Confused

When the blogging cupboard was bare the other day I mentioned I could tell you about our book club meeting where we discussed Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. With Fran’s encouragement, “Go on. What did they think of 'Oranges'? Have you seen the film?” I’ve decided I do want to talk about it.

I want to talk about it because I am troubled.

I adored studying English literature at school and I’ve blogged before here and here about the teachers who contributed to that passion. Since I could read I’ve loved reading but later on I discovered that I really enjoyed studying books too.

But those things are different, aren’t they?

I think that that’s where we didn’t… couldn’t do Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit justice.  It’s possible to read and not study it but it throws up all sorts of questions for the average reader - at least it did at our book group. (And I am assuming that we’re the average reader… we’re all enthusiastic readers, educated – mostly to at least degree level – we read a wide range of material and want to meet with other addicts to talk about our experience.) Another assumption I’m going to make is that you know of or have read Jeanette Winterson’s OANtOF – if you don’t, you can check out its wiki page.

Many of us enjoyed it while acknowledging that we knew we were 'not getting it' or missing out in some way and others decided that they just didn't like it. I felt alienated. My knowledge of the Bible is sketchy. The chapter headings alone left me floundering, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: the Last Book of Law, Joshua, Judges and Ruth, the only one that means anything to this impious one is Genesis. 

I am of course a ‘looker upper’ of things and I wanted to be prepared for book club so Google pointed me towards Sparknotes. They told me that OANtOF fits firmly in the postmodern tradition. It explains that the confusing nature of the plot is deliberate. The interruption of Jeanette’s narrative for fables and myths “creates a ‘metafiction,’ or a fictional novel that attempts to question the nature of fiction instead of just recounting a simple plot.”

So simply put, it’s a deliberate device to remind the reader that what they are reading is artifice.

Why? Who wants to read only as an academic exercise? And how is the average reader (the non studying one) supposed to know this? 

If anyone is able to shed any light on this I would be most pleased. 

I want more

I’ve been banging on here, here and here about my new ‘how to’ book being the most useful yet. One of the things that I love about it is that they use several novels to illustrate each of the points they are making.

The only drawback is that unfortunately I hadn’t read any of them - though the tome that is ‘Tom Jones’ has been on my TBR pile for about three years. I haven’t found that this has detracted from the (mostly) intelligent information being conveyed though because enough explanation is given each time.

What it has accomplished is to whet my appetite for some of the books. (The books they use are Madame Bovary, Tom Jones, The Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl, From Here to Eternity, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.) In my school days some of these books were English O and A level texts – but they were never ones I came across.

I wonder did I let that put me off? I said in my book meme last week how much I loved the texts that I did at school – a combination of fabulous writing, wonderful teaching (see here and here for Mrs D worship) and enthusiastic readers all around me.

So having found Structuring Your Novel so helpful, I started reading some of the books. Last week I read John Steinbeck’s The Pearl and this week I read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. (This was also on someone’s book meme but I can’t remember whose!)

OH MY GOD, how can I have reached 40 and never read To Kill a Mockingbird? I loved it, I loved it so much. I want to start back at the beginning and read it again. I loved Atticus, and Calpurnia and Scout. I want more.