It's all Homer's fault...

The Supreme Court recently held that a California law outlawing the sale of violent video games to minors (18 and under) was unconstitutional.  In doing so, the majority, per Justice Scalia, had a number of things to say about literature for young readers, demonstrating that, at least, the issue of, and concern about, violence in books and media for young readers goes way, way back:

California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—or read to them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just deserts [sic] for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy.” The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales 198 (2006 ed.). Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves. And Hansel and Gretel (children!) kill their captor by baking her in an oven. 

They had this to say about literature read by high-schoolers:

High-school reading lists are full of similar fare. Homer’s Odysseus blinds Polyphemus the Cyclops by grinding out his eye with a heated stake. The Odyssey of Homer, Book IX, p. 125 (S. Butcher & A. Lang transls.1909) (“Even so did we seize the fiery-pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and the blood flowed about the heated bar. And the breath of the flame singed his eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye burnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame”).

In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil watch corrupt politicians struggle to stay submerged beneath a lake of boiling pitch, lest they be skewered by devils above the surface. And Golding’s Lord of the Flies recounts how a schoolboy called Piggy is savagely murdered by other of the Flies.

They go on to discus some of the history of attempts at regulating "minors' consumption of violent" media:

This is not to say that minors’ consumption of violent entertainment has never encountered resistance. In the 1800’s, dime novels depicting crime and “penny dreadfuls” (named for their price and content) were blamed in some quarters for juvenile delinquency. When motion pictures came along, they became the villains instead. “The days when the police looked upon dime novels as the most dangerous of textbooks in the school for crime are drawing to a close. . . . They say that the moving picture machine . . . tends even more than did the dime novel to turn the thoughts of the easily influenced to paths which sometimes lead to prison.” For a time, our Court did permit broad censorship of movies because of their capacity to be “used for evil,” but we eventually reversed course. Radio dramas were next, and then came comic books. Many in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s blamed comic books for fostering a “preoccupation with violence and horror” among the young, leading to a rising juvenile crime rate. But efforts to convince Congress to restrict comic books failed. And, of course, after comic books came television and music lyrics.

And a couple of comments on the nature of reading: 

California claims that video games present special problems because they are “interactive,” in that the player participates in the violent action on screen and determines its outcome. The latter feature is nothing new: Since at least the publication of The Adventures of You: Sugarcane Island in 1969, young readers of choose-your-own adventure stories have been able to make decisions that determine the plot by following instructions about which page to turn to.

As for the argument that video games enable participation in the violent action, that seems to us more a matter of degree than of kind. As Judge Posner has observed, all literature is interactive. “[T]he better it is, the more interactive. Literature when it is successful draws the reader into the story, makes him identify with the characters, invites him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own.” 

Footnote 5 addresses censorship of comic books:

The crusade against comic books was led by a psychiatrist, Frederic Wertham, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “as long as the crime comic books industry exists in its present forms there are no secure homes.” Juvenile Delinquency (Comic Books): Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 84 (1954). Wertham’s objections extended even to Superman comics, which he described as “particularly injurious to the ethical development of children.” Wertham’s crusade did convince the New York Legislature to pass a ban on the sale of certain comic books to minors, but it was vetoed by Governor Thomas Dewey…

Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. ___ (2011)(some internal citations omitted).

Whininess is the kiss of death.

In his essay "Go Big or Go Home," reprinted in A FAMILY OF READERS: THE BOOK LOVER'S GUIDE TO CHILDREN'S AND YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE (Candlewick 2010), Roger Sutton opines that "what reluctant [boy] readers don't want are books filled with interpersonal emotional drama...It's not that boy readers are afraid of emotions, exactly, it's that they want to feel them in service to high stakes...Boys like to think Big."

I was thinking about this in context of Robins I, II, and III.

Robin I, you will recall, was Dick Grayson.  Robin III was Tim Drake.

Both Dick Grayson Robin and Tim Drake Robin are much loved by the fandom and are among the most popular characters in the DC Universe.

