I don't know where I found this questionnaire--I've saved it for some months.
I always answer questions about books the same.
I'm going to try to turn off my automatic responses and open my brain up to answer afresh--or at least to choose more recent books.
I'd love to hear your answers!
1. The Book(s) That Transitioned Your Reading From Childhood to
Adulthood
I arrived at full adult reading comprehension when I could fairly easily understand John Donne's poetry on first reading.
I was thirty five.
Okay, but as a child?
Hard to say.
I read a lot of books that were beyond me when I was little. I even remember wondering why I could read the words of something off my parents' bookshelf but not understand the meaning.
But maybe this marks a transition:
When I was twelve, I wrote a book report on John Steinbeck's Cannery Row (my choice), about a bunch of bums who lead what is presented as a good, free life in Monterey, California.
The teacher wrote on my report that I had a sophisticated understanding of the book.
I haven't read Cannery Row since, so I don't know how romanticized it is, but I know it influenced me a lot. The life of a bum sounded good to me. It slotted right into the romanticized movie version of that bum Saint Francis, Brother Sun, Sister Moon, which I saw three years later.
And that explains a lot about me.
[Here are 5 transition-to-adult books that people list, from the Guardian.]
2.
A Book That Made You Laugh Out Loud
When I was eleven, with my family taking turns reading out loud My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.
The scene in Lucky Jim (by Kingsley Amis) when Jim is staying at the home of wealthy people he's trying to impress, and he burns a cigarette hole in his blanket.
There must be a more current one, but I can't think of it.
3. A Favorite Sci-Fi Book
Three from the past couple years:
Mockingbird (1980), by Walter Tevis
A man liberates himself and others, including an AI, from their drug-stupified society by learning--and teaching others--to read.
Devolution:: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre (2020), by Max Brooks (author of World War Z, another favorite)
Horror story about the wisdom of believing that what's happening is, in fact, happening, and responding as well as you can.
The high cost if you don't?
Big Foot will come down from the mountain and eat you.
(Climate change, as a big picture example--but small, intimate things on a personal level-- believing, for instance, that yes, I am stressed out.)
The Murderbot Diaries, a series of six books (2017––), so far, by Martha Wells.
The first one is the best, and stand-alone: All Systems Red.
It's like a lot of novels about orphans coming-of-age––David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, Huckleberry Finn––except this orphan, who thinks of itself as Murderbot (it has no gender) is an artificial construct--a sentient humanoid made of machine and human parts. Murderbot escapes its owners and must determine who it is and what it wants.
4. The Author You've Read the Most Books By
Probably someone whose works I read all of in childhood, such as Hergé, creator of Tintin books.
I've read most or all of the novels by these British women writers who are often concerned with the minor events of small lives: Jane Gardam, Penelope Lively, Barbara Pym
I've also read a lot of John Le Carré.
5. A Book That Shocked You
I can only think of one, but it's a doozy:
Crash (1973), by J. G. Ballard.
The weirdest book I have ever read and liked, Crash is about people who stage car crashes for sexual fulfillment. I don't think I'll read it again, but it was shocking, and shockingly well written.
It's interesting to link the book with the young Ballard's internement during WWII in a Japanese camp in Shanghai (the basis of his novel Empire of the Sun).
Ballard said of the experience:
"I don't think you can go through the experience of war without one's perceptions of the world being forever changed. The reassuring stage set that everyday reality in the suburban west presents to us is torn down;
you see the ragged scaffolding, and then you see the truth beyond that, and it can be a frightening experience."
6. A Childhood Favourite
The Griffin and the Minor Canon, by Frank R. Stockton:
The minor canon, a young man in religious orders, falls in love, basically, with a beautiful, dangerous monster he cannot have.
7. A Book That Deserves More Attention
Fluffy, (2007) a graphic novel by Simone Lia
One of my favorite books, but it wasn't published in the USA, and it's little known here.
Fluffy is a child bunny with an anxious, depressed human father. They have some problems but they come to a happy resolution in this book.
