The Great Dan Brown Mystery

I can’t believe how long it’s been since my last post. Where has the year gone? My excuse – if it’s worth anything at all – is that I’ve been spending my writing time on my novel. Plus, I’m pregnant and everyone knows that time goes quicker when one is pregnant.

Anyway, I just wanted to comment on the Dan Brown mania which has reared its (dare I say, ‘ugly’) head with the release of his latest novel, The Lost Symbol.  Footage on the news last night showed the hardcovers being grabbed out of boxes by crazed fans before they could even get a look-in on the shelf.

I just don’t get it. Why all the hoopla? Why are Dan Brown’s stories so incredibly popular?

I was in a bookstore last week, a rare occurence lately as I’m still on sabbatical from buying books but as I’m still allowed to buy books for others I was there purchasing a book for my two-year-old son. (Really, I was, he can attest.) Perusing the new releases shelf I was delighted to find new novels from Ursula Le Guin and Iain Banks. And then I realised I couldn’t buy them and got sad. So I’ve put them on my ‘Books to Buy on 2nd January 2010′ list.

But I digress. The point I’m getting to is that: Why does Dan Brown’s new book get major media coverage and invoke reader madness whilst novels from the likes of Le Guin and Banks are lucky to get a review in the weekend paper?

I read the Da Vinci Code a few years back to find out what all the fuss was about. And having read it I was more confused than before. The story was engaging enough but nothing extraordinary and the writing was average, at best.

The only conclusion I can come to is that Dan Brown’s popularity is simply due to the controversial nature of the topic he wrote about in the Da Vinci Code. This controversy led to publicity which led to book sales which led to more publicity and on it goes so that now his name is so huge that he could write a bad limerick and publish it on toilet paper and it would sell a squillion copies.

I would love to know your thoughts. Forget global warming and economic crisis, The Great Dan Brown Mystery is a truly important issue.

Why do you think Dan Brown is so popular?

2009: My Year of Buying No New Books

Inspired by a book columnist for a Melbourne paper (who’s article I now can’t find online) I have declared 2009 my ‘Year of buying no books’! This columnist (whose name I can’t recall) did the same in 2008. And I thought if she can do it so can I.

Ever since my income has allowed me the luxury I have bought books on a regular basis. But I have developed a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew. The pile of unread books gradually grew to the point where it fell over and I had to start stacking them on the bookshelf. And then some even made it into boxes – the death knell. There’s no coming back from the box.

The joy of buying a new book would soon be dulled by the guilt of not having read my previous purchase … and the one before that. I felt like a book floozy. And so now the time has come for change. I will finally give my books the time and attention that has long been their due. There will be no new interlopers for a year.

I think my own unread books will last me the year, well and truly, but if they don’t I will not be tempted by the bookstore window. I will head to my local library and borrow from friends until 31 December 2009. This is my promise to myself and to my books. It’s halfway through January and I’m coping. So far so good.

Age banding anyone?

It seems whenever I walk into a bookstore these days I end up browsing the novels in the young adult section. I find it more exciting and promising than the section that, as an adult, the bookstore is telling me I belong in.

My interest in YA fiction was reignited a couple of years ago when I found myself reviewing a lot of YA novels. Suddenly I realised how much fantastic literature is out there now for teenagers. And with some of the books I read the only thing that identified them as YA fiction was the fact that the main character (or characters) were teenagers. Going off the writing style and sophistication of the plot alone they could have just as well been written for an adult audience.

The line between the YA and adult fiction categories is murky grey and seems to be more determined by publishers and booksellers than writers or readers.

Recently some publishers have made a move to implement even more limited age labels on books by introducing age banding, the aim of which is to further clarify a book’s age appropriateness.

But many writers, illustrators, librarians and some publishers have been outraged by age banding and created the No to Age Banding initiative with the aim of convincing publishers that it’s a bad idea.

It seems to me that age banding will only result in putting some children off reading – either because the book that they want to read or are able to read is banded for an age younger than they are and therefore they may be embarrassed to read it or because it’s banded for an age older than they are and perhaps their parents or teacher thinks they shouldn’t be reading it.

