After class a week or two ago I biked to the library and picked up the book I ordered: 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel, by Jane Smiley. It's about three inches thicker than I expected (think about carrying that home a few miles in a backpack). The 100 summaries of novels Ms. Smiley has read is what makes it so long.
I don't know if maybe I'm just not patient or not scholarly enough, but I was disappointed. It's sort of an autobiography, and the beginning is a deep, deep examination of what a novel is. Neither of those are particularly what I was looking for. Another thing that made me put this book down was Chapter 11: A Novel of Your Own. Ms. Smiley starts out by telling you she assumes you want to write a novel but have no real supporters--->no outside pressure to write well or at all. But that's not true for everyone, and that's not true for me. People read what they relate to, and they like books that they feel like were written for them. I'll try to remember that.
Is it just common sense?
So maybe this is a good book, and maybe in ten years it will be my favorite book. But not yet.
What kind of an audience do you write for? What book have you grown to like over time?
I don't know if maybe I'm just not patient or not scholarly enough, but I was disappointed. It's sort of an autobiography, and the beginning is a deep, deep examination of what a novel is. Neither of those are particularly what I was looking for. Another thing that made me put this book down was Chapter 11: A Novel of Your Own. Ms. Smiley starts out by telling you she assumes you want to write a novel but have no real supporters--->no outside pressure to write well or at all. But that's not true for everyone, and that's not true for me. People read what they relate to, and they like books that they feel like were written for them. I'll try to remember that.
So maybe this is a good book, and maybe in ten years it will be my favorite book. But not yet.
What kind of an audience do you write for? What book have you grown to like over time?
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