(I'm sad that I haven't liked anything else Lia has published though.)
Immortality? I'd ask instead, authors who died too soon, authors you wish wrote a few more books...
Jane Austen, who died at 41, having written six novels.
Barbara Pym who died at 66, having written six novels.
9. A Book You've Re-Read Often
Fluffy! (see above)
10. A Book That Challenged Your Thinking
"Three Version of Judas", a short story/essay by Jorge Luis Borges, included in his collection Ficciones (1944).
It is a (fictional) review of three scholarly books about Jesus & Judas--three books that do not actually exist.
Summary from Wikipedia:
The [fictitious] author Runeberg comes up with the argument that as God in human shape would be "made totally man, but man to the point of iniquity", committing a sin would also not be beyond Him.
More importantly, Runeberg states that a sacrifice limited to only one afternoon on the cross does not compare with the sacrifice of accepting shame and revulsion for the rest of history.
Thereby, Runeberg concludes finally that He, God, chose Judas as his incarnation.
Recently, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010), by Isabel Wilkerson.
It opened my eyes to the American Experience of my Black coworkers who came from or have roots in the South––and to how widely shared that experience is.
I kinda had no idea...
11.
A Book You Recommend to Everyone
I don't know. Not Crash!
I've recommended The Murderbot Diaries to all sorts of people--including my sister who doesn't like sci-fi or share my taste in general. She liked it.
Come to think of it, the book was recommended to me in the first place, by Marz.
12. Your Favourite Literary Hero & Heroine
In this case, the main two from childhood still stand:
David Copperfield and Jane Eyre, for being the heroes––the authors!–– of their own lives.
I could add Murderbot now.
Fluffy!
Fluffy is not a hero for creating an adult life, Fluffy is an innocent child who reminds me of my Orphan Red girlettes (also orphans, though they never had parents). These are heroes for being authentic, even though they haven't been tested by adulthood.
(What's a hero?)
Answering these questions was less easy than I thought. My apologies for being quite long-ish, and for referring to some books that are possibly not available in English translation.
ReplyDelete1. Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books. I still was not able to read, and every night when I went to bed my father sat next to me and read me some pages of these. He ended reading me all of them, over and over, then I learned to read and read them again and again. I read them again as a teen, and again as an adult, while reading other Kipling books (the last I've read, a couple years ago, was a previously untranslated collection of letters to his children). So, these books accompanied me from childhood to adulthood (and beyond).
2. As a kid, the Jennings books by British author Anthony Buckeridge used to make me burst out in laughter every time I opened one (there are many). I have no idea if these are as popular in the US as they are in UK and in France (written 50 years ago, they are still in print).
Lately (like, last month) a book by Eduardo Mendoza made me laugh out loud: I read it in French as Les Aventures miraculeuses de Pomponius Flatus (original title is El asombroso viaje de Pomponio Flato) sadly it seems it as not been translated in English so far.
3. A Favorite Sci-Fi Book of mine has long been The Voyage of the Space Beagle by Isaac Asimov: at 14, I re-read it often, and was sad that there was no sequel. So many wondrous creatures living in the depths of space! But that was long ago. Among my latest readings: Emma Newman's Planetfall and its follow-ups.
4. The Author You've Read the Most Books By: easy question for once! Victor Hugo.
There is no other author I can say I have read everything by, but I can call myself a Victor Hugo completist.
I was, I guess, nine when I first opened one tome of the 1907 edition, in 17 in-quarto volumes, of Hugo's complete works that sat on my parents bookshelves. What a treasure trove! In two years I managed to read each volume cover to cover, without skipping the stern recollections of historical events (L'Année Terrible, Choses Vues, Napoléon le Petit...) the verbose literary essays (La préface de Cromwell) and the lightly erotic verses... but of course I had favorites: all the stories, either in verse or prose, that had knights, dashing heroes, damsels, beasts, demons, angels... all lavishly illustrated with copperplate engravings. La Légende du Brave Pécopin et de la Belle Bauldour! Han d'Islande! Bug-Jargal! And of course L'homme qui Rit, Les Misérables, Les Travailleurs de la mer (you know, The Toilers of the Sea, the one with the Lovecraftian octopus, that appeared engraved by Riou, the same guy that illustrated Jules Verne...). I was a sickly child often confined to bed, so I had much time for reading. Happy days!
