Falling In Love In Fiction

In Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel, Drama (2012) Callie is in love with a fellow ninth-grader who never seems to notice her. After they share an awkward kiss (largely to console Greg, who is recovering from a breakup), the boy spends the rest of the story avoiding her, since he sees her more as a ‘friend’ than a potential love interest. By the end of the novel, after Callie is disappointed in yet another boy—who turns out to be gay--Greg appears with a change of heart. Walking her home in the moonlight, they stop on the same bench where they shared their first (and only) kiss, and he says, “I didn’t realize that the girl I should really have been with was right before my eyes. Will you give me another shot?” Callie is confused and outraged, and comically resists his epiphany with the words, “Are you for real?” The frame widens: we zoom into his wide-open eyes, expressing desperation and desire, as he says “Don’t be confused…be my girlfriend.” He then leans in for the kiss…

Can the Novel Speak Every Language?

[Also published on The Inkwell, Inkitt.com's literary blog: http://www.inkitt.com/blog] 

We’ve all eagerly awaited the movie adaptation of a beloved novel, only to leave the theater deflated. What happened? How could that novel, which we imagined so clearly in our heads, fall so utterly short of reality? Where were the characters, the dialogue, the excitement, and that one scene? They cut it out of the movie! When people pompously assert that “the book was better,” perhaps they’re not being so pompous; perhaps they’re merely stating the simple fact that a novel does what a novel does, and a movie does it differently. Artistic forms require translation, and like translation, something is gained and lost when you move from one form/language to another. A novel is a literary construction bound to specific rules, customs, and histories. When you write a novel, you don’t just write a story any more than you speak a universal language; to write a novel is to slip into history, using the tools bequeathed you by generations of writers and slipping into a familiar ‘character’ that we know from any one of a thousand books. No matter how unique your literary voice, a novel is still a novel, and needs to sound like one...and everything we write is a version of every one we’ve ever read, to a greater or lesser degree.

Free this Wed-Thur: The Count of the Living Death

My first novel, The Count of the Living Death, is free for download to Kindle devices and apps this Wednesday-Thursday. The book has been lightly re-written and some small errors fixed, so now I'm hoping more people find their way to it. It was first published in Fall 2013, and since then it has been downloaded thousands of times (if only it had thousands of reviews!). Feel free to check it out and write a brief review if you can. The Count is a Young Adult Fantasy book in the spirit of The Princess Bride or Robert Aspirin's humorous fantasy novels, though it has a slight touch of the Gothic as well. That said, it's pretty tame with no sex or bad language, and even the macabre parts are suitable for younger ages (10 and up). 

The link and a brief blurb about the book follow:

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Count-Living-Chronicles-Hildigrim-Blackbeard-ebook/dp/B00FQ6711Y/ref=pd_rhf_gw_s_t_1

Count Leopold always wondered about the strange chest sealed with three magic locks. His father warned him never to mention the Box—nor pry into the secret chamber where it was kept. Now the Box has begun speaking to Leopold, begging him to find the key and undo the hateful locks. If he does so, it promises him to fulfill his every desire, even offering him the hand of the forbidden—and forbiddingly named— Lady Mary Bianca Domenica de Grassini Algarotti. However, before unfastening the third lock he catches a glimpse of something unspeakable inside—and turns to the only man who shared his father’s secret, the legendary Conjurer-Magician, Hildigrim Blackbeard. A man who, if the stories are true, will exact a terrible price in return for his service.

Plagiarism and Persona

Everyone is a version of someone else, who themselves are copies of a copy of a copy. To create a persona is less an act of creation than of conscious theft. Even the word persona comes from the Latin word for stage masks worn by actors in a comedy of tragedy. We are all players, cobbling together a role from various plays, characters, and writers. Imagine, then, the difficulty when a writer (who is composed of various ideas and performances) sits down to write a story, which is also an act of persona. A story inhabits the world of a specific genre or style, borrowing the signposts and characters from other writers who have contributed to it, and then has to create a distinctive language which, however original, still has to sound authentic.   

