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    Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing
    Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing
    Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing
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    Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing

    By John Walters

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    From the author's introduction:

    The books have always been there. They have added nuance, depth, and richness to my life. When I speak of reading I am not talking about an expediency but a glorious adventure. The reading to which I refer is like a drug rush, a phenomenon. Reading is a much more vital experience than watching films or playing video games. The author's words ignite your psyche and create a multidimensional, multisensory experience which can be totally fulfilling, totally absorbing.

    Because I cannot imagine a life without books, book reviews are an essential part of radiating who and what I am. Reading is a voyage of discovery. And though a true reader wants the freedom to discover new worlds without restriction, a map with a few landmarks is a useful tool to save time. All I can do is point out what paths I have followed and what those paths mean to me. Reviews are one way of fine-tuning your discernment, to ensure that your reading experience is time well spent. We are each of us microcosms in the great vastness of the larger universe, and reading is one way we have of closing the gap.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Walters
    Release dateApr 20, 2014
    ISBN9781310411557
    Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing
    Author

    John Walters

    John Walters recently returned to the United States after thirty-five years abroad. He lives in Seattle, Washington. He attended the 1973 Clarion West science fiction writing workshop and is a member of Science Fiction Writers of America. He writes mainstream fiction, science fiction and fantasy, and memoirs of his wanderings around the world.

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      Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing - John Walters

      My youngest son has recently caught on to the joy of reading. It happened abruptly, and when it did it snowballed or avalanched into an all-consuming passion. The catalyst was a book that sparked his interest – nothing more. But I had to insist he read that book. It turned out I only had to insist he begin. After that he caught fire and continued on his own. Before this event, when living in Greece, he was, if anything, anti-reading, proclaiming it boring, preferring movies and video games. Which makes the turnaround all the more remarkable. Now I have to be sure his book hunger is regularly fed. It is like throwing coal into a roaring furnace: the more you feed it the greater the fire and the more fuel you need. I have to take him to bookstores, order books on line, visit the library. He consumes books as fast as I can gather them.

      He reminds me of myself when I was that age.

      I can't remember when I first became interested in books. I seem to have been born with the addiction. Was there ever a time I was not intent on devouring reading material? At a certain time in my life I forsook television. It was a deliberate act; I sold my TV and just didn't bother anymore. But forsake books? Never. Even when I hitchhiked around the world carrying nothing but a duffle bag I always carried a book along. One book was the limit, for the sake of the weight, but I always had that one book. I chose long books, because I was not always able to find them so easily. I read Henry Miller's The Rosy Crucifixion at that time, if I remember correctly. And in Greece I picked up a paperback copy of Shogun, by James Clavell, just before I headed across the Middle East; that one lasted me a while.

      The point is, the books have always been there. They have added nuance, depth, and richness to my life. I still always have a book on hand that I am reading. Nowadays I alternate between fiction and nonfiction. I plan ahead so that I have a book ready for when I finish the current one. If somehow I misjudge and I finish a book before I have acquired the next one in line I'm thrown into a tailspin; I've got to find something to read quickly. I'm like a smoker running out of cigarettes or an alcoholic running out of drink. I might pick up a magazine or reread a section of something I have read before, but I am ill at ease until the next reading project is underway.

      That's just how it is. And when I speak of reading I am not talking about an expediency but a glorious adventure. When politicians and educators talk about literacy programs, they refer to kids learning the type of reading you do when you have to: making sense of words as a means of communication of facts or data. That is one type of reading, and it is, of course, essential. But the reading to which I refer is different. It is like a drug rush. It is an experience, a sensation, a phenomenon. Many people never feel it precisely because educators try to inculcate it in them with the wrong kind of books, the so-called classics which turn out to be beyond their comprehension, over-long and boring. It's like trying to turn someone on to gourmet cooking by serving them a huge bland bowl of porridge. It might fill the stomach and satisfy the hunger if you are starving, but it will not hone the taste buds and give you an appetite for more. Many of the books I was forced to read as part of the curriculum in high school I have forgotten, and so bland was the experience I never had any interest in going back to them later and rereading them. Maybe some of them are good books; I don't know and I don't care. The problem is that many people develop a distaste for reading that goes back to those poor selections; they never get past the mediocre experience of being force-fed literature for which they were not ready or that simply was not their cup of tea.

