs, attitudes, even vocabulary. From my use of the phrase “hair-colored hair” to an abiding love for Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” to a firm belief that when someone needs you, you come, who I am was shaped by A Ring of Endless Light. Going back to this childhood favorite in my early adulthood got me through the flu, but much more importantly, it carried me into a richer knowledge of myself.
We are what we read. Some books matter much more than others. As their pages soften, we grow stronger. We grow into ourselves.
Which book made you who you are?
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
More Biography Woes
With some help from my editor father, I have a good draft of my bio for the Catalan edition of my book. If anyone can weigh in, I would be very grateful for feedback. Remember that the audience is Catalan-speaking and, obviously, is children.
Virginia Zimmerman is an American who loves Catalunya. She married into a Catalan family and spends as much time as possible in and around Barcelona. Her favorite place in the whole world is Sa Tuna on the Costa Brava. She currently lives in Lewisburg, a small town in Pennsylvania.
She and her husband have three children, who got to attend a Catalan school in Barcelona for several months, an experience that the whole family found wonderfully enriching. They are the only family in Lewisburg who speak any Catalan, and they like to use it as a secret language whenever they need one.
Virginia has been fascinated by literature since she began reading, and now she both writes it and teaches it at the university level. She believes that reading is the best way to become a writer — or, for that matter, a person.
Virginia Zimmerman is an American who loves Catalunya. She married into a Catalan family and spends as much time as possible in and around Barcelona. Her favorite place in the whole world is Sa Tuna on the Costa Brava. She currently lives in Lewisburg, a small town in Pennsylvania.
She and her husband have three children, who got to attend a Catalan school in Barcelona for several months, an experience that the whole family found wonderfully enriching. They are the only family in Lewisburg who speak any Catalan, and they like to use it as a secret language whenever they need one.
Virginia has been fascinated by literature since she began reading, and now she both writes it and teaches it at the university level. She believes that reading is the best way to become a writer — or, for that matter, a person.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Author Biographies
I've been asked to write my biography for the book jacket of the Catalan edition of my novel, A Sketch in Time. This has prompted me to think about what I want out of the biographies of authors when I read their books, and the truth is that I don't read the bios to learn more about the authors. I usually read them because I've come to the end of the story, and I want more. I'm so desperate for more that I read every printed word in the book, including the copyright page and the tiny print that identifies the font in which the text is printed. The most satisfying bios are the ones that feel like they add to the story in some way.
Perhaps the bio offers a glimpse of the creative mind that generated the book, or perhaps it reveals that the author, in some way, really inhabits the book's secondary world. Maybe it makes me believe in the story in a new way. Maybe it's just a few more words written in a voice that's become familiar.
What do you like to see in an author bio?
Perhaps the bio offers a glimpse of the creative mind that generated the book, or perhaps it reveals that the author, in some way, really inhabits the book's secondary world. Maybe it makes me believe in the story in a new way. Maybe it's just a few more words written in a voice that's become familiar.
What do you like to see in an author bio?
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Micah's Bookshelf
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about carrying my main character, Micah, around with me. I haven't been doing as much of this as I would like partly because Micah is 11 and a lot of my life wouldn't interest him at all: "What would Micah think of my department meeting?" is not a terribly interesting question. But I have been trying, and I do think the experiment is working. Though I have had very little time to write, Micah feels present to me, and, when time permits, I'm ready to bring him to life on the page.
In October, I had a wonderful opportunity to read from my novel to a group of colleagues. I enjoyed this very much and was struck afterwards by the fact that I will never read from this book for the first time again. I didn't know where they would laugh, for instance, and now I do.
I especially enjoyed the Q&A that followed the reading, and one friend asked a really wonderful question about how much what the characters have read might help them. We talked in particular about A Wrinkle in Time: if Micah has read L'Engle, does he then use this text to help him navigate the confusing layers of time travel in his own life?
I've been thinking about this question off and on since the reading. It's a question that challenges the line between author and character in that Micah can't have read in a meaningful way anything I have not read. I can put books on his shelf (or his bed, where Micah actually keeps his most special books) that I have not read myself, but I can't put those books in his world view.