And from the other side of the spectrum, who’s to tell me as a 34-year-old that a book labeled for 14-year-old isn’t suitable for me? No one. Exactly.

Philip Pullman, a member of No To Age Banding, summed it up in his address at a recent conference discussing the age banding issue:

I did not intend the book for this age, and not that; for one class of reader, and not others. I wrote it for anyone who wants to read it, and I want as many readers as I can get, and I want to meet them honestly.

More reading on age banding:

Age guidance prompts author rebellion

Publisher admits errors in ‘damaging’ age banding row

Man Booker 2008: Longlist

Another year, another Man Booker Prize for fiction and the longlist has been announced.

Now I’m not a particularly patriotic person but … Two Aussies on the list!! Go team! Three actually if you include Aravind Adiga’s, author of The White Tiger, who was educated in Australia and holds Australian nationality.

The Aussies are first-time author, Steve Toltz with A Fraction of the Whole and Michelle de Kretser’s The Lost Dog.

What I find interesting is that a few of the books aren’t even published yet: From A to X and The Northern Clemency. It seems strange to me. Imagine a Best Film Oscar being given to a film that was yet to be released. I would have thought these books would simply be in the running for the prize next year. I bet the publishers are scrambling like chooks on an iceberg to get those books into stores ASAP.

I briefly entertained the idea of reading all the books on the list but (a) I’d be living in fantasy land to attempt that feat at the moment given that I spend more time reading My first words to my son than I do reading novels. (b) As written about on this blog I’ve vowed to never read a book because of the author’s name or because it seems every other person on the planet has read it and raved about it.

And not all of the books on the list appeal to me anyway. Netherland, The Clothes on Their Backs, Child 44 and A Fraction of the Whole are the ones that immediately caught my eye. I think reading these four novels is an achievable goal.

Visit the Synopsis and author bio available on the Man Booker site.

And below are links to Amazon:

• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

• Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold
• The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
• From A to X by John Berger (Due for release in September.)
• The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
• Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
• The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
• A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
• The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher. (Due for release in February 2009.)
• Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
• The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
• Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

The shortlist will be announced on September 9 with the winner announced on October 14.

Have you read any of the novels from the list yet? Currently reading or plan to read?

Be the Cook-maid

If a Man would that his Writings have an Effect on the Generality of Readers, he had better imitate that Gentleman, who would use no Words in his Works that was not well understood by his Cook-maid.

I couldn’t have Said it better Myself. If only all writers followed the sage advice of Benjamin Franklin.

As I understand it, the purpose of writing is to be understood. So when words are used that most readers don’t understand – ie big words – the meaning is lessened. And the reader is most likely left annoyed and/or frustrated.

If there was an Olympic event for the number of ridiculously, incomprehensibly obscure words one can fit into a single paragraph it would have been won by the author of a non-fiction book I read a little while ago.

I have a fairly large vocabulary, I read widely, I love language and I love to learn new words but this book drove me crazy! Crazy I tell you!

Here’s just a sample: ostinato, psittacosis, paracosm, and (this one takes the cake) sententiousness! Even now, I don’t have the energy to look them up in the dictionary.

I just don’t get it. Why the big words? If writers are trying to impress their readers they may want to use another strategy. A study conducted by Princeton University revealed that readers perceive a writer’s use of big words not as a sign of intelligence but rather the opposite; the more big words used, the less intelligent, in the reader’s estimation, the writer becomes. The rationale being that only someone lacking intelligence would attempt to create an image of intelligence by using words that no one understands.* I love that! We readers aren’t as naïve and shallow as some writers think.

So why do some writers feel compelled to use big words? It apparently makes them come across as less intelligent than if they had used simple words and it impedes comprehension. Am I missing something here?

How do you feel about the use of ridiculously, incomprehensibly obscure words?

* Disclaimer: I’m certainly not suggesting that the author of the crazy-making book I read is not intelligent, of course not. It just begs the question why he feels the need to use words that most of his readers wouldn’t know the meaning of.