Robin II was Jason Todd, whom the fandom voted to kill off.

Why?

Let me address this in context of Tim Drake-Robin and Jason Todd-Robin -- both started off having to fill the shoes of Dick Grayson, but one is liked and the other, really, really not.

I think most of it goes back to Roger's statement above.  Tim Drake-Robin is not insensitive -- he is concerned about his girlfriend's safety and is sometimes miffed by Batman's treatment of him and others.  He, like all the Robins, is an orphan.  But his emotions serve higher stakes -- the fight against evil and his ambition to become the next Batman.

Even better, he is smart, funny, likeable, can use computers, and can kick butt when necessary.  He came to be Robin by figuring out that Bruce Wayne is Batman and is the leader of his generation of superheroes, a position that no one questions. 

In contrast, Jason Todd's tenure as Robin was filled with overwrought emoting and Sturm und Drang. Granted, when Bruce Wayne is your "father," a certain amount of this is justified (Dick Grayson Robin rebelled rather memorably on several occasions), but there are limits.

Now, even boy readers want a character to have emotional depth, but at some point "interpersonal emotional drama" becomes off-putting melodrama and self-indulgent navel-gazing.  As exemplified in A Death in the Family, Jason Todd-Robin was pointlessly reckless, and endlessly and annoyingly self-absorbed and whiny.

To me, this is the kiss of death for any protagonist but particularly for a boy protagonist who is supposed to appeal to boy readers.

Am I the only one who does this?

The first thing I do when I pick up a book is to look at the copyright date (or date of original publication). This tells me, in addition to the date of original publication, something about the author's perspective and also allows me to ignore "Are you kidding me?" moments because either: (i) that's what people thought at the time; or (ii) that's what the author wanted people to think at the time; (iii) the thing they're mentioning hasn't occurred yet (this occurs particularly in science fiction); or (iv) yes, that is, in fact, what things cost back then.

I always thought everyone did this, but lately when I tell people, I keep getting funny looks...

Literary Coincidences

This post on David Lubar's blog got me thinking about cannibalism (no, really).

Which led, of course, to the case of R. v. Dudley and Stephens, in which Dudley and Stephens were cast adrift in a lifeboat and so killed and ate the cabin boy. The case established that necessity is not a defense to murder. More colorfully, as A.W.B. Simpson put it in Cannibalism and the Common Law, the case held that one may not kill and eat another human being, however hungry one may be (this may be a paraphrase).

It also got me thinking about strange literary coincidences: The 17 year old cabin boy aboard the Mignonnette who was killed and eaten by Dudley and Stephens (and another survivor who may not have participated in the murder) was named Richard Parker.

In 1838, Edgar Allen Poe published a novel called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, in which three shipwreck survivors cast adrift in a lifeboat kill and eat a fourth, whose name is, of course, Richard Parker.

In 1898, Morgan Robertson published a novel called Futility or Wreck of the Titan, in which an "unsinkable" ocean liner named Titan strikes an iceberg and sinks in the north Atlantic. Fourteen years later, the White Star liner Titanic strikes an iceberg in the north Atlantic.

In 1963, Morris West published a novel called The Shoes of the Fisherman in which the first non-Italian in hundreds of years is elected to the Papacy. He is a Slav from Soviet-dominated Ukraine. Sixteen years later, of course, Pope John Paul II, a Slav from Soviet-dominated Poland, becomes the first non-Italian pope in hundreds of years.

Any more?

A Potter week and thoughts on setting

So, this week, with Cyn away, I decided to finally sit down and read the Harry Potter books all the way through (Until this week, I'd only read the first four) and watch all the movies. And Cyn's Vermont lecture is on setting (and I've been working on a sci-fi/fantasy novel), so I've been thinking about that a lot recently.