      My great reading experiences were all my ideas. Wait. Let me qualify that. There was once when a high school assigned text caught my interest and led me to further reading. The book was The Pearl by John Steinbeck. The story so enthralled me that I sought out more works by Steinbeck, and ended up reading almost everything he ever wrote. He was, in fact, one of my first literary loves. I liked his simple, straightforward style, his depiction of fascinating, idiosyncratic common folks, his California settings. My favorite was Sweet Thursday, the comedy-romance between Suzy the hooker and Doc the marine biologist.

      But this was the singular exception, as far as I can recall, of assigned texts ever being interesting or leading to further reading. It's a fine line that teachers walk. On the one hand you want your students to develop their individual tastes, but on the other you want to have a common text to be able to study and analyze. But therein too lies a part of the problem: the studying and analyzing takes the fun out of it. Reading a book is different for each individual, and you cannot dictate terms under which it is relevant for anyone but yourself.

      You might say that one reason you don't read much is that reading doesn't engage the senses as much as watching films or playing video games does. In fact, just the opposite is true. Reading is a much more total experience than either. In films and video games the creators take you by the hand and do everything for you. You have to use much less of your intellect, much less of your concentration. With books, on the other hand, in order to achieve the fullness of the experience you must draw yourself into it; in a sense you create the experience as you go along: the sights, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes. The author's words ignite your psyche and create an internal multidimensional, multisensory experience which can be totally fulfilling, totally absorbing.

      That is why I need a quiet place, free from distractions, when I read. Outside stimuli destroy the illusion, the suspension from reality. As a young teen, after my father had built me my own small room in the basement of our house I would hole up in there, lay on my bed and read for hour after hour. That is where I first encountered The Lord of the Rings. I had heard nothing about it, and as Frodo, Sam, and Pippin hiked across the Shire with the dark riders close behind, I was more in Middle Earth than I was in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. If someone inadvertently left the basement door open and the sounds from upstairs broke the spell I was under and brought me back to the real world, I would have to pause and march up the stairs and close the door again, cocoon myself in silence, so I could re-enter the fantasy world that had become so real to me.

      Why I Write Book Reviews

      Writing book reviews grew out of my desire to create a blog. I wanted a web presence to accompany the publication of my books. In the beginning I wasn't sure exactly what I would write about, though I had a general idea when I subtitled the blog thoughts on writing, travel, and literature. Literature and reading is such an integral part of me that I could hardly ignore it. I decided to post a review of every book I read. It was partly a reaction to reading The Books in My Life by Henry Miller. I don't think that volume is one of his better works, but that's not the point. Reading was such a profoundly important part of his life that he decided to devote a series of books to it. He never got past volume one; other things caught his attention and he moved on. I wonder, though, what he would have done had he had the option of starting a blog. He had said once he would be content with one true reader. He might have avidly taken to blogging as a free means of expression. Be that as it may, my own blog evolved from being merely an accompaniment to the publication of my books to a means of expression in its own right. It reflects me and what I am going through. It is not always current, as sometimes I have the posts prepared a few weeks ahead of time, but it is a general indicator of my psychic temperature. And because I cannot imagine a life without books, book reviews are an essential part of radiating who and what I am.

      Since I am always reading books, I am always on the lookout for good reading material. I find my books in many ways. I follow up on recommendations of people whose opinions I trust; I peruse awards lists; I write down titles when I come across references in odd places. I do not go by popularity; I am not interested in bestseller lists. I have my own ideas of what turns me on, and I don't give a damn whether it interests anyone else or not. But another good source of ideas for books are books about books. Once when I was a young teen I came across a book called One Hundred Great American Novels, which was a compilation of synopses of books which, in the author's opinion, constituted the germinal works of American literature. It was a fascinating read, and from it I gleaned ideas for reading matter for many months to follow. Among the books I heard about for the first time were On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and Jurgen by James Branch Cabell, both of which became some of my favorites. So though my primary purpose in writing book reviews is self expression, I hope that through these reviews you find your path to new worlds of reading adventure.

