Let's talk about series books.
I am so over series novels. I blame JK Rowling for this phenomenon. It used to be possible to go to the library, pick up a novel, read it, get to the end, and be done. Now, it feels like every time I pick up a new book, it's making a lifetime commitment!
Booksellers: Do you promise to love, cherish, and buy every book in the series as long as you and the author both shall live?
Me: Ermmm, maybe?
I'm not about contract reading. So a few years ago, I decided I was NOT committing to any other series novels. If it had a sequel, I was not buying. Then they got tricksy (OOoohhh, tricksy authorses!) The first one to fool me was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Which was followed a year or so later by Dawn of the Dreadfuls. A sequel? To Pride and Prejudice? Are you kidding me? This was shortly followed by Neal Shusterman. His novel Unwind is absolutely phenomenal. I loved the ending. No further closure necessary, Mr. Shusterman, I'm good. Unfortunately, his pocketbook wasn't, so this year lo and behold, there's the sequel at the Book Fair. In hardback. I should have stuck to my guns, but I didn't. I shelled out the 20 bucks and bought the darn thing.
The truly disturbing thing is how much the idea that every story is to be continued, that no story ever ends, and that any ambiguity over the ending of a story is unacceptable has seeped into the mindset of readers. We finish To Kill a Mockingbird; they want to know how the next one ends. In a novel like That Was Then, This Is Now (in my humble opinion, the most valid of SE Hinton's contributions to YA literature), in which the ending is not only ambiguous, but so depressing it seems unacceptable, they want to know how the story picks up in the next one. I feel like the opposite of Miracle on 34th Street; saying, "No Virginia, there ISN'T a Santa Claus!" Mark and Bryon will never make up. Boo Radley never comes back out of the house. Juliet will never wake up in time. Rhett Butler will never turn around and come back to Scarlett.
I find myself reminded of my son's Lego sets. When I was a kid, I had a big bucket of Legos. They had no instructions; there was no set way they were "supposed" to go together. You had this big bucket of disparate parts, and sometimes they were a castle, sometimes they were a bug, sometimes you just stuck them together until they became something. The last Lego set we bought for Ian had four 100+ page booklets of instructions. What?! 400 pages of instructions?! Where's the fun? Where's the imagination?
After I read a great book, I like to just think about it for a while. Sometimes, if the ending is ambiguous, I play all sorts of different endings in my head. I think about different options for the characters, where they may have gone, what new people they might meet.
In a serialized world, the author removes this luxury from the reader. The need to think is removed. When I read The Giver for the first time, I was enthralled by the ending (*SPOILER ALERT*). I loved the total ambiguity of it; the idea that the reader's definition of "home" determines how he/she interpreted the ending. I was sure that Gabe and Jonas had died, frozen in the snow, and they had enjoyed one last memory in their final moments. I was so mad when I learned that there were sequels to The Giver. I haven't read a Lois Lowry book since.
Are we in danger of removing the need for imagination? I thank the Lord that my son will still make imaginative creations out of his Legos, totally ignoring the directions. But I see the opposite in my classroom. A lack of creativity, to think about what we read, to imagine new endings and new outcomes. Can imagination survive in a serialized world?
Booksellers: Do you promise to love, cherish, and buy every book in the series as long as you and the author both shall live?
Me: Ermmm, maybe?
I'm not about contract reading. So a few years ago, I decided I was NOT committing to any other series novels. If it had a sequel, I was not buying. Then they got tricksy (OOoohhh, tricksy authorses!) The first one to fool me was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Which was followed a year or so later by Dawn of the Dreadfuls. A sequel? To Pride and Prejudice? Are you kidding me? This was shortly followed by Neal Shusterman. His novel Unwind is absolutely phenomenal. I loved the ending. No further closure necessary, Mr. Shusterman, I'm good. Unfortunately, his pocketbook wasn't, so this year lo and behold, there's the sequel at the Book Fair. In hardback. I should have stuck to my guns, but I didn't. I shelled out the 20 bucks and bought the darn thing.
The truly disturbing thing is how much the idea that every story is to be continued, that no story ever ends, and that any ambiguity over the ending of a story is unacceptable has seeped into the mindset of readers. We finish To Kill a Mockingbird; they want to know how the next one ends. In a novel like That Was Then, This Is Now (in my humble opinion, the most valid of SE Hinton's contributions to YA literature), in which the ending is not only ambiguous, but so depressing it seems unacceptable, they want to know how the story picks up in the next one. I feel like the opposite of Miracle on 34th Street; saying, "No Virginia, there ISN'T a Santa Claus!" Mark and Bryon will never make up. Boo Radley never comes back out of the house. Juliet will never wake up in time. Rhett Butler will never turn around and come back to Scarlett.
I find myself reminded of my son's Lego sets. When I was a kid, I had a big bucket of Legos. They had no instructions; there was no set way they were "supposed" to go together. You had this big bucket of disparate parts, and sometimes they were a castle, sometimes they were a bug, sometimes you just stuck them together until they became something. The last Lego set we bought for Ian had four 100+ page booklets of instructions. What?! 400 pages of instructions?! Where's the fun? Where's the imagination?
After I read a great book, I like to just think about it for a while. Sometimes, if the ending is ambiguous, I play all sorts of different endings in my head. I think about different options for the characters, where they may have gone, what new people they might meet.
Are we in danger of removing the need for imagination? I thank the Lord that my son will still make imaginative creations out of his Legos, totally ignoring the directions. But I see the opposite in my classroom. A lack of creativity, to think about what we read, to imagine new endings and new outcomes. Can imagination survive in a serialized world?
Great post! A particularly frustrating recent trend is modern authors who attempt to write unnecessary sequels to classic novels in the "style" of the original author. Can they not come up with an original idea?! And the style never matches well enough to blend with the original. It only serves to highlight the relative lack of style in the modern writers who attempt it. The same thing happens when modern screenwriters remake classic movies that still hold up on their own. I'm convinced there must be very few original ideas left.
ReplyDeleteUnless we have strong minds and individuality, I am afraid we will fall prey to the serialization of the world's literature. I am, of course, using the term literature loosely, bending to the less intelligent of the world. Sequels tend to be less endearing, less provocative; they are methods of placating, but they tend to do little for the educated mind. I think we can both agree that serialization is commercialism at its best. If you will permit me, I will make a valid point. If we move to another medium, film has been stretched to obscene limits. In the 80s, it was vogue to create sequel after sequel of those classic horror films, some of which are still being made today. Our nation has been conditioned to seek and expect for a second, third, fourth, and fifth installment to any original idea. Originality is lacking.
ReplyDelete