Book Blocked

There's something a bit off in one of my most treasured relationships. I can't describe it, but lately we haven't been connecting at all. We sit down together as we always have, but somehow don't engage. My mind wanders, and before long I'm thinking about my "to do" list, or the grocery shopping, or worrying over a tough passage in a Mozart Sonata. Several times, I've been forced to simply walk away.

Books and I aren't getting along well.

Don't laugh- reading is a relationship with me. I count on the fictional world to help me escape from the dreary real world and entertain me with the antics of interesting characters. I expect poetry to elevate my senses, soothe my spirit, ignite my intellect. I come to non-fiction to inspire my muse and feed my creativity. Lately, none of this has been happening with any of my books. My book journal for the month of October is completely bare ~I've finished nothing.

However, here's what I've started and put aside in the last two weeks~The Lay of the Land, Still Summer, Keeping the World Away, Body Surfing, and The Jane Austen Book Club. These may be perfectly fine books, but every time I sat down to read I kept losing my place in the middle of a page, or going back to re-read the last three paragraphs because my mind hadn't registered a thing. Finally, disappointed in the book (and in myself) I placed each one back in the "to be returned" pile of my library stack.

I don't take my relationships lightly, and the one I have with books is no exception. Giving up on one is hard. There was a point in my reading life when I refused to do it, and would struggle through most anything until the end. Now, though, there really are simply too many books and too little time. If a book and I aren't enjoying one another after about 50 pages, we part company.

But it doesn't happen often, certainly not with five books in a row as it has this month.

I suppose reading relationships go throught difficult periods like human relationships. Sometimes we simply fail to give each other what is needed. For whatever reason, we don't find the sustenance, the comfort, the insight that's required. But during those strained times, there is definitely something missing from life, and I feel bereft and lonely.

Today, I'm off to the library to bring home a new collection of possibilites.

Wish me luck.


How about you? How are things in your reading life?

Bookmarked-Nineteen Minutes

I've just emerged from a heartbreaking world created by author Jodi Picoult in her latest book, Nineteen Minutes. I can't remember when I've last been so deeply affected by a novel, but I think it was another of Picoult's books, The Pact. Both novels deal with teenagers in crisis, which, as a mother and high school teacher, is a subject near to my heart. But Nineteen Minutes ~ the story of a boy bullied physically and emotionally by his peers his entire life, a boy who finally takes control in a horrifying shooting spree at his high school~strikes extremely close to home for me, because the more I read about Peter Houghton, the young man at the heart of this compelling story, the more I was reminded of my own son.

It's really hard for boys who don't fit the mold, boys who would rather write stories or draw cartoons than play football or soccer, boys who don't think stuffing people into lockers is funny,
boys who prefer hanging out at home watching Star Trek reruns to going to gambling and drinking at the casino. My son Brian, like Peter Houghton, was one of those boys who were "different." And like Peter, he became a victim of kids who used emotional and physical abuse as a way to preserve their own misguided sense of superiority.

"Most of Peter's childhood memories involved situations where was victimized by either other children or by adults whom he'd perceived as being able to help him, yet didn't," testified Peter's psychiatrist. "He described everything from physical threats - Get out of my way or I'm going to punch your lights out; to physical actions-doing nothing more than walking down the hallway and being slammed up against the wall because he happened to get too close to someone walking past him; to emotional taunts - like being called homo or queer." For Peter (and for Brian, too) the computer became a "safe haven." It was "the vehicle he used to create a world that was comfortable for him, peopled by characters who appreciated him and whom he had control over, as he didn't in real life," explained Peter's psychiatrist.

Brian was luckier than Peter in that he was physically forbidding - always tall and stocky, he was perfect quarterback material from a physical standpoint~which made him less vulnerable to physical abuse. But the emotional alienation was very real for him, especially during his high school years, and I watched him become increasingly withdrawn and angry. But, like Peter's mother Lacy, I really had no idea how to help, or really, how dangerous this situation was. And the teacher's at Brian's school (just like at Peter's) were of no help at all, and even insinuated that the kids doing the bullying were just "being normal kids," and Brian needed to "stop being so sensitive."

