PAGING THE ZEITGEIST
Whenever I want to buy I book I head down to the local Barnes & Noble and leisurely stroll through the store to see what interests me. Then I head home and order what I want at a lower price from Amazon. If there's an ethical problem there, it escapes me.
But I enjoy the strolls through Barnes & Noble very much because I think it gives me an insight into the American mind. I like to say that the best way to look into people's souls is to look at what's in their bookcases. And since Barnes & Noble is the closest thing I can find to a national bookcase, it is my favorite index of the Zeitgeist.
On my latest stroll, I noticed two things quickly. The first was the table filled with suggested books to give for Father's Day. There were books on famous battles, beer, muscle cars and firearms. There were a couple of picture books about the Louvre, I guess to keep dad's knuckles from totally dragging on the ground. All in all, if your dad the kind of guy whose idea of a good time involves a few beers, a few pistols and a little fast driving, then this table might prove quite handy. But it was a disturbing commentary on the average American Dad.
The second thing I noticed was the dearth of prominently displayed books from the conservative talk machine. Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly all used to be front and center, glowering on their book covers as though I had just nominated Jane Fonda to be head of Veterans Affairs. Seeing such faces right when I walked in the store instantly made me feel as guilty and awkward as a teenager trying to explain to his date's father why she was one hour late getting home and why her skirt was on backward. So I was kind of glad to see those books sent to the cornfield. What it means for November, I have no idea.
Though we have all heard that reading is good for us, there are at least two species of books that are just plain dangerous. One is the "Idiot's Guide" and "For Dummies" series of books. I have long hated these books in part because I thought they were propping up people who would have been selected out according to Darwin's rules. But now they are popping up in almost every subject area with a frequency that just can't be explained by market forces. So I think they are pod books; I think each night alien pods enter bookstores and transform harmless books into "Idiot's Guides" and "For Dummies" books. I mean, c'mon, how do you explain something like "The Idiot's Guide to Better Skin" unless it's an instruction manual for alien invaders? The breadth of subject these books handle is further proof that they are meant to smooth the way for creatures needing some help with human experience and behavior. So next time you see somebody reading one in the book stacks, you'd better shout, "You'll never enslave Earth, you alien bastard!" and deck him.
(By the way, the humility of the titles is probably just another ruse by our hyper-intelligent, would-be conquerors. Idiots my ass.)
But even if I'm wrong and these books are not part of an alien plot, they are still dangerous because they can impart a spurious sense of confidence. Some subjects are a little too dense to be absorbed from a "Idiot's Guide." Try talking about Italian Renaissance art with only an "Idiot's Guide" knowledge of the subject, and you will sound like, well, an idiot. These books might be handy if you think discussing a subject means chirping dates, names and events like a fifth-grader at a Quiz Bowl challenge, but they are probably less so in higher conversation. Furthermore, some are written in a breezy style that is wholly inapproriate for some subjects. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to World War II" contained a subject header titled "Making Hamburger of Hamburg," which discussed a horrific series of Allied bomber raids on the city in 1943 that created a firestorm that killed at least 40,000 people, many of them women and children. The raids were many things, but they were not the stuff of weak puns. Try talking about "Making Hamburger of Hamburg" at some cocktail party, and you will look like a callous fool; your parents will change their names and your girlfriend will glare at you and hiss venomously, "I am NOT breeding with you! EVER!"
The other odd species was the continuation. These are such books as "Scarlett" and tend to target beloved classics. The book most abused by the continuation was "Pride and Prejudice." I came across a one titled "Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife."
After flipping through a few pages, my fears were confirmed. Darcy, Elizabeth and the others were there, but they now inhabited a world that struggled mightily to harmonize the tone of the original with a "Sex and the City" spiciness.
The results are dreadful; intelligence and good taste had been banished in favor of a frankness that would have Dr. Ruth stuffing her ears with cotton. A passage in which Lydia describes in wretched, unsparing detail the mechanics and residues of sex to her sisters is about as delightful as watching your parents on "Oprah" boasting of their exploits in a swingers club. About halfway down the page I expected a plea for rescue to mysteriously appear in the margin: "Please help me get out of here. This woman is making fools of us all. Elizabeth Bennett."
Continuations are understandable and unfortunate. We want the magic of a great story to go on and on; it lifts us out of ordinary time and sometimes helps deepen our understanding of the human condition. But when we kick aside "the end," we're asking for trouble; we're messing with the magic.
For example, one of the things that's great about great stories is the fixed nature of the characters. We never get to the end of "A Tale of Two Cities" and find Sydney Carton boozing it up in some London tavern, gleefully plotting his seduction of the widow Darnay. He is always doing "a far, far better thing" than he has ever done. He is always heroic.
But we would find Carton a changed man in a continuation. For one thing, his head would be reattached (at least, I would hope so; and how the author would manage that I'd like to see). More importantly, though, his personality would have been hollowed out and endowed with traits that are supposed to be congenial to contemporary audiences. This would be a Sydney Carton that just had a nice long talk with Dr. Phil, who would probably have told him to quit fixating on an unattainable woman and try his luck with some nice tavern girl.
It has been said you can learn a lot from books and that's true, but you can also learn what I have learned: We are on a planet threatened by invasion, our most truculent pundits are in retreat and the American dad will be to busy drinking beer and driving muscle cars to take effective aim at our invaders. And we will not have the comfort of great literature. Time to turn on reruns of "The Rockford Files."
Whenever I want to buy I book I head down to the local Barnes & Noble and leisurely stroll through the store to see what interests me. Then I head home and order what I want at a lower price from Amazon. If there's an ethical problem there, it escapes me.
