I've just finished Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (thanks for the rec, Jill). It's a good book. I enjoyed it and can recommend it. But I doubt I'll read it again.
So now I have another, newer test for YA literature: does it not only make me live more intensely for the reading of it, but does it make me want to live/read it again?
Kelley and I had another lunchtime chat about our responses to YA. She brought up an interesting point: she reads YA fiction in part to reconnect with the feeling of encountering the emotions/experiences usally encountered for the first time in adolescence. I realised two things. One, bad writers try to engender those feelings in their readers by reproducing the mannerisms and speech patterns of young adults (their characters are blithe and ignorant and inarticulate, shudder). And, two, that's not why I read YA. I read for the clarity and brilliance and excitement of fictional (v. important point, that) young people's experience of the world. I want to feel wholly involved with and experience the world as though the world were new, not as though I were.
One of the things I really liked about Alexie's book was his narrator's announcement, right up front, that he wasn't going to write things down the way he spoke. In other words, Alexie didn't open door #1. I nearly split my face grinning when I read that. I wanted to shake his hand.
He did, however, open door #2 (which is more a matter of reader taste than writer mistake). This novel will be mind-expanding, vibrant and enlarging (I believe) for many young people. For me, though, it is best described as a good read, the kind of book that makes me nod in recognition, 'Yes, how true,' but not understand something new, and not yearn to experience it again. Perhaps if I hadn't read Alexie's other fiction I would have learnt a great deal about growing up on the rez--but I have already read his other work; I have heard him speak (and very good he is, too).
Whatever I search for in a novel (and I imagine I'll be trying to articulate that on some level for the rest of my life, sigh), I didn't quite find here. But a few years ago I might have done. It's a question of timing.
This is a very, very good book. Go read it.
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You speak very interestingly about novels and what rules you have for making it enjoyable for yourself. Years ago an American Writer had one rule for his own writing: Don't lie because everyone will know.
ReplyDeleteVery difficult thing to do especially when there is expectation.
What did you think of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials? That was a life-changing story for me, and a re-read. Not so much the first book (Northern Lights a.k.a. The Golden Compass), but definitely The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. I had to cry during the last few pages of the latter, then quit my job, go back to school, change careers and read the books all over again. I notice none of us YA-lovers have recommended Pullman, probably assuming that most people have read or are aware of his work due to pre-and-post-movie hype.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you liked the novel!
ReplyDeleteI think Alexie does what you do so well; he tells a story, and the characters are who they are. It doesn't fall into the genre category where people who are desperate to read whatever they can get their hands on will read it.
miele, I agree: lies always come back to bite you. Besides, I'm seriously crap at lying.
ReplyDeletekarina, I read the Golden Compass and really liked it, but didn't much care for the second one and have never tried the third. If you're so inclined, I'd like to hear what you liked so much about the second and third volumes.
jill, yep, Alexie puts story first, not genre tropes. I like that.
I can empathize and sort of guess why you wouldn't feel any desire to read on to the third book. It's a strange story in the sense that, at least in my case, I didn't care for the protagonist throughout the first and second books. Mrs. Coulter, not Lyra, was my excuse to hang on to the first one. The eerie Cittàgazze setting, the introduction of Will Parry and Dr. Mary Malone hooked me during the second one. I'd say the third one was the charm because I finally came to care for Lyra. During the first couple of books, I felt she was a mere puppet of fate, her moods and personality. I kept thinking she was a commodity for the author. But Lyra becomes a full character in The Amber Spyglass, when fate and luck abandon the stage and she's left alone, finally a wholesome individual, with heartbreaking decisions to make.
ReplyDeleteI like Alexie (coming from an aboriginal background myself, he's "required reading") and did enjoy Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, but I prefer his short stories to the novels.
karina, I like Alexie's short stories, too, but I thought the very short YA-novel form suited his strengths, too. Different writers have different focal lengths/strengths. For example, I write stories occasionally, but not that often, because I know I'm a much better novelist than short form writer.
ReplyDeleteI meant to drop by in the other thread, but instead I'm here and will leave a few recs based on your thoughts about Alexie's book (which I appreciated but didn't love).
ReplyDeleteI suspect you might really love Elizabeth Knox's Dreamhunter Duet -- superfabulous stuff and in a beautifully accomplished omniscient POV. There's also a wonderful book by an Aussie named Ursula Dubosarsky called The Red Shoe, which is the best realistic YA I read in the last couple of years. Oh, and E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks is a tremendously interesting realistic novel. Judith Clarke is also really good; actually, last year's Printz list is pretty good all round, especially the aforementioned Know, Geraldine Last-Name-I-Always-Spell-Wrong's The White Darkness, and Clarke.
And have you ever read Margaret Mahy? The Changeover and The Catalogue of the Universe are the ones to start with; older and gobsmackingly brilliant and so ODD but underknown in the U.S.
(Make that aforementioned Knox.)
ReplyDeletegwenda, okay, it looks as though I should perhaps give Knox a look. I'm interested in POV at the moment (the Hild book is demanding stuff I've never done before). Mahy--that's a new name to me. I'll go look her up. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI believe I can now express a little better why His Dark Materials meant so much to me.
ReplyDelete