ABOUT CHARACTER

Hello from Minneapolis on a snowy winter morning. I'm amazed and stunned by snow, the wonder of it. Four-feet icicles are draped from the eaves of the roof, every pine looks like a Christmas table setting, and white covers every blemish of the street below my windows. Now that I live in California, and only visit the snow a couple times a year, I become all blubbery over the sight of the stuff. Minnesotans don't quite agree with my phrase, "the miracle of snow," so I won't use it.

As writers, much of our lives are spent reading, and as a book reviewer also, I am often surprised by something writers miss, even well known writers. Much more credit should be given to the reader, I think, who does the real elaborating with vivid imagination and inquiry, because the writing often lacks the depth and insight necessary to imprint the characters powerfully in the mind of the reader. I just reviewed a book where the characters were so well researched they became mechanical and lackluster. I kept asking as I read why the story didn't fly. What was wrong? Then I realized, first of all, there were no surprises in the main character's personality. And the author engaged in telling, telling, telling -- she-did-this, he-did-that, all very well researched and documented, to be sure. The environment, historical period flawless with detail (what he wore, what she wore, what they ate, how they travelled, cooked, etc.), but oh ho hum!

It dawned on me: the author cared more about the historical elements than the characters! Here was a story that could have been interesting, but alas, for this reader it fell flat. If I didn't have an assignment to review the book, I would have closed it after page fifteen and tossed it away because I didn't care about the characters. (If it's mainly historical pictures and images we're interested in we can always watch the history channel.)

At the UMHB Writers Festival where I led workshops and delivered the keynote address in January, I sat in on my friend, Greg Garret's workshop, who told the participants that a writer should ask, "Why should anyone care about these characters?" Nietzsche said to forge the alien and separate the familiar.

Good advice? I think about why I love Toni Morrison's writing so much. Not only does she have an intimate knowledge of her characters, she cares about them. This caring makes us, her readers, care about them -- whether we like them or not. You don't have to like your characters to care about them as you write, but you must know them to care about them. I want to thank you for your wonderful emails and letters. There are too many to post, but when I get back to California I will be posting more of them on this web site (because you're so smart, interesting and funny.)

If you haven't been to one of my book signings, or you want me to come to your group, town, library, school,store, etc., email me or my publisher. Be sure to join me at one of these fun events. I'll "love you like a tomato" for it.

"Men filled not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom are a burden to their fellow men."

PUBLIC READINGS

A couple of winters ago while enjoying a writing residency at Vermont Studio Center, a terrific snow storm hit us on the day of one of our evening poetry readings. The snow was deep, the winds fierce, the temperature plummeting downward, but the reading, which was to be held in a cold and drafty old building on the main street of town, was not canceled. I fully expected no one to show up. Who would go out on such a stormy night for a poetry reading? I was stunned that night when the people began arriving. Soon the place packed out and there wasn't an empty seat in the place. While the storm raged on outside, we were inside reading our poems to an appreciative and attentive audience. It was an amazing experience for me. The next spring I was leading a writers' workshop at a conference in Michigan where John Updike was our keynote speaker, and I told him about this experience. He laughed and said, "Yes, we don't have much to do in Vermont."

(Maybe we don't have much to do in Southern California either, but on a star-kissed balmy night in mid-summer, people can stay away in droves from poetry readings.)

Where did the custom of public readings begin?

In the year 547 Saint Benedict of Nursia had a vision as he was praying and he built a monastery on Monte Cassino in southern Italy between Rome and Naples. He believed that God offered us the world in two ways, as nature and as a book. He decreed that reading was an essential component of the monastery’s daily life. Article 38 of his Rule reads in part: "At meal time of the brothers, there should always be reading... And there shall be the greatest silence at table, so that no whispering or any voice save the reader's may be heard, and whatever is needed, in the way of food, the brethren should pass to each other in turn, so that no one need ask for anything."

Later, in the Cistercian monasteries founded throughout Europe from the early twelfth century, the rule of Saint Benedict continued to be utilized.

Reading aloud at meals in private homes began as early as with Pliny the Younger during the years of the Roman Empire. Public reading was common practice in the Middle Ages. Up to the invention of printing, literacy was not widespread and books were owned only by the wealthy, hence public readings. Beginning in the eleventh century, throughout the kingdoms of Europe, travelling joglars would recite or sing their own verses and those composed by a master troubadour. Of the hundred or so troubadours known by name from the early twelfth to the early thirteenth century, some twenty were women. Audiences could listen to History of Reyard the Fox read to them in public squares. These were thrilling experiences.

Public readings were ordinary occurrences in the seventeenth century. Women spinners had a reader reading to them as they worked. At harvest time an innkeeper wrote, "During the festivities many of the labourers gather here and one will pick up a book in his hands and more than thirty strong will collect around him and listen to him with such delight that our white hairs turn young again."

Wealthy people carried their own libraries with them. In the early fourteenth century the Countess Mahaut of Artois travelled with her library packed in large leather bags and in the evenings she had her lady in waiting read to her from them. Jane Austen wrote in 1808 how the family read aloud by candlelight every night as well as in the mornings.

Cigar factories in Cuba in the 1850's and 60's had readers reading to the workers, and the newspaper, La Aurora reported, "Reading in the shops has begun for the first time among us... this constitutes a giant step in the march of progress and the general advance of the workers, since in this way they will gradually become familiar with books, the source of everlasting friendship and great entertainment."

A book was, and is, a precious thing to those of us who will venture out in a blizzard to hear a reading. A book contains infinite fables, words of wisdom, chronicles of times gone by, humor, passion, poetry and divine revelation. The one who reads aloud is somehow endowed with the power of creating a story, and the listener is given the sense of being present at the moment of creation.

What shall we say then? Hie thee to a reading? Why not. You love books, you love words, go. Give yourself a Christmas gift and listen to a poet read her/his work. Listen to a story read aloud to you. Make a New Year resolution to sit quietly with the source of everlasting friendship and great entertainment and be read to.

And here's a thought: Why not read "I Love You Like a Tomato" aloud to someone? Nancy Lewis read it to her husband, Jack, every night before going to bed, and according to Jack, it was a great experience. Jack and Nancy made me very happy when they let me know how moved they were in hearing the book aloud.

God bless us one and all this beautiful season of light and love, and God grant you a perfect and productive New Year. I'll see you at a reading!