The Pecman

My parents initially read to me a little bit, but I was very impatient and just learned to read on my own. Some of the best days of my life as a kid were spent in the public library, particularly on days when I'd find 5 or 6 books that I could check out for the week. I vividly remember the excitement of getting an adult library card so I could pull out some pretty highbrow stuff, but I also remember my friends being perplexed at me being enraptured at the thought of hanging out at a library all day long. It's sad that this part of life is being lost, but like the old song goes, "something's lost... but something's gained... in living every day." I like to believe that kids will continue to read, if only eBooks and on the internet. One thing that's a concern is that I think that reading comprehension and the tendency for short attention spans are a big concern, as typified by the short news features by websites like CNN and so on. We're losing the in-depth reporting that we used to have in published newspapers, and it's a good question as to how long people will continue to want to read full-length novels and similar books.

I think that's a tough call. I've warned people before, if you say or do anything on the net, it can haunt you forever. There have already been instances where somebody made a bonehead mistake and posted embarrassing pictures to Facebook years ago, only to have their employer find them now, causing them to get reprimanded or even fired. I try to be careful what I say and do on the net, but in truth, if somebody really wants to track you down, chase IP numbers and all that stuff, they can find you and learn all about you. The alternative would be to live totally off the grid, never have an internet connection at home, use wired payphones and burner cellphones, and all that stuff. At some point, I think you have to trade some of your freedoms for the access to information we have and the communication we have. The key is to not be an idiot about it.

And just to give this discussion a nudge, F.T. is up to chapter 13 of the sequel, and it's really excellent: http://awesomedude.com/freethinker/act_two/index.htm Hands down, the best internet fiction I've read so far this year.

Just caught this discussion from a few weeks back (or else I would've commented earlier). One thing about getting email comments from readers is, at least they care enough to tell you what they think. I'm gratified by that, particularly when they disagree with me or ask what happened to a character who departed the story for various reasons. My thinking is, "wow -- the readers really think these characters are alive!" So I think that's a positive. I really, really like what Chris is doing Wicked Boys, and I think it's doubly interesting that it details a New York that doesn't exist anymore: the city of the early 1970s. It's terrific to read a story that has characters this alive and energetic, and whatever quibbles I have with it don't negate the fact that it's one of the best pieces of fiction I've read all year. The literary touches are very funny, and I think the wry and often ironic and funny dialogue really nails it for me. Fantastic story.

I need to start distributing this flyer in my neighborhood...

I hope it comes with nuts.

I had a similar issue, Steven, since I started school when I was 5, plus had the double-whammy of being the shortest kid in school and (surprisingly enough) very obnoxious and mischievous. All of my friends were at least a little older, but I got away with it by being smarter than they were. Most of the time. As it was, I was lucky they didn't advance me another grade or two. They almost bumped me to 3rd grade when I started school, and while I was pissed-off about it at the time, on reflection I'm glad I stayed where I was. If everybody had been three years older than me instead of just 1 year, it would've been a nightmare by the time I hit middle school.

Wow, if even the backwards "Red States" are starting to fall, it looks like the revolution is gaining momentum! This will drive the right-ringers totally bonkers...

I would disagree with that. I think there are certain grades where kids don't associate with younger kids and stick with people of their own age. It was that way for me in junior high and high school, with rare exceptions. There wasn't open hostility; it's just that we didn't generally share classes with (say) seniors when we were sophomores or juniors. The possible exception might be extracurricular activities (ahem), like music or sports, where different age groups do mix. At phys ed, though, I can remember seniors knocking us silly in rough and tumble games. I can say that some of my best friends in high school and college were people from different age groups, generally because we were brought together through school clubs or similar organizations. But not in regular classes. As for the Brits, I'd point to the Harry Potter novels and movies as examples where the kids of a certain age generally flocked together. The exception would be the Quidditch sports matches, where you would have a 12-year-old in the same sport as a 17-year-old, and every age inbetween. Same with the Triwizard Tournament and a few other activities. But not in regular classes, and not as much in the houses.

