An awfully big adventure?

By Elizabeth Langosy for Talking Writing

9/9/09 seems like an auspicious day to start blogging. No one has succeeded in convincing me (despite more attempts than I care to recall) that dates and times that align do not have mystical significance. When I glance at the clock and it reads 11:11, all is right with the world.

My entrance into the blogosphere is made possible by my decision, six months ago, to accept an early retirement offer from Harvard University so that I could focus on writing short stories. At that moment, I was 58, exactly half a century older than I was when I discovered that books did not magically appear in shops and libraries but were created by people who wrote down stories they made up. What a fantastic concept! I immediately knew that I wanted to be a fiction writer when I grew up. Not only did I love to read, but I was constantly inventing stories in my head. I never gave up on that dream—it just took me a very long time to get here.

In the past five decades, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to put words together to convey everything from the benefits of a home database to the emptiness of a shattered friendship. I married an artist, raised two daughters, and worked full-time at a freewheeling assemblage of mostly creative jobs that included stints as a computer game designer, video scriptwriter, and communications manager. I wrote fiction in spurts of varying intensity, in inverse proportion to the intensity of whatever job I happened to have at the time and the amount of guilt I felt in squirreling myself away from my family on fleeting weekends at home.

Then, with seven years to go before my expected retirement date and the freedom to finally focus on my own writing, I suddenly found myself with the chance to do it NOW. And exactly where am I now? Well, let’s see…I’m a Harvard retiree (as of one week ago) living in a happy, somewhat chaotic two-family house with my artist husband, oldest daughter, son-in-law, and two irresistible grandchildren, ages three and five. My younger daughter, who recently moved back to Boston from Los Angeles to be closer to all of us, lives around the corner. I have a room of my own—the former pantry of the 1890 Victorian that was converted into the two-family—that contains the essentials for fiction-writing and has great views of my daylily garden and the sunset.

I’ve spent the past week clearing my writing desk of accumulated junk mail, Spongebob Squarepants tattoos, old business cards, outdated Whole Foods coupon books, stray buttons and coins, and other detritus of a too-busy life. The opportunity I’ve been waiting for is at hand. I have three stories drafted and honed over the past decade and new (perhaps better) ideas on the back burner. The Writer’s Market lists both literary agents and magazine editors. Poets & Writers warns of approaching contest deadlines. My loyal writers group waits for my manuscripts, red pens poised.

Now where do I begin?

My Antonia Vs. Harry Potter: Crunching the Great Books

By Martha Nichols for Talking Writing


"Reading by the Numbers" is an excellent but disturbing New York Times essay by novelist Susan Straight that's worth getting up in arms about. In it, Straight reflects on the rise of Accelerated Reader, a "reading management" software system produced by Renaissance Learning. Accelerated Reader is used by upwards of 75,000 schools around the country, writes Straight. Participating students get points for reading books, with a goal of 50 points for outside reading in a given class.

The problem? How books are rated. Straight notes that she delved into the mathematics of the ratings system, which likely has something to do with page length, average sentence difficulty, and percentage of tough vocabulary words. But in this scheme, Straight says that Willa Cather's My Antonia gets 14 points, while Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix get 44.

I like the Harry Potter books just fine, but comparing one to My Antonia is not only apples and oranges; it's simply the wrong message about what makes a great book great.

Renaissance Learning's web site carries the tagline: "Advanced Technology for Data-Driven Schools." (The link to Straight's essay was sent to me by writer Jeanne Schinto via Facebook.) But how do you measure character development and emotional catharsis?

I'm still searching for answers to those questions. I'd also like to know what other people think about sparking a love of reading in children: How do we do it? What matters most? I'd be especially interested in hearing from teachers.

The comments to Schinto's link to the essay on Facebook—which she titled "Outrageous"—evolved into a discussion of who liked or didn't like Harry Potter. I noted a similar back-and-forth on the Facebook comments about Karen Ohlson's "The Real Trouble with Twilight," which was first published on Talking Writing. Another long comment stream followed "I Won't Read Moby Dick and You Can't Make Me" on Open Salon, in which various participants debated whether children should be allowed to read whatever they want for credit in school or forced to read great books.

I think you do both. I believe teaching students to be critical thinkers about what they're reading, whether it's a Twilight book or Pride and Prejudice, is crucial. But giving kids points for reading books neither encourages analysis (although Renaissance Learning would claim its system of quizzes does just that) nor a love of reading.

Consider this excerpt from Straight's essay and all it says about how great novels expand our notion of the world in ways that can never be quantified:

One day last spring, after my eighth-grade daughter finished reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” (assigned reading for class), she sat on the couch, thoughtful and silent for a long time. Then she looked over at me and said: “I think that was one of the best books I’ve ever read. And not everybody could understand it. But I do. Especially Tom Robinson.”

Her father is 6-foot-4, 300 pounds and black. We talked about how American society has historically projected racial fear onto innocent men, and about how Harper Lee portrayed the town of Maycomb so vividly that you could see the streets and porches...

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is worth 15 points.

The Real Trouble with Twilight

By Karen J. Ohlson for Talking Writing

Vampires, shmampires – let’s talk about bad boyfriends…

In three years of being in a mother-daughter book group, I’ve never seen our group of girls (now 12 and 13 years old) react as strongly to a book suggestion as they did to the idea of reading Twilight in our group.

“No way!” said one girl, all but holding up a garlic bulb to fend the book away.

Another argued we should read it, “so you can help me spread the word about why it sucks.”

“I actually thought it was pretty good,” a third girl protested.

No one really wanted to champion it, though; it’s the kind of book a sophisticated middle-school-age reader – or her Mom – might feel a bit self-conscious carrying around. But after my daughter finally agreed to read the copy pressed on her by an insistent friend (“You have to read it. You just have to!”), I decided it was time to crack the spine of Stephanie Meyer’s multi-million-selling vampire-thriller-swoonfest and find out for myself. Would I find it a guilty pleasure? Would I revert to my ten-year-old Harlequin-Romance-devouring self and yearn for hero Edward Cullen’s cold (but oh, so hot!) embrace?

The answer is no. I managed to get through all of Twilight, but the relationship between Bella and Edward was so claustrophobic that I was happy to close the book and make my escape. Even with Meyer bludgeoning me repeatedly with descriptions of Edward’s handsomeness (his face is “dazzling”… “stunning”… “glorious”… with “a set of perfect, ultrawhite teeth” through which he laughs his “soft, enchanting laugh”), I didn’t fall in love with Edward. In fact, I couldn’t stand him. Not for the obvious reason, but because of how he behaves in his relationship with Bella. He’s got some major Bad Boyfriend characteristics — ones I know I’d want my own daughter to see as warning signs.

Let’s take a moment to look at Dear Abby’s “15 Signs of an Abuser” and see how Edward stacks up in Twilight:

1) Pushes for Quick Involvement: Comes on strong, claiming, “I’ve never felt loved like this by anyone.” After trying for some weeks to resist the urge to get involved with Bella – because, as he tells her, “You are exactly my brand of heroin” – Edward can’t stay away: “You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever.” And this is from a guy who’s been sentient for more than a hundred years.

2) Jealous: Excessively possessive; calls constantly or visits unexpectedly. How about, “listens in to thoughts of everyone who talks with you (taking advantage of a superpower he has), appears in your room without warning (thanks to his supernatural speed of movement), and watches over you even while you sleep (since he’s awake 24/7)”? Yes, all these are true of Edward’s involvement with Bella. Plus, here’s his reaction to another boy trying to cut in as he and Bella are dancing at the prom: “Edward snarled very quietly.”

3) Controlling. See above. Also, consider the dynamics of the book’s final episode, in which Edward hijacks the dance-hating Bella to the prom against her will: “You’re taking me to the prom!’ I yelled… He pressed his lips together and his eyes narrowed, ‘Don’t be difficult, Bella.”