I'd forgotten just how much Hogwarts is almost a character itself. In the books, Hogwarts is of course more than merely backdrop -- being there over the school year drives some (much?) of the personal dynamic and fleshes out the conflicts with Snape and Malfoy and other students and faculty. Thus, Rowling gives us the intensity of quidditch matches and the drive to win the "House Cup," which makes the loss or gain of points due to behavior, academic achievement, or the biases of faculty resonate more. There's also time to develop Harry and the rest's relationships with individual teachers. With each volume, you also get the feeling you've been there for a full school year (I would've liked to see more of the place in book 7, although I can see why they don't get there until the end).

But that's also why the movies don't quite work for me. They're visually stunning, sure (and the casting and costumes are perfect), but despite their length, you don't get the feeling of settling into place. It's almost as if Hogwarts is merely a board on which the characters are moved around in a jerky, frenetic manner as the movie tries to capture all the major plot points. The House Cup all but disappears after the first movie and Harry's relationships with the faculty and even with Dumbledore and Hagrid seems underdeveloped...Oh, well, maybe there'll be an extended version...

Final thoughts: so, is it pronounced "Hog-wortz" or "Hog-wertz"?

Final, final thoughts (and SPOILER):











Doesn't it seem odd that, nineteen years later, none of the gang of three are faculty?

They either read my blog or...

I have unfairly maligned them. Who? Abercrombie and Fitch. Passionate readers of this blog (if any exist) will recall that back in 2005, I posted on "trusting your audience," using A&F as an example of a store from up north that, unfathomably, tries to sell wool and sweatshirts here in central Texas in September (when the average temp. is still in the mid-90s).

Well.

A couple months ago, Cyn and I went to the mall (sadly, yes) to do some clothes shopping. I needed a pair of khaki trousers and was having a hard time finding any that fit (The customer base seems to be several inches shorter than I).

Finally, in desperation, after visiting four stores, I decided to go into A&F. Now, I have never actually owned an article of clothing from A&F and it's been a number of years since I have been in the place (and never at this particular mall) and so was completely astonished. No, not at the fact that the store has the look-and-feel of a just-out-of-college pick-up joint where they also happen to sell clothes, but at the fact that the ONLY long pants they had were jeans, and these were outnumbered by about twenty to one with shorts.

Shorts. In late September in Texas. Imagine that.

The Muffin Joke - Is it funny?

So there are these two muffins baking in an oven.

One of them yells, “Wow, it’s hot in here!”

And the other muffin replies: “Holy sh*t! A talking muffin!”

I think it's pretty darn hilarious.

Tuesday's New York Times, however, has an article discussing laughter and the muffin joke, which the author, a Mr. John Tierney, rather haughtily disparages as NOT funny and states that "most laughter has little to do with humor," but is merely a social lubricant.

Occasionally we’re surprised into laughing at something funny, but most laughter has little to do with humor. It’s an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It’s not about getting the joke. It’s about getting along.

Thus, the article contends that the only reason anyone could laugh at or find the muffin joke to be funny is for purposes of "getting along" and that laughter arises or is particularly useful in social situations involving a disparate power dynamic, i.e., it occurs more typically in a situation in which social inferiors are responding to social superiors, rather than between colleagues.

As evidence of the assertion that laughter is just a social lubricant, and not a response to humor, the article states that when the speaker ("a lowly graduate student") was telling the muffin joke to his undergraduate class, the response was laughter, but when talking to a conference of (more prominent) neuroscientists, he got nothing.

Well, okay. But has anyone, in the entire history of the human race, ever said, "Oh boy! A conference of neuroscientists! That'll be a barrel of laughs!"

How Bleak Thou Art

Okay, so there’s this generalized assumption that young adult literature is bleak, grim, and seriously unfunny. Now, as an author of funny YA (well, published in 10-14 YA, though my WIP YA is older), and as someone who likes to read funny books, I’ve never had much of a problem finding funny YA books to read. I do tend to agree, however, that the “serious” books vastly outnumber the “funny” ones.

