Books and Writing

Alright, I finally finished the James Patterson book I was reading a couple of days ago and it wasn’t a moment too soon. My dad (who is a big mystery/thriller reader) and several friends have promised me that he has some really good books, but this obviously was not one of them. It was called Hide and Seek and the premise sounded interesting except he forgot to have any of the characters, you know, do much of anything. The whole book was build up to a big fat nothing. You knew what happened before it happened. Or if you didn’t then you weren’t actually paying attention. I thought the whole purpose of this genre was surprise and thrill. Yeah, this one missed the mark completely. I’ll give him another try with some that my dad is hand picking from his personal library, but that’s it. One more chance James Patterson!

The good news is that now I’m free to pick up Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, which I did last night. And it’s lovely. I mean I feel like I’m reading a fairy tale it’s so lovely. It’s definitely not a brain candy book, but the language he uses is just so gorgeous. And one of my favorite things about his writing so far is that he just doesn’t care if the metaphor he’s using actually makes sense. What he cares about is if the words match the feeling and how they feel in your brain as you roll over them and incorporate them into your own experience. It’s amazing. And not in the least bit nonsensical as it might become when you care more about emotion than the actual words you choose. It’s just an unabashed romp through childhood through an adult’s eyes. As if you were to go back through the wonders of your childhood with your grown up vocabulary and ability to put your actual motivation into words.

His writing has already drawn me a bit out of the suspenseful and into the summers I spent in Nebraska. So it will be interesting to see what kinds of stories I write while this panorama of nostalgia is imminent in my mind and memory.