Big ideas

Jane Smiley calls Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the first high-concept novel. I think Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, written a century earlier, might take that title.

What is a high-concept novel? I think of it as a novel with a plot that can be stated in just one or two sentences. Ot it could be said that it is a novel based on an idea. The idea in Frankenstein is about creating life. In Robinson Crusoe, the idea is about a man surviving on a desert island.

Great novels like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Moby-Dick could also be described as high-concept novels, although they are of course about much more than a boy and a slave going down the Mississippi River together on a raft and a ship's captain pursuing a great white whale at all costs.

In contrast, such great novels as Middlemarch or Bleak House would be difficult to summarize in a few words. Are they better novels? Not necessarily.

I enjoy novels of both kinds, but I must admit that a high-concept novel is more likely to catch my eye in a bookstore. And it is usually easier to become engrossed in. You have some idea what the story is about before you even start reading because you have read the dust jacket or the back cover of a paperback. You probably know the idea before you open the book.

Some of the best novels have a little of both. Ann Patchett does not normally write high-concept novels, but I think her Tom Lake, reviewed here recently, excels because it has a little of both in it. It is about a woman who finally tells her grown daughters about her long-ago romance with a famous Hollywood actor. But she doesn't tell them everything. That is the high concept that draws reader in. The story itself is more low-concept.

Other recent novels of note similarly have a high concept to get readers interested, then go off in unexpected directions. I am thinking of such novels as Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and The Sacrament by Olaf Olafsson.

Reading whenever

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau thought reading was so important that he sought to "consecrate morning hours" to doing it.

Not everyone tries to do the important things in the morning, but Thoreau did. Similarly, my mind works best in the morning, but that is when I do my writing, including any emails or letters I want to write. I also run my errands and schedule most of my appointments in the morning. Not only does my mind work best in the morning, but my whole body does. I get up early, so my mornings last a long time. When I have something important to do, I try to do it before noon.

Do I not consider reading important? Well, yes, I do, but I reserve that for the afternoon, after a nap. For me, a nap is like starting a new day. Rarely do I read — or write — in the evening, when I am tired.

Other readers do things differently, of course. They may have a job during the day or children to raise. They must read whenever they can — in bed before going to sleep, at mealtimes or perhaps on weekends when they can find a few quiet moments. Others read mostly on vacations or when on airplanes. Or they listen to books while doing other things.

Does it matter when we read or how? Perhaps not, providing it works for us. Providing we are able to concentrate on what we are reading. Providing we are able to enjoy it or learn from it, whatever our objective may be.

Living the Constitution

I realized just how much the Constitution is a national Roshach test. Everyone, including me, sees what they want.

A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Constitutionally

Author A.J. Jacobs doesn't just write his books. He lives them.

Before writing about the Encyclopaedia Britannica in The Know-It-All, he read it, cover to cover. Before writing The Year of Living Biblically, he devoted a year trying to follow Hebrew law to the letter. And so before writing The Year of Living Constitutionally, he devoted himself to doing just that.

He wore 18th century clothing, carried a musket in reenactments of Revolutionary battles and tried his best to understand what men like James Madison and Benjamin Franklin were thinking when the U.S. Constitution was written.

Jacobs also did his best to take seriously parts of the Constitution that are now mostly ignored. The Constitution is rarely amended, but he circulated a petition to amend it so that instead of just one chief executive there would be several.

The Constitution actually has a provision allowing pirate ships to act in support of the country. So he borrowed a friend's boat, called it a pirate ship and tried to get a "Letter of Marque and Reprisal."

The Constitution prohibits the quartering of soldiers in a citizen's home without consent. So he gave his consent to quartering a solder.

Jacobs is a humorist, and there is much to laugh at in his book. At the same time he makes his readers take a good look at the Constitution, both what it says and what it doesn't say, how both interpreting it too strictly and not strictly enough can lead to trouble.

When books show wear

Jules Verne

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.

Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth

As the person in charge of my condo association library, one of my main responsibilities is to decide which books stay and which books go. Residents donate books almost every week, and as shelf space is limited, whenever one book is placed on a shelf, another has to be taken off.

How do I decide which books need to go?

First, I look for duplicates. Sometimes we have a book in hardback and the same book in paperback. I see no need for two copies, no matter how popular a book may be. One of them has to go, usually but not always the paperback.