But, I’m an empirical kind of guy, so I decided to examine my assumption in more detail. In particular, I looked at a recent catalog for a major publisher, reading through the catalog copy of the twenty-four (24) YA novels and attempting to distill each book down to its essence.

This is what I found:

A book on paralysis
A book on death of a parent, alcoholism, and unwanted pregnancy.
A book on death of a parent through cancer
A book on alcoholism
A book on armed assault with a deadly weapon
A book on death of both parents in a car crash
A book on death of both parents in a car crash and an unwanted pregnancy
A book whose catalog copy is vague, but appears to involve at least armed robbery and child abandonment
An historical book on suicide
A contemporary book on suicide
A book on death of a parent and economic hardship
A book on censorship. And sex.
A book on death by accidental shooting (or general stupidity)
A book on child abandonment, alcoholism, and an accident of indeterminate nature (resulting in, possibly, death)
A book on divorce
A book on death of a parent, economic hardship, robbery, and risking death.
Two books on (1960s) sex, drugs, and rock & roll (and therefore, at least metaphorically, death)

Of these, only one (1) appears to include any modicum of humor at all. (How do I know this? Because the catalog copy said it was “hilarious.”).

For the record, of the remaining books, one was high fantasy, two appear to be (profoundly serious) love stories, one was a manufactured book, and for two, the catalog copy was so vague I couldn’t tell what they were actually about.

Now, in one sense, I’m being unfair. I have, after all, grossly simplified “what the book is about” based on catalog copy - I could similarly characterize Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo as “a book on science and student court and racial perceptions,” which sounds like a real snoozer, rather than “a romantic science comedy courtroom drama about three friends who take part in their school science fair and end up in student court because of it.”

Further, IMO, a funny book should deal with serious themes and should have all the characteristics of a serious book. A strong beginning, rising action, characters who change and grow, etc. As Lisa Yee put it in her interview on Three Silly Chicks, “[t]he best way to write a funny book is to write an unfunny book first. By that I mean, the story has to hold up without the humor. There needs to be emotion and pathos in it…To test this, take out your best jokes or funniest parts. Does the story still hold up?”

Now, it's also entirely possible that, some of these apparently serious books could have some humor in them, even if they are not funny books with serious themes (And, yeah, only one sample and an anecdote isn't data).

But.

But, I was still struck by the fact that, with this one publisher (at least in this one catalog), "funny" seems to be a dirty word.

The middle third...

Yesterday, Cyn and I went to lunch with Brian Anderson, author of Zack Proton. We commiserated over the middle of novels (actually, he mentioned it in terms of screenplays): You'll get this great idea, and the beginning and the middle come along easily, but the middle is more difficult. Often in manuscripts, you see it merely being filler that comes between the first and last acts. This, sadly, is where I am now with RM. Plotting is
a problem...

[segue]

Speaking of plots, I've been seeing on some list servs a reluctance to put characters in danger (children shouldn't be put in harm's way, you see) or make them, well, mean (also bad) or have any kind of CONFLICT whatsoever.

While I can respect the sentiment, here's a good illustration of why conflict is necessary in literature (From the second season of Frasier in which Niles is haunted by seeing his old middle school bully arrive at Chez Crane as the plumber; in the scene, Frasier is trying to talk Niles out of giving said plumber a swirlee):

Frasier: You know the expression, "Living well is the best revenge"?

Niles: It's a wonderful expression. Just don't know how true it is. Don't see it turning up in a lot of opera plots. “Ludwig, maddened by the poisoning of his entire family, wreaks vengeance on Gunther in the third act by living well.”

Frasier: All right, Niles. [walking away]

Niles: [following] “Whereupon Wotan, upon discovering his deception, wreaks vengeance on Gunther in the third act again by living even better than the Duke.”

Frasier: Oh, all right!