To be continued...
5. A book that shocked me... not obvious: what causes shock in reading? Does Stephen King counts as a writer that shocks its readers? (in my opinion: it's not really the point). Perhaps Francis Fukuyama's The End of History? I remember thinking: is this a joke? Could this guy be serious?
ReplyDelete6. A book by rather obscure writer, at least outside of her birthplace (Ireland): Patricia Lynch's The Turf-cutter's Daughter was one of my childhood favourites. I borrowed it from the school's library, and it made on me a deep impression, but I had no opportunity to re-read it for a very long time, until I bought it used some years ago, and marveled on how much it prefigured all the things I came to love as an adult: I remembered it as a book about two kids (my memories were of how much I empathized with them) who encounter some magical beings I had mostly forgotten about; it was really about Fianna, Tuatha Dé Danaan, Fomoré and all manners of Celtic lore creatures I read about many yers later, searching for them in many books.
7. Who am I to judge if a book got exactly the attention it deserved, or got too much, or not enough? Well, let's try: Beatrix Beck is a celebrated French author, at least two of her books were best-sellers... however there is a book more people should read (in my opinion): it's called L'épouvante et l'émerveillement (Dread and Wonder? Or Awe and Wonder? Or Dread and Awe? Pick one translation: I am not sure if it's available in English, nor what an English title could be). What is it about? A granddaughter learns from her grandmother, and a grandmother learns from her granddaughter.
To be continued...
8. An Author You Would Grant Immortality To ...
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that granting immortality to anybody is somehow out of my league. If I had possessed the skill, I would have granted many many happy years without Alzheimer to Terry Pratchett. Unfortunately it's too late, anyway. Yet it's not too late for wishing a great many years to Pratchett's accomplice, Neil Gaiman!
9. A book I re-read more or less every year is Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges. Self-explanatory answer, I guess: when you thread forking paths, don't you often end where you started?
10. A Book That Challenged Your Thinking... hard question. I was not really fond of any book by C. S. Lewis I had read, until I stumbled on Till We Have Faces, a rather odd book. To me Lewis's efforts for shoehorning his beliefs in his fictions seemed extremely clumsy, and mostly counter-productive. An then there was this book, I was not expecting much of, and it manages to tell cleverly of things... ineffable? Yes, Crawley, ineffable is the word.
11. Books I recommend often to friends (and sometimes offer as a gift) are Leo Perutz's The Night under the Stone Bridge, and Mircea Eliade's The Old Man and the Officer. Everyone's been pleased so far (or at least they didn't complain).
12. Your Favourite Literary Hero & Heroine
What's a hero? Good question. I'm not sure. A hero to me... Perhaps Mowgli? Or Toomai of the Elephants? A heroine, this I know: Mori Phelps from Jo Walton's Among Others!
And thanks, Fresca, for recommending Murderbot: I enjoyed the first one, and plan to read the others!
Huh? For some reason my first comment didn't make it to the blog; my answer was too long (only 4900-something characters allowed), I had to part it in 3, but the first one perhaps was still too long; OK, I'll cut it in half again.
ReplyDeleteAnswering these questions was less easy than I thought. My apologies for being quite long-ish, and for referring to some books that are possibly not available in English translation.
1. Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books. I still was not able to read, and every night when I went to bed my father sat next to me and read me some pages of these. He ended reading me all of them, over and over, then I learned to read and read them again and again. I read them again as a teen, and again as an adult, while reading other Kipling books (the last I've read, a couple years ago, was a previously untranslated collection of letters to his children). So, these books accompanied me from childhood to adulthood (and beyond).