Thanks for the word, VWL. That's beautiful writing.

My reason for not owning a gun is that I'm afraid I'll use it.

I loved Catcher in the Rye. Beautifully-written book. I think it's the most "modern" early 1950s book I've ever read, just a very interesting approach, interesting observations, fascinating insights into a very flawed psyche. Maybe the two biggest flaws with it are a) it's not a traditional story with a beginning, middle, and end, and b) it's a story where the narrator harshly judges many of the people around him, but doesn't think to examine his own actions to realize how many bad choices he's made in his life. I think it's a very vivid, realistic use of language, and I think the internal monologues are excellent. The thing sold 65 million copies, so apparently quite a few people liked it. I think it's an interesting presentation of several episodes in the life of a very psychologically-damaged character who puts himself through a lot of grief (getting thrown out of 4 or 5 schools, causing all kinds of problems to people he knows), not understanding the cause for his depression and anxiety, yet going through life searching for something that's innocent and pure. It's a sad novel, and I don't think that Holden Caulfield is admirable at all, but I think it's brilliant in a lot of ways. Clearly, you think it's "crumby" (a word he uses frequently, which my partner and I got a big laugh out of). It's sobering for me to reflect that my father was very close to the age of the protagonist -- actually, he was about 19 or 20 at the time of the story -- and it's interesting to think of how the teenagers of the late 1940s looked on life, what they thought of the war that had recently ended, and what they thought lay ahead in the 1950s. For a period novel, it has a very modern feel, and it's also one of the most realistic yet stylized novel I can remember reading.

Can't drive worth a shit, and we fight about that constantly. But I'm grateful than in 30 years, I've managed to nag him to the point where he does read for pleasure occasionally. I got him to read Stephen King's recent best-seller 11/22/63 (time-traveller goes back to 1963 to try to stop the Kennedy assassination, with unexpected results) as well as J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. So I win some, lose some.

He has a law degree, but realized when he was interning that he didn't have the stomach for it and dropped out, and after a few years, became a feature magazine writer.

Wow, "No Time for Pleasure" would be a good story title. My partner and I have argued bitterly about this for many years, because he went through college and law school and was brought up to believe that reading is a chore. I only read for pleasure for many years, starting when I was 3 or 4, and I think some of my happiest hours as a kid was spent curled up in a chair, reading a book. I can't imagine reading not being a pleasure, at least if it's fiction and it's entertaining. But for him, reading meant studying boring law books, memorizing facts, writing long essays, arguing with teachers, and otherwise doing everything you could to get a degree. We come at it from completely different directions, and it's been a battle that I'm glad to say I'm winning. I got him to read all seven books of the Harry Potter series, and he was glad at the end for having read them.

Horrible, horrible, horrible story. Elsewhere, there's a discussion going on about the pros and cons of the death penalty. I concede that the United States is one of the few in the world left who has capital punishment, but Jesus H. Christ, I don't want a woman like this to live after a crime this heinous.

Yes, I can remember being puzzled by books like this when I was 10 or 11, and thinking, "whoa -- am I supposed to feel this sad from a book?" And yet it's the sad, poignant stories that often stick with us. I just forced my partner against his will to read Lost Horizon, and he agreed with me that the poignant final line of that novel -- "Do you think he ever found it?" -- was very thoughtful and emotional, and leads the reader to fill in a great deal of blanks. I agree completely. I have complained bitterly on projects I've worked on because the producers never thought to give the actors a few days' of rehearsals prior to the shoot. This winds up adding hours and hours to each shooting day, all wasted time that could've been solved if 1) the actors just knew their bloody lines, and 2) they understood the emotional context in which the dialogue needed to be said. When recording sound on the set, I've had to bite my tongue in frustration, because I notice every nuance they say (or don't say), knowing how much better their performance could've been had they just rehearsed. But often, the producers are too stupid or cheap to schedule rehearsal days, or they've just run out of time. Despite reading very quickly, I'm not afraid to go back and re-read a chapter purely for pleasure and to try to appreciate the language and the subtleties the author used. But if it's non-fiction, and I'm just blowing through the book quickly -- I'm reading a TV series history book right now, and am up to page 120 in about 2 hours -- I'm just letting the facts rain down like a waterfall. That's enjoyable on a certain level, and these are the opposite of "difficult" books since they're just recounting interviews, facts, and history, as opposed to emotion, pathos, and drama.

