Fun with maps

You might think a terrible map would be one that, for example, shows Illinois west of the Mississippi River, not east.Yet Michel Howe in his Terrible Maps doesn't take maps seriously. The idea in his book is to have fun with them.

Some of his maps are, in fact, hilarious, as promised in his subtitle: "Hilarious Maps for a Ridiculous World." Others are yawners.

The map on the cover shows a typical Howe map. It shows the United Status. Indiana is in red. "Outdiana" is in green. Similarly a map of Africa shows Togo in red. Other countries are labeled "For here." A map of France is called "Map of Nice people." Only the city of Nice is in red. The rest of the country is green.

Howe tends to repeat the same joke over and over. For example, "Railway map of Antarctica" is blank. Likewise a map of Roman air bases in 2nd century AD. After the first, they're yawners.

Sometimes Howe really gets clever. One map shows the word for coma in all European languages. In every case it is either coma or koma, except for Poland, where the word is spiaczka. Another map shows countries with the moon on their flag and other countries with their flag on the moon.

All in all, the book is worth a few laughs, quick to read and fun to show to friends.

Guilty pleasures?

The idea of these books as lesser works, or "guilty pleasures," is baffling to me.

Louise Wilder, Blurb Your Enthusiasm

I, too, am baffled.

Louise Wilder

What Louise Wilder is talking about above is so-called genre fiction — mysteries, romance, science fiction, thrillers and westerns. Why should such books, as a whole, be considered lesser works? Why should a person ever feel guilty about reading a book in any of these categories?

True, some of these books may be poorly written. Some may be trite. Some may be mostly filled with violence, sex, profanity and descriptions of disgusting behavior. But isn't this also true of some books in the general category, even what's regarded as literary fiction? Bad books can be found anywhere, but so can good books.

The concept of dividing novels into genres began, I assume, for the convenience of readers. Many readers prefer reading mysteries or romances or westerns or whatever. And so bookstores began setting these books apart. Why should someone looking for a good sci-fi novel have to look through every book in the store to find the right one? If general fiction could be so easily divided into smaller groups, booksellers would no doubt do so.

Those who review books and teach books in literature classes, unfortunately, have tended to view genres as literary ghettos. These are considered second-class books before they can even be read. The problem with this way of thinking however, is that Jane Austen's Persuasion is a romance novel. George Orwell's 1984 is a sci-fi novel. Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is a western (which won a Pulitzer). In other words, quality can be found in genres just as it can be found anywhere else.

And even if one is not looking for literary quality, but just wants a good time, why should you feel guilty about reading what you enjoy?

Maigret, both victim and hero

The cover of the most recent paperback edition of Georges Simenon's Maigret's Pickpocket (1967) shows the interior of a small Parisian restaurant. This is a good choice, for much of the novel takes place in such a restaurant. Most of the witnesses in this murder case, as well as all of the suspects, eat and drink here most evenings.

The story begins when a young man picks Inspector Maigret's pocket on a bus. The stolen wallet includes his police badge. Yet the wallet is soon returned with nothing missing. The thief reveals himself and pleads with Maigret for his help.

Ricain is an impoverished, but apparently talented, man trying to break into the film industry. He tells Maigret that while he was out searching for someone to loan him some money, his wife, an aspiring actress, was murdered in their apartment. Although the husband is the most likely suspect, Maigret does not arrest him and, after the first day, does not even keep him under surveillance. He considers everyone a suspect — those men with whom Sophie had shared her sexual favors, jealous women, those who have loaned Ricain money.

As usual in Simenon novels, Maigret gathers information bit by bit, processes it silently and reveals all only after he has worked everything out in his mind. Readers hear the same clues but have no idea what is going in Maigret's head. Cases seem to be solved suddenly, rather than gradually, surprising all including the inspector himself.

This novel, which has a twist you won't find in many mysteries, is another winner for one of the most prolific of all mystery writers.

A social experience

The extremity of the Dostoevskian world is a good reminder that the prolonged exposure to a novelist's sensibility required by a lengthy novel is akin to a long train ride with a stranger, sometimes more demanding and uncongenial than the reader is prepared for. In that sense, every novel is, in the end, a social experience as well as an experience of solitude.

Jane Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Jane Smiley compares reading a long novel, like Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot, to talking to a stranger on a long train ride. I don't know why the metaphor would not work just as well with a short novel and a short train ride.

Later in her book she states that "the novel is always a social occasion."

The point is that even though one may be reading in solitude, there is a conversation going on. The author is speaking to you and, at least in your own mind, you are speaking back.

Sometimes authors, in a sense, become our friends, and we keep returning to their novels because we enjoy conversing with them. A novel by a new author is more like talking with a stranger on a train or a plane. One never knows what to expect, whether we are going to like this person or not. What the author says may surprise us or even shock us. The language used by an author may repel us or confuse us — or simply delight us.

Yet the social experience of reading a novel, it seems to me, involves more that just conversing with the author. One also meets a variety of characters. And like the strangers one might meet at a party, you are drawn more to some than others. Some you want to spend more time with, others you would prefer to avoid.

Again, the appeal of novel series with continuing characters has to do with our wanting to spend more time with old friends. I keep reading Alexander McCall Smith's novels set in Botswana because I enjoy sitting in on conversations with Precious Ramotswe, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and the others. Reading novels is indeed a social experience, ideally a rewarding one.

Comfort books

We know what comfort foods are. They usually are the kind of meals Mom used to make — vegetable soup, meatloaf, baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, whatever.

But what about comfort books? Can there be such a thing? I think so.

In one sense, these are books that thrilled us in our youth, books we return to, at least in our minds. Sometimes we may actually want to sit down and read them again. With luck, these books still have the same impact, or at the very least remind us of the impact they once had. I know of a man who tried to collect all the books he read as a child, or that were read to him, preferably in the same editions he remembered from his boyhood.

In another sense, at least for some of us, books give comfort in themselves. The very presence of books might do this. Preferably they are your own books, although libraries and bookstores might help, as well.

A. Edward Newton

I came across the following quotation from A. Edward Newton, a noted collector of books: "Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired (by passionate devotion to them) produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can peradventure read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity ... we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance."

Books, Newton suggests, give comfort even if unread. I am sure that is not true for everyone, or even for most people. For some of us, however, it is very true. Some people find comfort in the art on their walls or in family photos or in various trophies and souvenirs from their lives. But for some of us who understand what Newton meant, books do the job by their very existence.

Little things

In Mattagash, Maine, winter is like a weight that presses you down, holds you there until you think you can't breathe anymore. You just seem to black out, and when you wake up, it's spring again.

Cathie Pelletier, The Weight of Winter

For much of Cathie Pelletier's long 1991 novel The Weight of Winter, the title describes what it is about. The entire novel takes place before Thanksgiving, meaning that for most people in the Northern Hemisphere, it isn't even winter yet. But winter comes early to northern Maine, and already there are several deep snowfalls and days of bitter temperatures. Winter comes to Mattagash long before the calendar says so.

Pelletier's novel roams from one set of characters to another, demonstrating how winter weighs them all down.

If the story has a main character, it would probably have to be Amy Jo Lawler, a middle-aged woman who lives with her mother. She has neither a job nor a husband or children. She feels that her mother, Sicily, is even more of a weight on her than winter is. She wants to put her in the nursing home where Sicily's best friend lives. This might free her to find work and perhaps to develop her affair with a married man.At the very least, the two of them would not have to reman so quiet in her bed late at night.

Meanwhile Lynn Gifford does have a husband and children, but Pike is an abusive drunk whom she still loves in spite of it all. For her children, one son in particular, it is not so simple.

And then there is the Crossroads, the bar where Pike does his drinking and which local busybodies want to close down.

Yet if the novel has a theme, it is probably not so much the weight of winter — most of what happens here could happen in the summer just as well — than with another character's comment late in the book: "There ain't no murders and bombs and hijackers. That's why them little things is so important. When they're all strung together, them little things make up the whole of some people's lives."

Pelletier's novel makes me think of the old song Little Things Mean a Lot.

Reading on the run

We are doing our reading on the run snatching time pledged elsewhere.

Jerome Weidman

Ideally reading is something we reserve time for. Some read to relax, such as just before going to sleep at night or when they are vacationing on a beach or on the deck of a cruise ship. Others prefer to read when they are most alert, most able to fully understand what they are reading. The best students do this.

Jerome Weidman

Most people — or at least most people with books in their homes that they hope to read — probably identify with the comment by Jerome Weidman quoted above. We do "our reading on the run, snatching time pledged elsewhere."

I have seen drivers with books in their hands while they wait at traffic lights. I read in doctors' waiting rooms and while waiting for my food in restaurants. We grab moments here and there so that we can read without interrupting our busy schedules.

One of the appeals provided by thrillers is that it is literally difficult to put them down.  Reading the next chapter and then the next becomes more important than "time pledged elsewhere." Most other books are easier to place lower on our agendas.

I wrote book reviews for most of my career, forcing me to into the habit of setting aside time for reading each day. In retirement I still maintain this discipline, or at at least I try to. Yet even now, with so few things actually on my agenda, I still often feel that I am reading on the run. There's always something else one could be doing.