2. As a kid, the Jennings books by British author Anthony Buckeridge used to make me burst out in laughter every time I opened one (there are many). I have no idea if these are as popular in the US as they are in UK and in France (written 50 years ago, they are still in print).
Lately (like, last month) a book by Eduardo Mendoza made me laugh out loud: I read it in French as Les Aventures miraculeuses de Pomponius Flatus (original title is El asombroso viaje de Pomponio Flato) sadly it seems it as not been translated in English so far.
3. A Favorite Sci-Fi Book of mine has long been The Voyage of the Space Beagle by Isaac Asimov: at 14, I re-read it often, and was sad that there was no sequel. So many wondrous creatures living in the depths of space! But that was long ago. Among my latest readings: Emma Newman's Planetfall and its follow-ups.
ReplyDelete4. The Author You've Read the Most Books By: easy question for once! Victor Hugo.
There is no other author I can say I have read everything by, but I can call myself a Victor Hugo completist.
I was, I guess, nine when I first opened one tome of the 1907 edition, in 17 in-quarto volumes, of Hugo's complete works that sat on my parents bookshelves. What a treasure trove! In two years I managed to read each volume cover to cover, without skipping the stern recollections of historical events (L'Année Terrible, Choses Vues, Napoléon le Petit...) the verbose literary essays (La préface de Cromwell) and the lightly erotic verses... but of course I had favorites: all the stories, either in verse or prose, that had knights, dashing heroes, damsels, beasts, demons, angels... all lavishly illustrated with copperplate engravings. La Légende du Brave Pécopin et de la Belle Bauldour! Han d'Islande! Bug-Jargal! And of course L'homme qui Rit, Les Misérables, Les Travailleurs de la mer (you know, The Toilers of the Sea, the one with the lovecraftian octopus, in this book it appeared engraved by Riou, the same guy that illustrated Jules Verne...). I was a sickly child often confined to bed, so I had much time for reading. Happy days!
Voilà, now I assume my answers all have the permitted lenght!
TORORO: Anonymous Fresca here—thank you for the fascinating answers—I want to spend some time thinking on and replying to them later.
ReplyDeleteThe Jungle Book, for instance, reminds me that the Just-So stories influenced me when I was little. (And I heard “Just-So” as a name, like Cousteau. 😊)
I also thought they were not as easy to answer as I’d expected.
I keep coming up with new answers—and questions about the questions too (I laughed that you too questioned the questions.)
Oh—yes, more years without dementia for Terry Pratchett—good choice.
Xo
1. The Book(s) That Transitioned Your Reading From Childhood to Adulthood
ReplyDeleteBorges, Camus, and Kafka, in high school. I don’t know how I latched on to them.
2. A Book That Made You Laugh Out Loud
Tristram Shandy.
3. A Favorite Sci-Fi Book
Slaughterhouse-Five? (I don’t know science-fiction.)
4. The Author You've Read the Most Books By
Ted Berrigan, I think, though some of those are chapbooks. Or Willa Cather.
5. A Book That Shocked You
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
6. A Childhood Favourite
Clifford Hicks, Alvin’s Secret Code.
7. A Book That Deserves More Attention
Willa Cather, The Professor's House.
8. An Author You Would Grant Immortality To
David Schubert (1913–1946), American poet, who was far, far ahead of his time.
9. A Book You've Re-Read Often
See no. 7.
10. A Book That Challenged Your Thinking
Andrew Sullivan, The Conservative Soul. (Written when AS was espousing more plausible ideas than he is now.)
11. A Book You Recommend to Everyone
Michael Harvey, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. Best short guide to improving one’s writing that I know.
12. Your Favourite Literary Hero & Heroine
An offhand answer: Timofey Pnin (Nabokov), Lucy Snowe (Charlotte Brontë), each making their way amid great difficulties.
Oh, Michael--Thanks for answering too! These are so interesting! I want to post them on the blog--and Tororo's too--would that be okay?
ReplyDelete--FRESCA
Of course!
ReplyDelete