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April 20, 2005

titles

Cynthia asked:

I was at a library paperback sale and I came across this book called "Into the Wilderness" by Rosanne Bittner published in 2002 by Tom Doherty Asso. Books. Is that possible? Same type of story too. I bought it...sorry 20 cents......takes place in 1750s in Allegheny mountains in Pennsylvania and this girl is saved from the indians by a darkly attractive hunter (their words).....weird....do you know about this?

You can't copyright a title, and thus they do get recycled. I don't think any publisher would allow a title like Gone with the Wind -- something so clearly and obviously associated with a book that has achieved legendary status (deservedly or not; The DaVinci Code won't be resued for a long time, either). You might remember that Thunder at Twilight was the title I wanted for the fourth book in the Wilderness series, but I was overruled by my publisher, who preferred Fire Along the Sky. You'll note, if you look up Fire Along the Sky, that there's another novel -- out of print -- with that title, by Robert Moss. So it does happen.

And yes, I was aware of Rosanne Bittner's novel in 2002, but again: there's nothing to stop a title being reused. It might not even have been her choice. Publishers have the last say about titles in most cases. Before you ask: I haven't read it.

10:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Litblog Co-Op

These days I'm trying to get into a particular kind of writing mindset. Which means wearing blinders for a while, which means I can't really scout around for interesting stuff to post about. I can you give you my quick take on matters of public record: The pope? Please, enough already. White smoke, purple smoke, I really do not care. Tom DeLay? Give him the steel-toed boot, pronto. Bush? Ditto.

So I was all set to try launching an open thread to see what happens, when I ran across the Litblog Co-Op. Which made my working-class hackles (my father was a cook, and my mother a waitress, so I claim this still as my heritage) stand on end, immediately.

The Litblog Co-Op is a group of so called literati weblog writers who have got together with this purpose (from the blog itself):

Uniting the leading literary weblogs for the purpose of drawing attention to the best of contemporary fiction, authors and presses that are struggling to be noticed in a flooded marketplace.

My reactions to this are strong and immediate and not at all positive. In fact, some of my reaction is very personal. I find myself channeling Woody Allen: I'm not interested in any club that would have me as a member. But is the corollary to this that I am automatically interested in a club that would NOT have me as a member? Or am I just pissed off at the excusionary nature of such a venture and, in a word, insulted? For myself, or my novels, or both?

I spent a good portion of my adult life in the university system, both Ivy League (my PhD is from Princeton) and Big Ten, in other words: where intellectual snobbery was born and where it flourishes. I didn't like it then. I disliked it so much that when I went into the tenure review process at the University of Michigan in my sixth year, I was ready, even eager, to be rejected. Willing to jump out of the plane before I got pushed, if you can see that. I had a lot of well received publications and two full books, in addition to a published novel (a novel that went on to win the PEN/Hemingway award), I had great teaching credentials, but at that time, the turndown rate in the humanities at the UM was about 80 percent. I just assumed they'd give me my walking papers. I had seen a lot of other good people get them.

But I got tenure, and while I was surprised and gratified, I was never really comfortable about the whole thing. The very exclusive club opened its doors to me against all expectations, but once I was inside it never did feel right. I left four years later, shocking everybody. The dean said to me (I remember this conversation word for word) What are you thinking? You are throwing away a promising career. Because nobody gives up tenure at the University of Michigan, you see. That was the general opinion. This mirrors almost perfectly my experience after Into the Wilderness was published, when certain people asked me when I was going to go back to writing novels like Homestead. The idea being that Homestead was a real, serious novel, and Into the Wilderness was not. I was capable of real stuff, just as i was worthy of tenure at a prestigious university, and yet I had turned my back on both these good things.

But I don't think I did turn my back on anything at all, or at least not on anything worth having at such a high cost. I can tell stories from many different angles and directions, and I'm just happier standing over here on the periphery where I don't have to go along with the party line. At least, I'm usually happier.

So I admit that my feelings about the Litblog Co-Op are complex. I have experience on both sides of that literati divide: as one of the inner circle, and in the last few years, as a persona non-grata. Somebody who gladly walked away, of her own free will, and now must live with the consequences, Which is usually not a trial, at all. I have a great life; I make a very good living from writing fiction; I have a wide and appreciative readership. And still, all this gets under my skin now and then.

The literati talk about the "best in contemporary fiction" but their definitions are usually so narrow and, often, self-serving, that I find them really objectionable. I had a debate with one of that crowd some time ago about his use of the term serious fiction in the comments to this post. That conversation ended with this last comment from me, which was never answered:

My point is, the distinction between "a yarn, a page-turner, a good time" and "serious literature" is an artifical one that has more to do with dogma than a real examination of what makes fiction work. I would call most of Austen and Dickens page-turners, and certainly I have a good time when I'm reading them. They are also thematically rich, highly plotted and full of interesting characters. The no-pain-no-gain approach to reading strikes me as perverse, and truly unnecessary.

Shortly after that exchange I gave up reading the self-proclaimed elite literati weblogs. Mostly I found them to be too pretentious to be useful or interesting, with the exception of Ed's Rants, because inspite of myself, I find I'm interested in his tasty brownie escapades. And now that I've vented, I'm hoping I can go back to ignoring the Litblog Co-Op.

After all, I make a pretty mean brownie, myself.

04:10 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack