My friend recently got back into reading. He’s doing it properly – started a book club at work and everything. One day, he told me a funny story about two of his recent reads.
The first was a recent bestseller. It started with a reference to ‘something that happened’. And, unfortunately, these references continued, chapter after chapter. A hundred pages in and my friend still had no idea what had happened! You know the old expression - if the author asks the reader to sit anywhere, well, there'd better be a chair somewhere in sight! Eventually, my friend stopped reading the book.
He compared this experience to another read - a Stephen King novel. One chapter into it and twenty people were already dead. The rest of the book ensued. This, he told me, was more like it. Imagine, a book showing you its room right away. Isn’t all that good, reader?
I thought about this exchange the other day when I chanced across a collection of short essays written by famous writers about their favorite Beatles songs (1). The only author I recognized on the cover was my old favorite, Chuck Klosterman, and there was only one Beatles song I was interested in reading about. I opened the book, turned to the table of contents, and looked for the two essays I wanted to read.
The first one I found was Klosterman’s. It was about ‘Helter Skelter’. He references the song title in the opening sentence, approximately four words in – "Blah blah blah ‘Helter Skelter'…"
He then goes on to write nonsensical things like "'Helter Skelter' is their sixth-best song on their fifth-best album" or "this song is a perfect execution of a bad idea". You know how it goes reader, classic Klosterman fare. I could happily drink wine until two in the morning reading rubbish like that.
The second chapter was written by an author I didn’t know. The opening line didn’t mention my favorite Beatles song. The second line didn’t, either. A paragraph went by, then two, then three. Was this ever going to happen? Over three hundred words and no direct mention of the song...
That was enough for me, reader – it wasn't like I had work the next morning but surely I could find better things to do.
Footnotes / I'm sorry, whaddaya want? This blog's free...
1. I think it was called In Their Lives...
I've actually forgotten, though. I didn't check it out, just flipped through it.
