The Book Swede & His Blog: Quote of the Week #5: Daniel Abraham

Another week, another author! (Cheesy, huh?!)

Picking this week's Quote of the Week: Daniel Abraham

Daniel Abraham is an author that has been getting a lot of (very well deserved) praise; for his Epic Fantasy series The Long Price; and for his collaboration with George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, in the science fiction novel Hunter's Run. I really enjoyed both, so it's a great honour to have this piece of Daniel's mind:

“Pleasure is not an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.” –W. H. Auden

I’ve been thinking about how I choose what I read. With a toddler in the house and work deadlines, I’m shooting for a book a week, and that might be optimistic. For the sake of argument, let’s call it fifty books a year. With over 170,000 new titles published in the US in 2005 (the last year I can find statistics for), the selection process is tricky. You’ve probably got the same problem.

Here’s how I do it wrong: I pick what I ought to read. If I’m at the coffee shop reading Dostoyevsky, what will people think of me? What if I’m reading a Star Wars tie-in? How can I show my face at a convention if I haven’t read the new Tolkien book? Or R. Scott Bakker? And how much fun would it be to sit in the bar at Worldcon and compare Melville to Mieville? “I think there are some real thematic similarities. Maybe not with Moby Dick, but if you look at Perdido Street Station alongside Bartleby the Scrivener…” God then people would think I was so smart . . .

And then before I know it, I’m a hundred pages into something that I don’t particularly enjoy, and counting the pages to the end of the chapter and slogging through the last third of the book with my eyes glazed over. I put the book down with a sense of accomplishment like I’ve washed all the dirty dishes. Now, at least, I have Joyce’s Ulysses behind me, however little of it I understood. That will prove that I’m a well-read, deep, literary fella. No one can look down on me, nope nope. Now where is that copy of the Latest Very Important Fantasy Writer so that I don’t look like I’m ignoring my own field?

Here’s how I do it right: I indulge myself. Yes, I have literally hundreds of books on my shelf that I haven’t read yet, and more coming in that I really should read. But I love Tevis’ The Queen’s Gambit, and I haven’t reread it in three or four years, so what the hell . . . Or I read the first few pages of something I scooped up in the bookstore despite its cover and find myself still awake at three in the morning, cross-eyed tired and ruined for the next day, but hey, just one more chapter…

There is vulnerability in unsophisticated, genuine pleasures, and there is safety in refinement and urbanity. I can’t imagine a fan of science fiction and fantasy who hasn’t felt that little stab of shame, the guilt in the guilty pleasure.

The fact of the matter is that I like some high literature and some low. Yes, I love Camus’ The Plague, but I haven’t read it as many times as Eddings’ Belgariad. Yes, I have the book of commentary on Eco’s The Name of the Rose. It’s on the same shelf as the Espenson-edited essays on Firefly. Cultivating sophistication in my reading is all well and good, except when it comes at the price of cultivating joy. I have a hard time remembering to cultivate joy.

I’ve also been thinking about how I choose what I write.

If fifty books in a year is optimistic for my reading goals, writing fifty in my life is over the rainbow. Deciding what to create is higher stakes than what to consume. If you’re one of the folks like me who has to fight the impulse to puff up their status by what they read, imagine how hard it would be to rein that in when it comes time to write. The need for safety and comfort in writing is a thousand times worse than it is in reading. The temptation to call attention to the beauty of the craft and the cleverness of the author is almost overwhelming. When the characters come to a critical moment, I want to wink at the reader so that they won’t think that all this vulnerability and emotion is somehow about me. Look at my craft! Look at this well-turned phrase! And a literary allusion! Didja get it? Are you an intellectual too? Aren’t we clever together, you and I? Me! I meant me. That’s grammatical, isn’t it? You and me, not you and I? And like that, the story is spoiled by my sophistication.

It’s a satanic little trap. How well I avoid it is how good I am as a storyteller. The hardest thing I do is take a story that gives me real pleasure and hand it over to the world without putting in a little protective pretension or ironic distance. Asking a girl to the prom felt safer. It doesn’t even assure that what I write will be good. Just being heartfelt isn’t enough.

Which brings me back to Auden. I try to read books I like and not ones I ought to like. I try to write to tell stories and not to aggrandize the author. It’s harder than it sounds, and it’s not the perfect guide. It’s just there isn’t a better one.

Massive thanks to Daniel for taking time out of his writing (and reading!) schedule, and for producing an awesome Quote! It's a great feeling when someone says they like the idea, and then also produces something fantastic :) Daniel has also done quite a few interviews, some covering The Long Price and some focusing more on Hunter's Run (my review here):