Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
Most readers do not read for escape all the time. We are intelligent readers who get a lot out of even the fluffiest book and we vary our reading. Many of my readers at Bookflurries read and report about important and powerful non-fiction books. We learn a lot and it takes courage to delve into some hard topics in depth. This past year, I dived into the 60’s despite my fearful memories of living through the events and read Taylor Branch’s books about America in the King years and several books about Vietnam. I am very glad that I did.
During that time, I also read some stories that were purely for escape. Usually, those were mysteries. A few books were pure fluff like the stories by Donna Andrews.
I also enjoy fantasy, but to tell the truth, many scifi/fantasy stories are not read for escape and do not provide it. We learn a lot about the future in these stories and see some of the possible horrors and solutions. They make us think about how to prevent the worst scenarios.
For example, I do not consider Existence by David Brin to be escapist reading though it is a fantasy story set in the far future. I had hoped for more excitement as in the earlier Uplift series which I loved, but I had an epiphany, today, when I looked at the books in the Book Club catalog. I found very few of the selections to be pure escapist reading. Most of them would carry me into a cruel world where people are trying their best to survive and the blurbs are disgusting. Extreme violence seems to be the main theme of several of the stories for sale.
At least Brin’s story, while dystopian in the extreme, is not vicious as a story I read earlier this year was. I am not sure how to explain the detachment I feel while reading Existence and yet compared with the other books being offered in the catalog, I sort of see this as a good thing. The story is so preachy that I can almost relax as if it is a documentary that has nothing to do with me except to learn from it as if in a classroom. I don’t believe in the characters. I don’t really believe that the world would accept first contact with aliens with so little excitement. I am told that everyone is paying attention and is interested and a bit worried, but with so little evidence of it, I just shrug. Oh, well. Better this story than one that is really depraved and mind bending in a bad way. Maybe, I should consider it “intelligent escape literature”. I will keep reading. I do like the dolphins.
The simple blurb in the catalog for Advent by Treadwell that I read recently didn’t explain that the reader would face monsters in the story. It was a good book and I am looking forward to the sequel, but it was not an easy read or fun. I thought it was a sort of older version of Harry Potter when I first started reading it, but it went in a different direction.
I did have some fun with a short story by Connie Willis in the Best Short Novels 2004 ed. by Jonathan Strahan. It is ‘Just Like the Ones We Used to Know’ and it is about snow falling everywhere on Christmas Eve. There was some real humor as well as poignant family situations that resulted from the large snow storms. I highly recommend this story.
I enjoyed escaping while reading the second book by Martin Walker called The Dark Vineyard. It is a mystery set in France in Saint-Denis. But even as I was riding through the beautiful countryside and watching people stomp the grapes, I was being taught about the controversy over GMO crops. It was gently done and there are times of romance which adds to the mellowness of the story.
Friends talked me into a re-read of Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. I began Game of Kings for the fourth time knowing I would remember the big events, but of course it has been a few years and I don’t remember all of the details. This is certainly not an escape type book. It will take everything I have to read it. Courage, attention, endurance…the book demands everything I have. The challenge is exhilarating, though. The action never lets up. Untangling and trying to understand the plot is a mighty task.
In Game of Kings, Lymond is always sticking his head in a noose while trying to win exoneration from being called a traitor with a price on his head. Lymond has courage and brains and is a smart-mouth so it is hard to believe in him as innocent and yet I did the first time I read the series and each time after. But fun to read? Not really. Important and powerful and unforgettable are better words to use for this tale. I like to be taken to other countries and to have adventures, but I feel as if I am participating in the activities so I am not rested when I lay such a book down. It tires me out. The characters matter and when they die I grieve as if they were real. That is Dorothy’s talent.
Soothing books can be boring and books where I can’t get interested in the characters can be deadly. It is a great book that can enthrall me and yet make me feel I am having fun.
Right now, the mysteries by Margery Allingham are filling that niche. I have read the first three and purchased several more. They were written in the 30’s, but so far that has not been a problem. Albert Campion is something like Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey and has a background we are only allowed to guess at. The villages and pubs and manor houses are fun to visit. I pick up the books to escape. I admit it. I am reading #4 Police at the Funeral.
Pg. 37
As they entered, a wire-haired fox terrier of irreproachable breeding, rose from the hearthrug and came to meet them with leisurely dignity. Marcus effected an introduction hastily.
"Foon," he said. "Written 'Feathersonehaugh.'" Somewhat to his host's embarrassment Mr. Campion shook hands with the dog, who seemed to appreciate the courtesy, for he followed them back to the hearthrug, waiting for them to be seated before he took up his position on the rug again, where he sat during the rest of the proceedings with the same air of conscious breeding which characterized his master.
I would also say that Juliet by Anne Fortier was escapist reading for me. It is a literary adventure with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet compared with characters by that name in a fictional Sienna in 1340 compared to a modern day couple. It held my interest and the dialogue was really good. Thanks, Limelite, for telling me about it.
I guess my question is, does everything these days have to be horrifying? One book in the catalog bragged that its vampires were worse monsters than any others. Yuck!
What kinds of books do you consider to be escapist reading? What escapist stories have you enjoyed?
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