Giving Thanks—Getting Blessings

By Keith Fisher

How do you like the new look? Some of our group felt we were in need of change. Leave comments and tell us what you think.

Over at another blog, I’ve been talking about giving thanks in a series of blogs about Thanksgiving. Since the big dinner is this week, I thought I’d mention a promise. "He who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold" (D&C 78:19).

Is there a specific blessing you are supplicating God for? Show gratitude to Him by giving yourself to others. I know it’s hard to look past the turkey and stuffing, but there are people in need in your life. If your kids asked you for a dollar and didn’t thank you for it, how eager would you be to reach for your wallet next time?

May all the joy and happiness of the season be yours this year, and may all your associates be blessed because they have known you.

Now,

Just a quick note about last week’s blog then I’ll stop talking about it. I received a comment from Kent Larsen (here are his credentials). It was a great comment. I would like to clarify a few things.

Thanks for sharing Kent. You asked if I remember John Jakes. Yes, sir, I do. In fact, I loved The Kent Family Chronicles when it was new. It is a wonderful treatise on the birth of America and early US history. Im sure you know he is still selling new books.

I'm sorry, if I gave anyone the impression that I want to "throw out classic literature." Nothing is farther from the truth. In fact I want people to learn about, and have access to every book ever written. In the sixties I read Child's Garden of Grass, Breakfast of Champions, Catcher in the Rye and many other books of the time. Have you read Kurt Vonnegut? His books are full of, in your words, . . . "great ideas--social criticism, messages about how society should form itself and act".

Perhaps he’s not a classic author because he is also a little controversial, and not to everyone’s taste.

In my short life, I’ve discovered people are either interested in something or they aren't. I totally agree with you about Dickens. I love the way he talked about people in need. I love Victor Hugo for the same reasons. It never ceases to amaze me, however, how many people love to watch Les Miserables in the play, but they never catch the spirit of it, and they never begin to use their blessings to help others.

The point I’ve been laboring over is not bashing classic literature. The point is that literature shouldn't have to be literary. I want people to stop judging popular fiction by the yardstick of the English teacher. During the time that many of the "so called" classic authors were writing, Mark Twain wrote popular fiction. Plain and simple—you don't have to search between the lines to find the social lessons. They hit you square in the face.

Twain was compared to the authors of his time and found lacking, but many people read his stories because they liked to read them. For whatever reason, they liked them. I don’t like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstien, and I don’t like much of Ernest Hemmingway. I have friends who love Twilight, but I don’t. I have friends who hate The Children of the Promise, and Hearts of the Children series’ but I love them. The point is everyone has different tastes.

As for the question, will reading popular fiction lead to reading the classics? Maybe not, but forcing a kid to eat Green Beans at the dinner table probably won’t teach that kid to love green beans. Likewise, forcing a kid to read classic literature because of the great life’s lessons contained therein probably won’t teach them to love the beauty of it, or even teach them the lessons.

Thanks again for letting me rant, and Thanks, Kent, I like the way you think.

Good luck in your writing—see you next week, and don’t eat too much on Thursday.

The Dead Authors Society

By Keith Fisher

There is a popular movie from 1989 staring Robin Williams called Dead Poets Society. It is a heart wrenching story about a group of boarding school students learning about life through appreciation of the great poets. Using that premise, I’d like to start a Dead Authors society. Like the movie, we could meet once a week (probably online) and discuss something (good or bad) we found in an old book. Maybe I’ll start a new blog—I’ll let you know.

I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I avoided reading the classics in high school. Of course, I also avoided most of my homework in those days, I read Tom Sawyer and Future Shock, but I missed out on Moby Dick, Grapes of Wrath, and others.

To make up for my ignorance, I’ve been reading classics mingled among the other things I must read. I discovered an interesting thing while reading the Great Gatsby the other day. Although there is a good message and the book is a great treatise of the jazz age, F. Scott Fitzgerald filled it with flowery descriptions that probably earned him high praise in his day. Now he is dead, it’s time to take a look at his work under the desk lamp, and analyze it against the fiction of today.

One of my pet peeves is when I read a book written within the last twenty years and find the author committed one of the unforgivable sins. I constantly criticize myself for committing these sins because I know if I don’t change things like weak plot, POV shifts, and too much description, my book won’t be published. So, I’m left wondering how the book in question got published because it’s so much harder for us today.

Here I am, reading a classic—a book that is supposed to be an example of good writing—and those same feelings crop up. How did this guy get published? To be fair, I enjoyed the descriptions. Fitzgerald’s metaphors and similes are fantastic. I may write down many of them for future blogs, but does Gatsby hold the attention of a modern reader?

To be honest, if I wasn’t listening on my MP3 player at work, I might not have ever finished the book. Readers have such a short attention span today, a book must be near perfect to survive. An author cannot allow a reader to set a book down, or it won’t be picked up again. I’m afraid the classics would never hold up under the standards of today’s market. My friend thinks they would, but with all the rules for hooks in the first paragraph, etc, I still think my editor would find many wrong things.

So, high school students hate to read those books, while English teachers point to them as examples of great literature. It’s no wonder that many students quit reading after high school. Lest I give you the wrong impression, I must say it was hard to write during those times also. Readers took more time reading, and they scrutinized the prose. They held a paragraph in their mind for days, twisting it over, marveling at the symmetry.

But, my twenty-first century mind keeps trying to rush the author. It says, "Get to point already—I haven’t got all day." I found the classics are better if someone reads them to me. Don’t you love the way the narrator speaks in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? I love to listen to it again and again. Words were not taken for granted in those days. But when I read it, I skip over those words in order to get to the meat of the story. Perhaps if we make high school kids listen to the story they might enjoy it more, but then, how would they learn to read?

Since I haven’t made any real point here, you might wonder which side I’m on. Like any good editor, I must offer praise as well as criticism. I hope we all learn to savor classical prose. It may be a better example of good writing than the entertaining stories we write today, but it would never make it on the best seller list. That’s okay though, most of the classics already had their day in the sun.

Good luck with your writing—see you next week.