      Reading, after all, is a voyage of discovery. And though a true reader wants the freedom to discover new worlds without restriction, a map with a few landmarks is a useful tool to help save time. All I can do is point out paths I have followed and what those paths meant to me. They may not mean the same to you. Some books I found crucial to my growth you may find boring. Some books I found tedious you may find wonderful. That's as it should be. We grow in different ways and in different directions.

      As with my other books, in my book reviews I write what I would like to read. I appreciate a good book review, but I do not at all like tedious reviews written for academic audiences, reviews written in highfalutin prose for a select few. They bore me, those pompous exercises in pseudo-literary pretention. In contrast, my reviews are as much about me as they are about the books. I often let you know how I came across the book, and any background that makes the book particularly relevant to me. That's part of the experience, as far as I am concerned. There are no absolutely objective criteria by which to judge books. The experience does not take place in isolation. There is a relationship involved between writer and reader.

      The book reviews, in fact, are the most popular articles in my blog. They get more hits than all the other articles put together. Of course, many of those who access the reviews probably do so because they need something to paraphrase for a school composition project. That's all right with me, although I wish those lazy bums would read the books instead. I don't mind them drawing from my ideas, but I do object to using them as a substitute for the wonderful activity of reading itself. Nothing I can do about that, so I might as well not waste time lamenting over the possibility.

      Really, though, I write these reviews to inspire you to read, not to keep you from having to do so. If you don't read it's your loss. You are closing your mind to an integral facet of existence, an entire dimension of experience. Who would be content to close their eyes, plug their nose, jamb their fingers in their ears? Open up, folks. Allow yourselves to encounter the minds of those who have devoted themselves to communicating with you. Not all reading material is worthwhile. There's a lot of crap out there. But reviews are one way to fine-tune your discernment, to ensure that your reading experience is time well spent.

      Having said that, I have to reiterate that these reviews really are more about me than they are about the books. I come to the books from my perspective. Every book I assimilate becomes a part of the totality that is me, John Walters, the writer, reader, traveler, seeker of truth. By the time I have absorbed the book and the words come back out in the form of a review, they are hopelessly colored by everything that I have been and am. This is what you must understand and allow as you read the reviews. If you read the books themselves they will not affect you the same way they affected me. We may agree on certain points, but the relationship you have with the author is not the same as mine. This is a good thing. We are each microcosms in the great vastness of the overall universe, and writing and reading is one way we have of closing the gap.

      Fiction

      My Five Favorite Fiction Books

      Lists of favorite books are fun, aren't they? Sometimes they give me ideas on what to read next, and I am always on the lookout for good books, as I am always reading something. Usually I alternate between fiction and nonfiction, because there is so much I want to read in each category.

      At first I was going to list my ten favorite fiction books, but then I realized that there were a few that were more important than the others. So I will list the top five here, and list five or six or seven runners-up in the next chapter.

      These books that I have chosen as my favorites are not necessarily what I would choose to read now, but at the time I read (and re-read) them they were tremendously influential for me personally in some way. So here they are:

      1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. No contest. The boxed trilogy was given to me by one of my grandmothers, my mother's mother, I believe when I was in my early teens. At the time I had never heard of the book or the author. But before the end of the first chapter I was deeply hooked, and by the time the dark riders were stalking the hobbits through the Shire I knew that I had stumbled upon a unique literary experience. In the next few years after I read this for the first time I read it at least a dozen times. I remember once I read the whole trilogy, appendixes and all, three times in a row, nonstop, starting again as soon as I had finished. In recent years I have read the trilogy a few times more, and each time it is a wonderful experience. No other work of fiction has influenced me so profoundly.

      2. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. This is the only book on the list that I think is dated and I have little interest in reading now, though at the time I read and re-read and re-re-read it I was profoundly changed by the experience. I discovered it in a book of descriptions of famous American novels and read it because it seemed an interesting story. It was far more than that. It made me long to be out on the road myself, and eventually I did hit the road.

      3. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. I can't remember how I found out about Henry Miller, but I know that Tropic of Cancer was the first book of his I read. Passionate, poetic, brazen, ribald, blatantly honest Henry Miller came along just at the right time. He made writing seem a wondrous glory of an experience, and life itself a celebration that was richer when the art of prose was added to the mix. After I read Tropic of Cancer I read as many of Miller's other books I could get my hands on, but I came back to Tropic of Cancer again and again, and I think it's his masterpiece, his breathtaking shattering of convention, a wonderful piece of wildly exuberant prose, entertaining and moving and wacky and intense and precise all at the same time.