But I enjoy the strolls through Barnes & Noble very much because I think it gives me an insight into the American mind. I like to say that the best way to look into people's souls is to look at what's in their bookcases. And since Barnes & Noble is the closest thing I can find to a national bookcase, it is my favorite index of the Zeitgeist.
On my latest stroll, I noticed two things quickly. The first was the table filled with suggested books to give for Father's Day. There were books on famous battles, beer, muscle cars and firearms. There were a couple of picture books about the Louvre, I guess to keep dad's knuckles from totally dragging on the ground. All in all, if your dad the kind of guy whose idea of a good time involves a few beers, a few pistols and a little fast driving, then this table might prove quite handy. But it was a disturbing commentary on the average American Dad.
The second thing I noticed was the dearth of prominently displayed books from the conservative talk machine. Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly all used to be front and center, glowering on their book covers as though I had just nominated Jane Fonda to be head of Veterans Affairs. Seeing such faces right when I walked in the store instantly made me feel as guilty and awkward as a teenager trying to explain to his date's father why she was one hour late getting home and why her skirt was on backward. So I was kind of glad to see those books sent to the cornfield. What it means for November, I have no idea.
Though we have all heard that reading is good for us, there are at least two species of books that are just plain dangerous. One is the "Idiot's Guide" and "For Dummies" series of books. I have long hated these books in part because I thought they were propping up people who would have been selected out according to Darwin's rules. But now they are popping up in almost every subject area with a frequency that just can't be explained by market forces. So I think they are pod books; I think each night alien pods enter bookstores and transform harmless books into "Idiot's Guides" and "For Dummies" books. I mean, c'mon, how do you explain something like "The Idiot's Guide to Better Skin" unless it's an instruction manual for alien invaders? The breadth of subject these books handle is further proof that they are meant to smooth the way for creatures needing some help with human experience and behavior. So next time you see somebody reading one in the book stacks, you'd better shout, "You'll never enslave Earth, you alien bastard!" and deck him.
(By the way, the humility of the titles is probably just another ruse by our hyper-intelligent, would-be conquerors. Idiots my ass.)
But even if I'm wrong and these books are not part of an alien plot, they are still dangerous because they can impart a spurious sense of confidence. Some subjects are a little too dense to be absorbed from a "Idiot's Guide." Try talking about Italian Renaissance art with only an "Idiot's Guide" knowledge of the subject, and you will sound like, well, an idiot. These books might be handy if you think discussing a subject means chirping dates, names and events like a fifth-grader at a Quiz Bowl challenge, but they are probably less so in higher conversation. Furthermore, some are written in a breezy style that is wholly inapproriate for some subjects. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to World War II" contained a subject header titled "Making Hamburger of Hamburg," which discussed a horrific series of Allied bomber raids on the city in 1943 that created a firestorm that killed at least 40,000 people, many of them women and children. The raids were many things, but they were not the stuff of weak puns. Try talking about "Making Hamburger of Hamburg" at some cocktail party, and you will look like a callous fool; your parents will change their names and your girlfriend will glare at you and hiss venomously, "I am NOT breeding with you! EVER!"
The other odd species was the continuation. These are such books as "Scarlett" and tend to target beloved classics. The book most abused by the continuation was "Pride and Prejudice." I came across a one titled "Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife."
After flipping through a few pages, my fears were confirmed. Darcy, Elizabeth and the others were there, but they now inhabited a world that struggled mightily to harmonize the tone of the original with a "Sex and the City" spiciness.
The results are dreadful; intelligence and good taste had been banished in favor of a frankness that would have Dr. Ruth stuffing her ears with cotton. A passage in which Lydia describes in wretched, unsparing detail the mechanics and residues of sex to her sisters is about as delightful as watching your parents on "Oprah" boasting of their exploits in a swingers club. About halfway down the page I expected a plea for rescue to mysteriously appear in the margin: "Please help me get out of here. This woman is making fools of us all. Elizabeth Bennett."
Continuations are understandable and unfortunate. We want the magic of a great story to go on and on; it lifts us out of ordinary time and sometimes helps deepen our understanding of the human condition. But when we kick aside "the end," we're asking for trouble; we're messing with the magic.
For example, one of the things that's great about great stories is the fixed nature of the characters. We never get to the end of "A Tale of Two Cities" and find Sydney Carton boozing it up in some London tavern, gleefully plotting his seduction of the widow Darnay. He is always doing "a far, far better thing" than he has ever done. He is always heroic.
But we would find Carton a changed man in a continuation. For one thing, his head would be reattached (at least, I would hope so; and how the author would manage that I'd like to see). More importantly, though, his personality would have been hollowed out and endowed with traits that are supposed to be congenial to contemporary audiences. This would be a Sydney Carton that just had a nice long talk with Dr. Phil, who would probably have told him to quit fixating on an unattainable woman and try his luck with some nice tavern girl.
It has been said you can learn a lot from books and that's true, but you can also learn what I have learned: We are on a planet threatened by invasion, our most truculent pundits are in retreat and the American dad will be to busy drinking beer and driving muscle cars to take effective aim at our invaders. And we will not have the comfort of great literature. Time to turn on reruns of "The Rockford Files."
posted by John Parnell at 11:05 AM
1 Comments:
Oh, those continuation stories. I believe Disney has made lots of money off straight to DVD sequels to Cinderella, Pocahontas, Bambi(which really wasn't a sequel I guess since it just filled that gap form the first film with him growing up), and God knows how many others. Who want to know what happens to Cinderella? Or Sleepy Beauty? It is happy, let it end at that.
To defend some writers, they take these fairy tales and twist them or show a different point of view such as Gregory Maguire's Wicked. It is a much smarter approach and not nearly at painful as reading Lydia's description of intercourse.
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