Reading on Both Sides of History

[also published on The Inkwell, Inkitt's literary blog: http://www.inkitt.com/blog]

Literature—and all art, for that matter—is like the face of the moon; always changing, always presenting a new face for the reader. It changes within our own lifetime, as a book read as a teenager no longer looks the same at thirty-nine. Imagine, then, the changes over a hundred years or more, when not only ] the readers but the society itself ‘grows up.’ Some works age well, being passed from one library to another, while others become shameful reminders of old ideas, old worlds, and old thoughts. Something of this latter aspect is conveyed by the author Jean Rhys (Wide Sargasso Sea) in a letter to her editor in 1966, about one of her favorite novels, Jane Eyre. Rhys grew up in Dominica, and outsider to mainstream British life, a fact echoed in almost every book she read as a child. As she explains,

“I came to England between sixteen and seventeen, a very impressionable age and Jane Eyre was one of the books I read then. Of course Charlotte Bronte makes her own world, of course she convinces you, and that makes the poor Creole lunatic all the more dreadful. I remember being quite shocked, and when I re-read it rather annoyed. “That’s only one side—the English side.”

Catching Literature on the Wing

[This article also appeared on Inkwell, Inkitt.com's literary column, which you can read here: http://www.inkitt.com/blog/]

In his essay “Reading and Writing” (2000), the Nobel Prize-winning author, V.S. Naipaul, discusses his place in the grand tradition of literature, following in the footsteps of the great immortals of literature—a daunting task even for the writer of A House for Mr. Biswas and A Bend in the River. As he explains,

“All of us who have come after have been derivative. We can never be the first again. We might bring new material from far away, but the program we are following has been laid out for us. We cannot be the writing equivalent of Robinson Crusoe on his island, letting off “the first gun that has been fired there since the creation of the world.” That is the gunshot we hear when we turn to the originators. They are the first; they didn’t know it when they began, but then…they do know, and they are full of excitement at the discovery.”

Review of The Winged Turban from Kindle Ninja Book Reviews!

Check out this great review courtesy of the Kindle Ninja, a champion e-book reviewer who previously reviewed (favorably!) my second book, The Astrologer's Portrait. This time around, he did a 'conversation review' along with another accomplished fantasy writer, Leisl Kaberry, author of The Titanian Chronicles. Click on the link below for the review--it's an entertaining read in its own right, and you don't need to know the book to appreciate (but there aren't any major spoilers, either, so it won't ruin the book, either). Thanks again, Kindle Ninja!

The link: http://kindleninjareviews.blogspot.com/2016/03/two-reviewers-one-book-winged-turban.html?spref=tw

To Live For the Words: A Response to the Debate of Story Vs. Style

If you ask most people why they read, they will invariably respond, “I like the stories,” or “to lose myself in a good book,” or even, “to meet interesting characters.” Each one, however, seems to suggest that the essential quality of a book is its story, the escapist factor that would make sitting in isolation for an hour or more an inviting prospect. It’s amusing to think about: reading is staring at marks in a book over and over again, while sitting still, and trying to block out the surrounding world—an almost impossible with 2016 racket. And yet these little marks can make an entire world rise beneath our feet, carrying us to far-away places, or transforming our perspective of the work-a-day world. Each one increases our collective wealth, so we horde them like a treasure-mad dragon, salivating over each bauble, even if we’ve polished it a thousand times.

Musical Authorship--or What If They Didn't Write the Notes?

What does it mean to compose a piece of music? Does it mean that that composer in question personally wrote—and orchestrated—every bar? Or what about a melody he/she composed that is then arranged by others? If a composer leaves a work in fragmentary form, and a second party comes in and completes it, even composing new music, is that piece still by Composer A—or Composer B? Is that really a collaboration, or a completion? In short, what truly constitutes authorship in music? This is a difficult question, particularly in the world of classical music, when works are often completed by students and colleagues, or in the world of film music, where orchestrations are farmed out to studio hands, so the composer can dash off multiple scores at once. While we like the idea of a single composer, often this is hardly the case, and a single piece of music might go through multiple hands over decades and centuries. Consider a piece that survives 300 years and is then “edited” by a musicologist: is that an act of co-composition, particularly if the piece is tailored to appeal to modern audiences? In the same way, what about Mozart;s re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah for an 18th century audience? Is that a new opus by Mozart? Or when Mahler did the same for Schumann’s symphonies? Similarly, if you quote parts of a piece in your own work—say, Strauss’ Metamorphosen, which quotes  Beethoven’s Eroica—does Beethoven get credit (even if he wouldn’t want it)?

