Characters

Beauty, [Briony] had discovered, occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, had infinite variation. A universe reduced to what was said in it was tidiness indeed, almost to the point of nullity, and to compensate, every utterance was delivered at the extremity of some feeling or other, in the service of which the exclamation mark was indispensable.

-Atonement by Ian McEwan

Literacy is more than just reading. It is writing. It is forming a comprehension of character and an ability to articulate thoughts and attributes. As a long time writer, I have work with the spectrum of ugliness in many of my characters. As I stated in my previous post, I am a strong believer in character flaws and ugliness- both inner and outer- is a powerful flaw. My best example would probably be Elphaba from Wicked. Yes, I'm bringing up Wicked again; there is a reason it's my favorite books. Elphaba- known eventually as the Wicked Witch of the West- is consistently described as a monstrosity and by all means visually unappealing. However, it is more than just the Ugly Duckling hideous-on-the-outside-beautiful-on-the-inside factor that I'm interested in. There are several times throughout the book where Elphaba is an extremely amoral character or even immoral at times. It is that playing with the line of morality that I find truly interesting in a character.

So what does any of that have to do with ugliness? Such moral conflict leads to ugly action and, in my opinion, a very interesting story. Don't get me wrong, I love a moral character too and given the right author said character can work out just as well. I guess what I'm getting at is the ugliness is flaws. It can be concealed or outweighed, but it is still there and that is exactly why people get invested in characters.

Making a Point

Well, as the nerd I am- we've been over that part already- I followed the link on our weekly sheet to Shelfari and signed up. It's actually a very interesting and it made me think about all the books I have read, good and bad. It made me realize that it was not just the good books I read that impacted my literacy but the bad as well. First of all, I would like to state that there are book that are not to my personal preference then there are books that are just plain badly written. For example, I read and was not a fan of Oliver Twist. However, that does not make it a bad book. It was unappealing to my taste but it did provide me with something of a background for later texts based around it. (Until I read that book I never realized that the animated movie Oliver and Company was based off a book.) So that would be a book I did not enjoy. But what did just plain flat out bad books do for me? Well, have you ever seen an example of a school assignment that is what not to do? I look at them in that sense. (I will refrain from mentioning exactly which books I thought were abysmal.) I love to write and do so often. I see this as a consequence of reading a lot and absorbing many of the techniques and styles of my favorite authors. Nevertheless, encountering a bad novel is just as much a learning experience as finding the good. The biggest lesson I have learn in that context has been flaws. Flaws are the gems that make a character interesting.

So how exactly does this link to my literacy? Well I would consider writing an output of literacy but even beyond that, it means that to me, reading was never a waste of time. Even when I hated to book (Oliver Twist) or just cringed at every word (book-that-will-not-be-named), it was worth the time it took.

On a similar note, sometimes it is important to give a book a chance even when you don't like it at first. When I read Wicked I struggled on many cases to finish it. It was thick and extremely odd, for lack of a better word. But now that story is my absolute favorite book. It was a near impossible read but the aftertaste left me buzzing for weeks. (That sounded much less weird before I typed it.)

The moral of this blog? Well, I'm not sure if a blog can have a moral, but my point is that reading is not a waste. Ever. And I think that is an important point few people really work to understand. Maybe someday that will change.

Dry Exposition

I'll start with an easy one I guess: my history of literacy. I really don't remember much about how it began. When I was little (at most 5 years old) I used to listen to books on tape all the time. I would listen to Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Jungle Book, Ricky Ticky Tavi, Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and several others I don't remember any more. I think it was all of those tapes that got me really hooked on reading. By giving me access to stories I didn't have the capability of reading myself they provided an early look into the world of books.

Around the same time I'm sure my parents read to me, anywhere from The Bernstein Bears when I was really young, to Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy when I was six or seven. I really don't remember when I started reading, nor what those first books were- aside from the really basic kids’ books like Clifford. I remember loving Call of the Wild in first through fourth grade, and reading Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in fifth. I think I picked up Tamora Pierce's books around the same time and the first Harry Potter book shortly before the movie came out. Was that third grade? Maybe second. Whenever 2001 was.

So, I supposed to root of my literacy is founded in those first books on tape. (I also had Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit on CD later but I believe that was after I had read them.) I went to sleep listening to those stories and later that carried over to the big nerd I am today. Now I read anything from The Body by Stephen King to some of Tamora Pierce's books targeted to an older audience, to Wicked by Gregory Maguire. In the end I'm grateful for those first books and will always remember them as the foundation of my literacy and introduction to the fictional world.