      4. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. That same grandmother who gave me The Lord of the Rings also gave me a boxed set of Heinlein novels one Christmas. I don't think this one was included, but because I enjoyed the others I read this, and it was far above and beyond anything else I had read by Heinlein, and most other writers as well. It starts deceptively simply as a science fiction adventure but quickly becomes much more - a counter-cultural event that satirizes everything conventional in established social systems. Coming as it did when the youth revolution hit its stride in the late sixties, it was quickly adopted as a sort of irreverent banner around which to rally, but for me it was a wonderful thoughtful piece of prose that caused me to question everything I had been taught of the right way to think and perform since I had hit school.

      5. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr. When you see the list of runners-up you will see that several short story collections are included. I'm a great fan of short stories; I love to read them as well as write them, and James Tiptree, Jr., alias Alice Shelton, was one of the greatest short story writers of all. It's hard to pick out the best because so many of her stories are so brilliant, but some of my favorites are The Girl Who Was Plugged In, The Women Men Don't See, Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, and The Screwfly Solution.

      My Favorite Fiction Books: The Runners-Up

      The five books above I put more or less in order, but the books below are presented alphabetically by title to show that I don't necessarily prefer one above another; all are unique in their own way. So here's the list:

      American Pastoral by Philip Roth. This devastating look at the American dream gone wrong is elegantly written, and once begun is very hard to put down. The character known as The Swede has a seemingly flawless middle-class lifestyle and then things begin to unravel, exposing the ugly reality underneath. The awards and accolades this book received were well-deserved.

      Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges. Borges is a master of the puzzle, the maze, the conundrum, and is also a virtuoso stylist. This book is a compilation of several of his shorter fiction books. They are presented chronologically, and from the beginning to the end the stories are marvelous. Many of the best are fables of the surreal that leave contemporary fantasy writers in the dust. It's a wonderful book.

      Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. I had never heard of this writer when a librarian I knew pointed it out to me and said she thought I might be interested in it. And indeed I was. The stories speak of the Bengali/American experience; they juxtapose the two cultures and accentuate the alienation and culture shock of moving from one to the other, but at the same time the characters are starkly human, real and emotional and empathetic. Having lived in West Bengal myself, I was deeply sympathetic to the plight of the immigrants to America Lahiri describes and their difficulties in adjusting to such a profoundly different culture.

      Kim by Rudyard Kipling. Okay, okay, I've heard all the arguments about Kipling being an imperialist and so on, but all that does not detract from the fact that his masterpiece, Kim, is a terrific book. It plunges you into the heart of the India of the late 1800s with such exquisite detail and description that you feel you are actually there. I have traveled extensively in India and I relished the reading experience. It is a book written by a man who knew and deeply loved the land and its people. Some of Kipling's other work I find dated and trivial by today's standards, but this book is different. It's a terrific read and a great adventure.

      Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. This is the newest, most recently written book on this list, and in fact I have written a review of it elsewhere in this book, but I wanted to include it here as one of my favorite books of all time because I had been searching for so long for a truly great work of fiction on the Vietnam War, and in this book I found it.

      The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I could read this book over and over. There's not a word out of place. It is precise and elegant and poetic and plain all at the same time. The relationship between the old man and the boy is beautifully told, and at the end when the boy finds the exhausted old man sleeping in his hut and bursts into tears, invariably every time I read it so do I. It's one of the most perfect stories I have ever read. Its deceptive simplicity hides great depth.

      Phases of the Moon by Robert Silverberg. This is a collection of some of Silverberg's best stories. All of my favorites are here, like Sundance and Passengers and Good News From the Vatican. To top it off, each story has an accompanying essay in which Silverberg writes about how he came to write it and what was happening in his life when he did. Silverberg is a master of the science fiction short story, and the level of ingenuity and craftsmanship these stories display has seldom been equaled since.

      The Road by Cormac McCarthy. In a post-apocalyptic landscape beset with cannibals a father and his son struggle to survive. This short book, once begun, is very difficult to put down. The language

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