They Make It Look Easy...

I had intended this post to be related to a Huffington Post article on the state of reading in America, but after a couple weeks' hiatus and a whole lot of those weeks spent writing in other contexts, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge how hard it is to write well. 

The revelation came to me as I sat finishing up an article for a newsletter this evening, after throwing together various eleventh hour midterm essays (ah, the joys of still being a student).  Some of my work was researched from journal articles and reports, while the article was based on recordings and notes from an interview I'd conducted.  The style was prescribed, the vocabulary and voice predefined by expectations, and yet, I still had to take this information and tell stories with it.  Not just comprehensive stories, clear-cut and well defined, but articulate stories.  And this was just for 700 word essays that, with any luck, no one will ever be forced to read. 

Now imagine your favorite book.  There was no grading rubric there, no starting scaffold conveniently laid out by thoughtful instructors.  Imagine the wealth of information that went into that book, and how much more there must have been that spilled out of the pages and ended up in the wastepaper bin.  Imagine how complex it was for that author to sit down and string all of those pieces together.  Imagine how many times it took before that stringing and piecing resulted in something worth polishing, and imagine how many hours were spent in agonizing, tedious polishing.  Savor how much effort went into this final product that you're holding, understanding that even now there are probably still passages that give the author fits to read them over.  If you're anything like me, you read voraciously, book after article after story.  How often do we really take the time to consider how much went into the little paper packet or digital file before us?  Whether you like the book or not, you have to know that somewhere, someone cried over it, tears of frustration, or rage, or simply relief that the herculean task of creating such a thing was done. 

Today, I challenge you to do this.  Take a moment.  Thank your favorite authors, journalists, or screenwriters.  In a world of social media, it shouldn't be too hard to do.  Thank the people whose vision has helped shape the wonderful stories that fill our lives.  It's not an easy task, and, if it's done right, it's a thankless one.  See, it's never about the storyteller.  It's all about the story, in every gory, aching, exquisite, infinitesimal detail.  Writers are remarkable people doing remarkable work.  Don't they make it look easy?

The Diviners

Title: The Diviners

Author: Libba Bray

Publisher: Little Brown Books (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Young Adult Fiction, Steampunk

Length: 578 pages

Synopsis:  It's an age of jazz and glitter, movie stars and bootleg liquor. Evie O'Neill of Zenith, Ohio, is determined to make the most of it, but at seventeen, she's long outgrown Zenith's nightlife.  She craves the rush and excitement of the big city and when her parents decide to send her to New York City to stay with her uncle, Evie jumps at the chance.  Soon she's whirled into the kind of life she's always dreamed about: nights spent dancing in exclusive speakeasies, days shopping and sightseeing with friends.  But not everything is as it seems.  Everyone has a secret to keep, even Evie herself, but when a string of gruesome murders with ties to the occult rocks the city, she, and her secret, may be the only way to save them all.

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion:  Hats off to Libba Bray!  She's managed to put together a massively complex book that's clearly only the tip of her creative iceberg.    This book is a pop culture collision of everything the self-proclaimed "nerd" demographic will love (and I say that as a self-identified nerd and without an ounce of condescension): magic, monsters, ghosts, demons, cults, mutants, superpowers, con men, showgirls, even a nod at steampunk.  With the new film adaptation of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby renewing interest in the Roaring 20's, I think this book has hit the right audience at the right time.  The stars are aligned for the next big hit, but I think that something is just the slightest bit amiss.  

 For me, books seem to come most alive when they are more than the sum of their parts, rather than the sum of more parts.  True, this book has everything, but I think that everything was, in this case, a bit too much.  The main characters are often driven by the central plot, which is excellent...until the plot finishes before the book does.  Many of the characters are merely being set up for the sequel, and though I don't mind loose ends at the end of a book, I am perplexed when characters who seem important never quite interface with the aspects of the text I had thought most important.  This is particularly concerning given the plot-based drive of the book's action.  I tried re-framing the text under a character-driven lens, but it just doesn't work.  There are too many characters so focused on doing so many things that there wasn't space for their development to be the story's central anchor.  

Overall, the book works.  It's a quick read, cleverly written, well thought out, and meticulously researched, but for me, there's too much material for this one thick tome.  There's enough in Bray's imagining to have written series following each of her intriguing characters.  Of course, there's always the sequel, Lair of Dreams, which I plan to pick up as soon as it's released (supposedly spring of 2014).