reading
I've selected A.M. Homes to read this fall -- I have all of her books on my desk, I'm reading them backward from the most recent. I'm also reading Francine Prose, her new volume on writing and reading. Armed and ready. Prose advocates close-reading: pulling back the cushy dressings of plot and story and voice and getting down to the nuts and bolts of language, sentence, word. I admit to being one of those horrible readers who's too easily seduced by action and dialog and a good story, one of those non-critical readers. This fall I'll endeavor to study as well as read. To read close, and maybe learn something. I'm just wading into Homes' story, some of the early passages are quite striking. I read them my old fashioned way, now am taking a break from the Prose to re-read the opening pages, closely this time. Imagine my surprise to notice that (65 pages in you think I'd have noticed already?) there are no chapters. It's just one big book, broken up by a double-wide chunk of white space. I'm not quite sure what's happening; as far as I can tell, Richard is in some pain and we're going to ride along with Homes as she figures out how to get him feeling better. Just in case, I thought yesterday, I'd be interested to read a review of this book. Handy dandy New York Times. I found this review first. Honestly? I knew less about the book after the review than I did before it. Just now I went back on a google search for the title so I could re-copy the URL and paste it here for you. Imagine my surprise to click on the first of two New York Times links and finding a different review. This second one, much easier to follow. Says the book is dreadful. Hm. In the half an hour I have before Joanna comes home from school, I'm going to take my pen and notebook and sit outside (it's bright and sunny, 80 with a cool breeze) and see what I can learn about writing from a book that's either brilliant or dreadful.
