Thursday, July 15, 2004
A taste for books ... mmm ... yummy
Lately I have been diving into books head-first and reading as many of them as I can. I think it started with my renewed interest in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, but after I managed to finish the first couple of novels in that sometimes-good and sometimes-dreadful series, I craved something different.
While I can hardly be classed as an illiterate fool, as I read pretty much constantly for nine hours a day (although much of what I read is hardly enticing nor overly academic), I haven't been a strong book reader over the last few years. My preference has been the written word in magazines and the various (and often poorly-written) text found on that which we call the World Wide Web.
As I mentioned a week or two back, I recently finished reading John Robins' The Incomplete Anglers, a fascinating tale of canoeing and fishing in the wilds of Algonquin Park during the early Twentieth Century. After arriving at the end of that story, I opened up another book that I had been intending on reading for a little while -- Stephen King's On Writing. When the latter first appeared on store shelves about four years ago, I was quite skeptical about it. I mean, it's Stephen-Fucking-King. While occasionally entertaining, I find his style of writing frustrating almost as much as I find it entertaining. Generally, I think Stephen King novels are good for an easy, entertaining read, and I don't really put the man on a literary pedestal.
However, I decided to pick up a copy of On Writing on a lark about a month or so back, and I finally got around to reading it in the last ten days or so. I finished it sometime at the tale end of last week. The first third of the book was interesting, as it was kind of an autobiographical look at King's life. The second third of the book was merely okay, as he delved into the basics of writing. The last third sucked -- it's just that simple. Aside from droning on and on and fucking on about the guy who ran him over while he was walking along the side of a road with his head buried in a book, he doesn't really offer any insight into the craft itself. Rather, he shits on a lot of things that the upper crust of literariness (I think I'm down to making up words at this point) believe are very important. Y'know, like completely ridiculous notions like ... theme. Theme isn't important, according to King. Moron.
After finishing On Writing and vowing to ignore much of the advice contained within, I moved on to two other books I'd recently acquired. One was the next collection in the Cerebus comic book series. High Society, which I finished reading yesterday, was very enjoyable, and I've been thinking of placing an order for Church & State and Church & State II as soon as possible. 'Nuff said, as Stan "The Man" Lee would say.
The other book I started reading, and which I polished off barely twenty minutes ago, was Why I Hate Canadians by Will Ferguson. Although I found the book in the Chapters humour section, I'm inclined to believe it didn't really belong there. While funny at times, the book is rather biting. Ferguson's goal seemed to be to challenge Canadians' perceptions of themselves and their country, and I do believe it worked. If you get a chance, it's worth reading. It talks about the Canadian history that you don't find in high school textbooks.
Now I'm going to do a bit of "light" reading over the next couple of weeks. Thomas Mallory's Le Morte D'Arthur has been sitting on my shelf since my days in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and it's about time I gave it a read.
So if you'll excuse me, I have some reading to do.
While I can hardly be classed as an illiterate fool, as I read pretty much constantly for nine hours a day (although much of what I read is hardly enticing nor overly academic), I haven't been a strong book reader over the last few years. My preference has been the written word in magazines and the various (and often poorly-written) text found on that which we call the World Wide Web.
As I mentioned a week or two back, I recently finished reading John Robins' The Incomplete Anglers, a fascinating tale of canoeing and fishing in the wilds of Algonquin Park during the early Twentieth Century. After arriving at the end of that story, I opened up another book that I had been intending on reading for a little while -- Stephen King's On Writing. When the latter first appeared on store shelves about four years ago, I was quite skeptical about it. I mean, it's Stephen-Fucking-King. While occasionally entertaining, I find his style of writing frustrating almost as much as I find it entertaining. Generally, I think Stephen King novels are good for an easy, entertaining read, and I don't really put the man on a literary pedestal.
However, I decided to pick up a copy of On Writing on a lark about a month or so back, and I finally got around to reading it in the last ten days or so. I finished it sometime at the tale end of last week. The first third of the book was interesting, as it was kind of an autobiographical look at King's life. The second third of the book was merely okay, as he delved into the basics of writing. The last third sucked -- it's just that simple. Aside from droning on and on and fucking on about the guy who ran him over while he was walking along the side of a road with his head buried in a book, he doesn't really offer any insight into the craft itself. Rather, he shits on a lot of things that the upper crust of literariness (I think I'm down to making up words at this point) believe are very important. Y'know, like completely ridiculous notions like ... theme. Theme isn't important, according to King. Moron.
After finishing On Writing and vowing to ignore much of the advice contained within, I moved on to two other books I'd recently acquired. One was the next collection in the Cerebus comic book series. High Society, which I finished reading yesterday, was very enjoyable, and I've been thinking of placing an order for Church & State and Church & State II as soon as possible. 'Nuff said, as Stan "The Man" Lee would say.
The other book I started reading, and which I polished off barely twenty minutes ago, was Why I Hate Canadians by Will Ferguson. Although I found the book in the Chapters humour section, I'm inclined to believe it didn't really belong there. While funny at times, the book is rather biting. Ferguson's goal seemed to be to challenge Canadians' perceptions of themselves and their country, and I do believe it worked. If you get a chance, it's worth reading. It talks about the Canadian history that you don't find in high school textbooks.
Now I'm going to do a bit of "light" reading over the next couple of weeks. Thomas Mallory's Le Morte D'Arthur has been sitting on my shelf since my days in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and it's about time I gave it a read.
So if you'll excuse me, I have some reading to do.
// posted by Chris @ 7:54 PM 
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