I'm ashamed to say that I bought into that philosophy for a while, and tried to "toughen him up," as Lacy Houghton admitted to doing with her own son. It took an act of violence to really make me understand just how traumatized my son was ~ a moment when he lashed out in anger and fear, his hand forced through a window, slashing his wrist and severing nerves and tendons in two of his fingers. From that moment, I realized that this was a matter of life and death, and treated it accordingly. We started fighting back as a family, found a wonderful therapist, and Brian began to gain confidence in himself and learn ways to cope.

I can tell Brian's story now because (unlike Peter Houghton's story) it has a happy ending. He's happily married, has a successful career, and functions very well in the world. But he keeps a wariness within him, a fear of people and situations where he might become vulnerable and prone to "attack." That's the legacy left from those years of exposure to mistreatment and ignorance.

If your child were being victimized by an adult, wouldn't you immediately move heaven and earth to stop it, to protect them? Why treat abuse from other children any differently? Why allow children to indulge in behaviors that hurt someone else, and pass it off as childish pranks? If you do (as Jodi Picoult so eloquently yet painfully portrays in her book, and as I have seen firsthand in my own experience) the effects can be more devastating than you could ever imagine.

Bookmarked

One of my birthday traditions is to buy myself a new book (actually, I'll use any excuse to buy myself a book, so my birthday is just one of many!) Anyhow, last Friday (which was my birthday, in case you've forgotten) I hied myself to Barnes and Noble, fresh coupons in hand (love being a Readers Club Member) and grabbed up the latest offerings from two of my favorites~ Chris Bohjalian's Double Bind, and Jodi Picoult's, 19 Minutes.

I haven't started to read either book yet, but I'm sure I'll enjoy them. I've been reading these authors for as long as they've been publishing. Bohjalian's first mainstream novel was Midwives, which I read long before it became an Oprah Book Club Selection. My introduction to Picoult came with Harvesting the Heart, which was her second novel, published in 1993. Each one of these authors has a unique way of embroiling their characters in an issue that faces all of us in modern society, and creating a fascinating, thought provoking web of actions and consequences that we can all relate to .

There's something interesting going on with these two novels, something that's never happened before with an author that I "follow." Bohjalian and Picoult have become "hot properties" on the bookstore circuit. Barnes and Noble is featuring Bohjalian's book in their new "on-line" book clubs, complete with a really cool 10 minute pod cast of the author at home, discussing his writing process, giving us a tour of his study, and talking about the book. Picoult seems to belong to Borders, who has it's own video of Jodi participating in a book group discussion with other readers (just like me and you!)

I have to admit, I feel a little wierd about this. It was fascinating to watch these videos, hear the authors speaking, see their homes, even (oh my god!) their studies, and the actual desks where they write. But I felt a little like the kid who sees their classroom teacher in the grocery store and thinks, "My gosh! Mrs. Smith actually eats food like the rest of us!" Over the many years that I've been reading and enjoying their work, I think I've put them on a bit of a pedestal. Now I see that they're just human beings, like me - Bohjalian is quite obsessive compulsive, particularly about his study, which was frighteningly organized and neat. Picoult has the most beautiful, expressive face, yet she is obviously much heavier than the picutres on her book jackets, which leads me to believe they've been "altered" to make her appear "more attractive," when she is gorgeous just as she is.

This new web driven marketing is probably a good thing for authors, at least in terms of sales volume. In some ways, it's exciting to see writer's becoming media figures, and I'm all for making reading (and writing!) more popular in today's society. I guess I'm a little uneasy about some of my favorite literary "heroes" becoming slaves to the media. I don't want them to give up their individuality, their unique way of expressing themselves, their particular art, just to serve some PR firm's idea of what will increase sales.

How about you? What's your take on the mass marketing of author's?