Can Women Order From the Menu of Fiction?

Shortly after the publication of Jane Austen’s novel, Emma (1815), the greatest English writer of the day, the now largely-forgotten Sir Walter Scott, wrote an unexpected review of the work which brought her attention and acclaim. Though he praised the work on the whole, he hastened to add that,

"The author’s knowledge of the world, and the peculiar tact with which she presents characters that the reader cannot fail to recognize, reminds us something of the merits of the Flemish school of painting.  The subjects are not often elegant, and certainly never grand; but they are finished up to nature, and with a precision which delights the reader” (1815).

“Punished For the Loveliness of Summer”: Willa Cather’s My Antonia

In Book II, Chapter 6 of My Antonia, Jim, the young protagonist, is fighting against the cold winter wind which has just overtaken the land. As he reflects,

“The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify—it was like the light of truth itself. When the smoky clouds hung low in the west and the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on the snowy roofs and the blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: “This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.” It was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer.”

THE SCORE AWAKENS: Listening to the Soundtrack to Star Wars VII

The cassette soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back was my first musical purchase way back in 1981. I listened to it until the tape wore out, by which time I had two CDs of the score, each one claiming to be more or less “complete” (yet they never quite have all the music, do they?). John Williams’ scores not only lead me to his other film music, but to classical music itself, becoming a ‘gateway drug’ to Orff, Holst, Mussorgsky, and within a decade, to the entire canon of classical musical from Bach to Bartok. Williams’ music offered me the greatest musical appreciation course of all, since he showed me—and a million others, I imagine—how orchestral themes and colors ‘painted’ the various moods and emotions of a film. After watching the film umpteen times, I could ‘see’ how each piece of music conveyed these ideas to the listener, and before long, I could ‘read’ other music along the same lines, even when there was no story attached. While many composers argue that there is a strict difference between absolute and programmatic music, a keen listener can find the program in anything—even a twenty-second piano prelude by Chopin. So even though I went on to hundreds of more established composers, I always returned to John Williams’ music, particularly when a new film came out boasting his signature themes and orchestration. I still remember the thrill of running to the Tower Records on Wabash Avenue in Downtown Chicago the day The Phantom Menace soundtrack was released (you won’t find that place anymore). New Star Wars music—that was as exciting as a lost symphony by Beethoven or Sibelius! That score didn’t disappoint even if the film did, and his music for the Prequels almost (almost) made those clunky films worth watching. Hell, at least those three films gave us The Duel of the Fates and Anakin’s Theme! 

Composing Jane Austen: The Soundtracks

In Volume II, Chapter VIII of Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine intrudes on a conversation with Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam on music. Delighted by the subject (or simply the chance to monopolize the conversation), she replies, “Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient...I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired, without constant practice.”   

Of course, this scene largely convinces the reader that she has absolutely no taste or understanding of music, and that she is far keener to give advice than take it herself. Yet it also underlines the importance of music in Jane Austen’s society: music brought young people together (as it does today), and was a necessary backdrop for all the dances and card playing that gave life to an endless round of social engagements. Young and old, rich and poor, everyone knew something about music, or at least thought it was worth knowing about. Elizabeth herself plays—though very ill, as she informs all her acquaintance—and Darcy complements both her and her sister’s abilities, and takes great pleasure in their performances. In a world without the ability to play pre-recorded music, one had to provide one’s own entertainment, and a skilled musician in the family must have shortened many a long winter’s night. In a famous letter to her sister Cassandra, Jane Austen is willing to take the burden of entertainment on herself, writing, “Yes, yes, we will have a pianoforte, as good as one can be got for 30 guineas, and I will practice country dances, that we may have some amusement for our nephews and nieces, when we have the pleasure of their company” (1808).