Yeah, comprehension was high on the test as well. My main issue, though, is if I hate the subject matter, it's drudgerous to try to slog through it. If I love the writing, I'll linger on the page and go back and re-read stuff just to try to analyze how the sentence is constructed. I just re-read James Hilton's Lost Horizon (which is available free as a download from Google), and I think I blew threw it in about 3-4 hours. Incredible book; I think I've read it 10 times in the past 40 years. I agree with you about middle school: learning how to type in 7th grade was pretty much the most important thing I learned, and I think in some ways it was the only important thing I learned. My joke is that the most important thing I learned in two years of college was my social security number; that, plus having to see every Alfred Hitchcock picture and writing essays about them.

Oh, sure... that's Australia for you. Actually, I was directing my comments to Colin. In truth, I didn't expect this discussion to take a serious turn. It was just a joke, guys.

I had no idea how fast I read. I just thought that was the way everybody was! My parents tell me I taught myself how to read when I was 3, and I know I was reading "adult novels" (at least Ian Fleming's James Bond books) by the time I was 8 or 9. I don't think I can read that fast today, because I'm lazy. But I can knock out reading a chapter in maybe 5 minutes or so before bedtime, 7000-8000 words. If only I could write that fast...

Aw, you guys are taking this much too seriously. It's a goof! C'mon, it's a funny spot. And I'd bet you that I got beat up and bullied a lot more in high school than most of you did. Hard to believe, but I was a short, obnoxious, nerdy, know-it-all asshole in high school. No, I really was!

One of my best friends in high school was beset by the fact that he was a slow reader and had mediocre grades, so he took the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading class locally and wound up being a teacher for the company. I quizzed him about how it worked, and he basically said, "we train you to ignore the articles, the prepositions, and most of the adjectives, so you're basically reading one out of five words on every page." I was kind of horrified, because even as a teenager, I grasped that sometimes the richness of language is in the nuances of the description and the prose. Just to brag, I had a spare class in my senior year, so I took a speed-reading course to see what it was like. The teacher tested us, then had me stay after class and kind of chided me, saying I was already at the highest level they could test -- about 1800-2000 words a minute. I asked what I should do, and he said, "sit in the back row, bring a book to read every day, and shut up." I did that and read a novel a week. Had a fine time -- and I actually read every word.

You've clearly never been to school in America or Britain. Trust me, there's all kinds of places where kids are left alone, particularly if less than 10% of the school population is made up of teachers or administrators. Whether it's getting punched in the restroom, shoved in the shower, elbowed in the hallway, or beat up in the alley behind the school on the way home, bullies can get to kids almost whenever they want. Radio host Howard Stern has often told a story where a thug in a high school class almost forced him to give him his shoes and all his money while the class was going on. The teacher just kept telling them to "shush" and went back to her book during this study period, ignoring the violence going on. The point was: if you look at this from a positive point of view, maybe people will see this and realize, "oh, yeah. Maybe there's some karma afoot here, and if I torment somebody now, I'll wind up paying for it years from now." I'm reminded of that great scene in Broadcast News, where some bullies throw the Albert Brooks teenage character into a dumpster, and he yells at them, "you'll never make more than $24,000 a year!"

This is a hilarious, very well-done, and (one hopes) describes the true fate awaiting childhood bullies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqVfoZdYaDQ

That's a very good story idea.