'American Gods'

I read a lot of blogs. In fact, I think I spend too much time reading other blogs and neglect my own. Sorry. In other news, new colors! Get excited.

Before I get to the promised review, there was something I wanted to discuss: why we read.
Recently, a teacher in Kansas had to rewrite her curriculum because a bunch of (stupid) parents complained. I think this is ridiculous, but it led me down a different sort of thought process.

The books the teacher had initially chosen were defended because they were books that not only get teens interested in reading, they also help them make sense of their lives (the books were, by and large, about teens in real-life situations). I thought that was an interesting concept -reading to find sense in life. Life is a pretty senseless thing, I think. We have to give meaning to our lives, and no one else can do that for us. Books can definitely help, though, I agree with this teacher.

Books give us a sounding board for our own lives. They let us compare ourselves to other people without envy, malice or pride -characters in books are what they are, and we can read stuff into them until the cows turn blue, but they're not real people. We don't have to be afraid of hurting their feelings when we say that we hate one character for whatever reason, or love a character for another.

We can place ourselves in a spectrum of lives and situations and make an assessment about what we might or might not do, what our reactions would be, whether or not we would ever have gotten into such a situation -and so on, etc. into infinity.

Books help us make sense of ourselves, and it's hard to know the world if you don't know yourself first.

But books serve another purpose -in the above, I'm mostly talking about fiction and novels. They entertain us, but they also educate us about ourselves. However, there are also books that purport to educate us and make us raise our own mental standards, and there are books that serve to entertain us without making much of a social or personal message.

And sometimes escapism is just escapism.

Book review:

In brief, 'American Gods' is rocking my socks off (and I'm not even wearing any socks). It is awesome. I have come to expect this from Gaiman, and rightfully so.

I'm not done with the book yet, so it will be a day or so before I can give a full report, but allow me to ramble a bit now.

The characters in this book will not get out of my head. I've been thinking about Mr. Wednesday all day (I'll try not to give away any spoilers), and I still can't decide whether I hate him, love him and, either way, I don't know if I want him to survive the story. He's a rascal, but he's also kind of sad, and I love how he's unfolding and yet becoming more confusing as the story develops.

Same for Shadow -Shadow is a great character, and I think he's fascinating. He's a relatively passive character: he found a course and he's sticking to it, come hell or high water (and probably both), but he's also a compelling moral study. There's a lot of back story that's still coming to light, so I'm enjoying watching everything come together.

I can't get over the plot, either -I have long wanted to write a short story about what happens to the old gods, the discarded and forgotten gods. Gaiman got there first, and he did a much better job than I could ever hope to. It doesn't mean I won't write something of my own someday, but 'American Gods' is more than satisfying right now.

One last thing about Gaiman before I sign off for the evening: the man knows how to write a good sex scene. The thing I don't like about romance novels/erotica/whatever is that sex generally does not move the plot forward in any way other than that it's just a bunch of inevitable bawdy, lewd, overly descriptive scenes filled with vapid purple prose (and for some people, that's fine -I'm just not one of them). What I admire about Gaiman is that he can make a scene erotic and sensually charged, but it still serves the plot in a big way. His sex scenes reveal something about the characters that you didn't know, but needed to, and they're still...well, sexy, while the plot goes chugging right along. Big points for that.

Leaves & Flowers and the concept of a book trailer

I love this comic so much.

I'm updating about my literary journal/magazine again. You'll get used to it, I promise. Or you won't, and either way it's not really my problem. I think this is interesting, and I think it translates into the blog, so read it, love it and click on ads. Put me through school that way.

Anywho, I got my first submission (aside from one I got from a Power of the Pen student of my mom's, I don't think I can count that one although I'll probably include it)! The submission was of two poems, previously written that nonetheless still fit the prompt (which you can read here). The first submitter was the lovely Lydia, who runs a website called The Little Fluffy Cat. I'm not sure what it's about, because I've only been looking at it for like 20 seconds, but it seems pretty cool to me. Check it out, give her props for being the first one to get stuff in!
Awesome stuff, I must add (I'm sure I'll be saying that a lot, but seriously, I really like these poems! I can't wait to publish them!!!!)

I love those words, too -that I get to publish things and contribute to someone else's writing career. I can't pay these writers -they are just giving generously of their time and talent to some nobody who's setting up a small journal (which is also why I'm not asking for any kind of publication rights. I just want the opportunity to get work out there -I don't want any claim on it after that. All rights belong to the writer -I'll have a full post on this tomorrow when I have more time to devote to it).

Today I want to talk about book trailers.
Seriously, have you guys started seeing these? They're like little miniature movie trailers...but for books. What?

That is confusing to me. It's a book. Why are we promoting them via video? I get the whole viral marketing/use the technology as it's available, etc. but I still don't understand how that works. Is text being promoted or previewed in this way? No, not usually- for fiction, it's generally a synopsis of the story, although in cases like that bullshit book Find Your Strongest Life, it's testimonials from people who have read it/are in it/get brainwashed by the guy.

I've seen some good ones (click the fiction link, it'll show you one-I do actually want to read the book, but not because of the video). That's the part I don't get. These videos aren't really contributing any desire to want to read a book for me. I don't need a video to tell me why I should want to read a book. I want to read a book because I think it looks good, usually from reading a sample or the dust jacket/back cover.

My concern is, I think, that we might be relying too heavily on promotion of books to get the word out -by which I mean, if you need a video to promote a book, what's wrong with this book that it needs a video?? I realize how bad that sentence was -it's making a point. Roll with me, here. This is my immediate reaction to seeing a book trailer: why is this necessary? Who puts all of the time and effort into creating a high-quality trailer...for a book? And that is not in any way to mock or take down books -I think books shouldn't need that kind of leg up.

Then I look at the people around me and it all kind of hits home.

You want your book to sell...you have to get the word out any way you can, whether you're Neil Gaiman or Joe Nobody. If that means marketing by spending time on creating a video to promote a piece of written text, so be it. If people read it because of that, then hey. Go for it.

What are your thoughts?