I may look at the publication dates. New books are more likely to be keepers than old books.

Some books have been on the shelf for a long time, and to my knowledge unread by anyone. They are vulnerable.

And then there are the books that show obvious wear. This happens sooner with paperbacks, of course.  Many paperbacks are not designed for multiple readings, and some readers tend to be hard on paperbacks. With clothbound books, it is the dust jackets that first show wear. Not all readers remove the dust jacket when reading a book, and then dust jackets do not last long. I do not shelve hardbacks without their dust jackets.

And that brings me, finally, to the quotation from Jules Verne above.  When a book shows wear, it is actually a good sign. It shows the book has been read and even loved. Someone spent some time with it, perhaps folded back some pages, perhaps even placed a coffee mug on it or spilled some food on it.

I may have to remove worn books from these library shelves, but I do so with respect. Better wear than mold, as Verne said.

Have you a heart?

As short as Hard Times is, at least for a Charles Dickens novel, it packs in a lot of story. Perhaps there are even two stories.

There is, for example, the big story — the impact of the Industrial Revolution in England. Coketown is a dirty industrial community where the haves and have-nots know their place. Then there's the more personal and more interesting story about how this social structure impacts two of the children of one of the town's wealthiest men, Thomas Gradgrind. 

Gradgrind (as usual, the names Dickens chooses for his characters say a lot about them) teaches his children the importance of Facts (capitalized to show their importance to him). Anything whimsical, anything fun, anything fictional is discouraged. Growing up in this environment,  Tom and Louisa seem lost and purposeless. When her father arranges a marriage with a much older man, Josiah Bounderby, Louisa accepts, assuming there can be nothing better for her in life than marriage to someone she doesn't love. Tom, meanwhile, takes a job, but wastes his money gambling, a habit Louisa supports on the sly.

There are a variety of developments, including a younger man who tempts Louisa and a bank robbery in which Tom may or may not be involved.

The climax comes when Gradgrind, finally realizing how his teachings have negatively impacted his children, asks another character, "have you a heart?" Some things, it seems, may be more important than Facts.

Hunting hunters

Someone is hunting hunters in C.J. Box's 2008 novel Blood Trail.

In a western state where hunting is a way of life, this is a very big deal for Game Warden Joe Pickett. Hunting is prohibited until the killer can be found, and because the law enforcement personnel are less than competent, as usual in these novels, it falls on Pickett to discover what's really going on.

Strong characters are key in Box thrillers, and this one is no exception. Joe himself has his demons, and his temper gets him into big trouble by the end. His relationships with Marybeth, his wife, and his daughters, who mature as the series continues, are vital. And then there is his relationship with the governor, for whom he has become a private investigator on the public payroll, and with Stella, the governor's aide, with whom Joe has a history.

Klamath Moore, a radical anti-hunting activist, comes to the state to cause trouble just as the murders pile up. Is he connected to the crimes? Is he perhaps the killer? And then there is Randy Pope, Joe's boss, who may also be his greatest enemy.

Blood Trail lives up to its title. It is a violent, bloody novel that never ceases to entertain.

Backbone of literature?

Cheating is the backbone of literature.

Lixing Sun, The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars

In the Charles Dickens novel Hard Times, a man raises his children with Facts. Anything that is not factual is prohibited. This includes novels, fairy tales, music, poetry, jokes or anything else that brings joy, especially to children.

This father, Dickens shows as his novel goes on, is the cheater, depriving his own children of joy and happiness and love.

Lixing Sun

In his book, Lixing Sun argues that lying and cheating are the backbone not just of literature but of life itself. Up to a point anyway, he has a point.

One thing you can say about fiction, however, is that it represents truth in advertising. We are told upfront that it is all lies. Fiction means it's not true. Yet it can still be entertaining. It can still be informative. And it can still contain truth. Jesus told parables not because they were true stories but because they conveyed truth. In the same way, a novel like Hard Times conveys truth.

Sun has a better point, however, when he observes that much of what we call nonfiction is also, in fact, fiction. His own book, as I mentioned in my review the other day, illustrates this. Memoirs are not entirely reliable. Neither are history books or even science books. Mistakes are made. Some facts are ignored, while others are highlighted. All writers are biased in one way or another.

So is cheating really the backbone of literature? To me that point of view seems too much like that of the father in the Charles Dickens novel.