Conversely, one could argue that every book I have read informed the crafting of my own book, but many of the books I have read would not interest Micah. Bright though he is, I know that he has not read Middlemarch. Once in an earnest mood he tried Oliver Twist, but he didn't get past the first sentence. These books may have helped me shape my fictional world, but it doesn't follow that they help Micah shape his real world.
This is all a long way of saying that I still don't know what Micah has read. I do know that he likes to organize his books and even built his own bookshelf out of a box that formerly held one of Celia's dolls. So, for now, I can't really build the contents of Micah's bookshelf into his character and his problem-solving skills, but I can write with confidence that the fact of the bookshelf and the organization it represents tells us quite a bit about who Micah is.
Sitting here now in my office, Micah likes how I have this semester's books on a special shelf at my side, and he loves how I put each book back in its regular place when I've finished with it. He might notice that A Wrinkle in Time is already back with the children's fiction, and if he were really here, I think he might pull it off the shelf, and I'm sure he would get well past the first sentence.
In October, I had a wonderful opportunity to read from my novel to a group of colleagues. I enjoyed this very much and was struck afterwards by the fact that I will never read from this book for the first time again. I didn't know where they would laugh, for instance, and now I do.
I especially enjoyed the Q&A that followed the reading, and one friend asked a really wonderful question about how much what the characters have read might help them. We talked in particular about A Wrinkle in Time: if Micah has read L'Engle, does he then use this text to help him navigate the confusing layers of time travel in his own life?
I've been thinking about this question off and on since the reading. It's a question that challenges the line between author and character in that Micah can't have read in a meaningful way anything I have not read. I can put books on his shelf (or his bed, where Micah actually keeps his most special books) that I have not read myself, but I can't put those books in his world view.
Conversely, one could argue that every book I have read informed the crafting of my own book, but many of the books I have read would not interest Micah. Bright though he is, I know that he has not read Middlemarch. Once in an earnest mood he tried Oliver Twist, but he didn't get past the first sentence. These books may have helped me shape my fictional world, but it doesn't follow that they help Micah shape his real world.
This is all a long way of saying that I still don't know what Micah has read. I do know that he likes to organize his books and even built his own bookshelf out of a box that formerly held one of Celia's dolls. So, for now, I can't really build the contents of Micah's bookshelf into his character and his problem-solving skills, but I can write with confidence that the fact of the bookshelf and the organization it represents tells us quite a bit about who Micah is.
Sitting here now in my office, Micah likes how I have this semester's books on a special shelf at my side, and he loves how I put each book back in its regular place when I've finished with it. He might notice that A Wrinkle in Time is already back with the children's fiction, and if he were really here, I think he might pull it off the shelf, and I'm sure he would get well past the first sentence.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Enchanted Woods
Yesterday, I had occasion to talk with my students about a wonderful short essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" by C.S. Lewis. I love many things about this piece. For one thing, Lewis argues against critics of fantasy, writing that if children must face troubles in their lives, let them at least be armed with tales of heroes: "Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker" (216). I agree with this claim for fantasy's use, and it makes books feel important. A fantastical adventure is not an escape; rather, it is a lesson and an inspiration.
The part of the essay that always gives me chills, though, is this:
It would be much truer to say that fairyland arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his lifelong enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. (214)
That literature has the power to make magic in the real world, even in the most mundane places, like wardrobes, is extraordinary. Lewis understood this, and I think children understand it.
I suppose it is my task in my Young Adult Fiction class and on this blog to help adults remember this magic. Or maybe many grown ups do remember but need permission to look into their wardrobes for other worlds, and softly, under their breaths, to whisper "Accio!" and to hope that it will summon something. And to recognize that the charm summons magic even when it doesn't work, because we had enough faith to give it a try. In that longing lies the enchantment Lewis describes.
The part of the essay that always gives me chills, though, is this:
It would be much truer to say that fairyland arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his lifelong enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. (214)
That literature has the power to make magic in the real world, even in the most mundane places, like wardrobes, is extraordinary. Lewis understood this, and I think children understand it.
I suppose it is my task in my Young Adult Fiction class and on this blog to help adults remember this magic. Or maybe many grown ups do remember but need permission to look into their wardrobes for other worlds, and softly, under their breaths, to whisper "Accio!" and to hope that it will summon something. And to recognize that the charm summons magic even when it doesn't work, because we had enough faith to give it a try. In that longing lies the enchantment Lewis describes.
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