Anyone ever actually sat down and read the plots to major operas? They usually make no sense whatsoever...(e.g., It's amazing how many sopranos can really belt out an aria when dying of consumption). But anyone who has masochistic tendencies should read A Night at the Opera: An Irreverent Guide to The Plots, The Singers, The Composers, The Recordings, by Denis Forman.

Research is for the background...

Okay, as a title, it's a little cryptic, but here's what I mean: No matter what you're writing, even if you consider yourself well-versed in the subject, you will need to do research, and you will find out all kinds of fascinating things. You should include none of these in the actual novel unless it is necessary, essential, and absolutely required to the plot. Period.

Why? Anything else will make the novel feel like it's there to teach, rather than tell story and will instantly cause the reader to put down the book or, in extreme cases, throw it at the wall. (But, Greg, you say, isn't the point of children's literature to teach? No.). Also, in many cases, information that is new to you will already be so well-known to the character that they won't even comment on it -- tossing in the added stuff will not ring true to the character.

Here's an example: Suppose I were writing a novel set in Austin, over Labor Day weekend. I have my characters, native Austinites (call them Artemis and Athena) go into a mall and they happen upon an Abercrombie and Fitch store (For those who don't know what Abercrombie and Fitch is, it is a store from somewhere in the northeast which makes a catalog showing WASP-y college-age persons not wearing the clothes the store sells.).

Now, Artemis and Athena likely will be wearing whatever their fashion preference is that allows them to be comfortable when the temperature outside is in the mid-nineties. This is because summer in Austin lasts until about mid-November. However, going into A&F store, they will notice that the clothes on display do not include anything they could possibly wear for warm weather, and instead, include a lot of wool and thick, long-sleeved cotton sweatshirt-type garments. (Actually, this starts happening in late July).

Apparently, the reason for this odd phenomenon is that the fashion industry is based in the northeast, where they have these things called "seasons" and apparently do not believe in regional marketing (Hint to any clothiers reading this: you could make a fortune by shipping all your leftover summer stuff down south and not bringing out your fall line south of the Mason-Dixon until around December)

Now, I admit this is a lot of information. If I'm writing a scene, in which for some reason, the only thing that is important is that Artemis and Athena know that A&F sells winter clothing during September, how do I handle it?

There are several ways.

1. Artemis and Athena walked into Abercronbie and Fitch. Artemis was looking for a new pair of thong sandals. All she could see, though, was wool and winter boots lined with fur!
"Ugh," she said. "I don't believe it! Why can't I get summer clothes?"
"Oh," Athena replied. "It's because the fashion industry is based in New York. People up north are already wearing jeans and sweatshirts. They don't realize it can still be as hot here even in November as it is up there in July."

Here we've learned a great deal but at the expense of stilted dialogue (the "dialogue of great explanation" is almost always to be avoided), but we also have an unrealistic setup--Artemis, being a native Austinite, would already know about the wool and fashion phenomenon.

2. Artemis and Athena walked past Abercrombie and Fitch without pausing. They knew that after July, the only thing you could buy there was wool. As early as midsummer, the New York-based company had shipped all their back-to-school clothing to all their stores across the country. Because the company's home, northeastern market suffered dreadful winters, and even autumn was not necessarily free of frigid temperatures and freezing rain, they maintained (and brought out early) an extensive line of warm woolen and thick cotton clothing. Apparently, they didn't realize that temperatures in Austin during November could be as hot as those up north in July.

This one doesn't have that awkward dialogue problem, but is all that information really necessary?

3. Artemis and Athena walked past Abercrombie and Fitch without pausing. They knew that after July, the only thing you could buy there was wool.

Better, but is July significant?

4. Artemis and Athena walked past Abercrombie and Fitch, ignoring the wool.

Now, in this one, I've imparted several things: 1. The clothes at A&F came from a sheep; and 2, Artemis and Athena know enough about it to bypass the particular store.

The only thing I haven't done is explain everything to my reader. Should I? Only if I don't trust my reader.


To be continued. (Sorry, have to go to the airport and pick up my wife's cousin.)