4) Unrealistic Expectations. Does expecting Bella not to mind round-the-clock supervision count here? How about expecting their relationship to remain at a fever pitch of unconsummated physicality forever? When Bella inquires delicately about someday satisfying the human side of their desire for each other, Edward points out that, “if for one second I wasn’t paying enough attention, I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush your skull by mistake.” Uh, okay. Suggestion withdrawn.

5) Isolation: Tries to cut you off from family and friends… may deprive you of a phone or car. Look at the way Edward whisks Bella away from Angela and Jessica for a private dinner in Port Angeles, the way he beckons her over to eat with him in a secluded corner of the lunchroom, and his insistence on chauffeuring her as often as possible, rather than letting her drive her truck. I know, he can’t be frank about who and what he is in front of other humans. And he needs to protect her, because she’s a “magnet for trouble.” But wait – she survived okay for all the years before she met him. Hmm…

Several of the remaining list items are less applicable – particularly #14 (Past Battering) and #10 ( “Playful” Use of Force During Sex), since Edward has no relationship history and won’t consummate his relationship with Bella until the end of the series. Three more items are worth highlighting, though:

9) Cruelty to Animals or Children. Sure, Edward resists his desire to prey on humans, but the wild animals in his vicinity don’t get off so easy. Here’s his response when Bella asks how a person hunts bears without weapons: “Oh, we have weapons.’ He flashed his bright teeth in a brief, threatening smile… ‘Just not the kind they consider when writing hunting laws.”

13) Sudden Mood Swings. Trying to track the mood swings in Bella’s and Edward’s initial interactions could make a person dizzy. The morning after he uses his superpowers to rescue her from a car accident, Edward greets her calmly, speaking in a “velvet, muted” voice. He responds with amusement to Bella’s persistent questions about what happened the day before, but then his “tawny eyes” flash with anger and he speaks coldly. Yet, moments later he’s chuckling, “seem[ing] to have recovered his good humor.” It’s no wonder Bella then asks, “Do you have a multiple personality disorder?”

15) Threats of Violence. Edward doesn’t try to get his way with Bella by threatening violence – he devotes himself to protecting her and trying to keep her out of harm’s way. But he does warn her constantly of how dangerous he is: “Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella.” (He says this in a whisper, with “his eyes narrowed into slits.”)

Do I really think Edward is an abuser? No – mainly because he’s a fictional character (as I’m reminded all too often by the jarring, stagey words Meyer uses to describe his actions; I haven’t seen this many snickers, smirks, snarls, and chuckles since my days as a Nancy Drew reader). Meyer clearly intends him to be a romantic hero, so we know he’d never hurt Bella – not intentionally, anyway. And to me, this is the real trouble with Twilight: the glamorization, not of vampirism, but of stalking, controlling boyfriends with hair-trigger tempers.

Bella gets to have it both ways: she gets the thrill of a dangerously passionate boyfriend who’s obsessed with his overwhelming desire for her, combined with the security of fictional circumstances that compel Edward to restrain himself and protect her. I can see how this portrayal would be compelling to teenage and pre-teen readers entering the scary world of hormonal urges, as well as to teens and twenty-somethings disillusioned by a culture of casual hook-ups and “friends with benefits.” At least stalkers care.

Which is, of course, the type of thinking that begs for a reality check from Dear Abby.

Now that I think about it, Twilight is a perfect choice for a mother-daughter book group with girls of a certain age, where discussions of literary merit can easily veer into reminiscences of bad boyfriends. Meyer’s writing and her imagination provide plenty of fodder on both counts. My own book group may have vetoed the proposal (we’re nothing if not democratic), but feel free to co-opt the idea for yours – and to bring Dear Abby’s list along when you meet.

And in case you’re wondering whether book two, which introduces nice-guy teen werewolf Jacob as a competing love interest, offers any balance in perspective: hah! The New Moon movie trailer I saw in a theater gave Jacob only about three seconds of screen time, even though he’s in much more of the book than is the temporarily exiled Edward.

But Jacob does star in the most unexpected funny line in the book. It occurs after Bella whispers to Jacob, while “locked in Edward’s eyes,” that she will never give Edward up.

The line? “Jacob made a gagging sound.”

My sentiments exactly.