Still a bit swollen in the throat, still coughing a bit more than usual. Nothing hurts, at least. I had thought my energy levels were up to normal, but I went rowing this morning, my first time in the single since Regionals (a.k.a. since the first day I had this crud), and I can tell they're not. I did manage an easy 8500 meters, though. Also, did I mention that WE WON in the double Saturday? (I did? Oh, sorry.)
Book clubs have a lot to answer for. At least, they're my best guess as to the proximate cause of a disturbing trend. Why is it that so many people are incapable of discussing books these days? I don't mean people who simply don't read books, though Lord knows there are too many of those. I don't mean people who read books but don't particularly want to talk about them, either. I mean people who read books and then go to a club on- or off-line to discuss them. What seems to be happening a lot is that said people end up discussing themselves instead.
There's a quote from Eleanore Rooselvelt: "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people." As it happens, I don't agree with her. I happen to think people are endlessly fascinating (after all, who had all those great ideas?) in their variety, and I don't mind someone talking about themselves, as long as they can do it interestingly. (Else I'd probably not be reading or writing blogs.) However, it does get old when people talk only about themselves, especially when they do so while pretending to talk about something else. (People falling in love and sending each other veiled messages are exempt from this, but only while talking to each other.) I get annoyed when I see a list of questions for book discussion (and in editions expected to be used for book clubs, they're often printed right there at the end of the book!) that go something like,
1. At one point in this book, [Secondary character] tells [protagonist] [something meant to be profound]. Do you agree? Why or why not? 2. Have you ever been in a situation like [protagonist's]? What did you do? 3. Which character in this book are you most like? Which would you want to have as a friend?
and so on. That is not book discussion. Or at least, it is not all book discussion ought to be, though it may be a useful technique for teaching beginning readers how to "put themselves in the story". (I'm not sure whether that can be taught, but then I haven't taught people to read, either, and don't really have the experience to judge.) Book discussion is when you analyze the book, trying to figure why its characters acted as they did or why an event occurred. It can involve comparisons to other books or real-life situations, speculation as to what the author was thinking or how his or her life or times influenced the work, or, certainly, discussions of the reader's reaction to the book. But at some point, it really ought to circle back to the book.
It could be claimed that really a book can only be discussed in terms of the reader's reaction, that the experience of the book is unique for each reader. That may be true, but there have to be commonalities too; otherwise we wouldn't even have the shared vocabulary to make discussion possible. Besides, a book ought to bring something from the outside to a reader; we may see each book though a glass tinted by our own experience, but if everything we read is nothing but a mirrored view of ourselves, why bother? Mirrors aren't that expensive, and you only have to buy one.
Of course, that's all just a pet peeve of mine. Really, there's nothing wrong with applying a book to the reader's own life. I just think something's lacking when that's all that happens in a book discussion.
Posted by dichroic at July 31, 2006 01:21 PM