What’s the most appropriate, most Jasonesque way to end a string of poetry posts?

How about incorporating Jason favorites Sherman Alexie and FreeDarko?

Alexie, in addition to being an award-winning author, is a passionate basketball fan. He was so incensed that Allen Iverson was voted to start in the All-Star game that he wrote a poem for ESPN.

Then, Bethlehem Shoals of FreeDarko wrote a poem in defense of AI.

Alexie ended the slam battle by smashing on Monta Ellis, Vince Carter and Tracey McGrady and boosting Cavelier Anderson Varejao. (Tell those French authors that this is how you conduct a beef.)

I have not linked to Shoals’ poem as he is a sucker MC.

Next, much ado has been made out of Borders throwing away their unsold books. To explain, bookstores need only return the cover to receive a refund from the publisher for their overstock. (Note: this is why you occasionally see books without covers at secondhand sales. Don’t buy them. They’re essentially stolen property.) After mailing back the cover, they toss the rest of the book.

Well, that didn’t sit well with some people. They threatened boycotts — stuff like that. As a result, Borders announced they would be donating and recycling their overstock now.

I think the whole situation is pretty silly. Yes, Borders should recycle instead of simply trashing leftover books; but why are they being asked to give away products that they are trying to sell?

Do people picket restaurants and tell them to donate their leftover food at the end of a night?

The people who protest Borders are missing what I consider a key fact. It’s not difficult to get a book.

Intellectually starved children are not suffering because they can’t find Poe or Dickinson on bookshelves, as this Huffington Post writer implies. They can go to a library — almost any library. If it’s not in stock, they can order it.

No, children are intellectually starved because they do not have the desire to read. It doesn’t matter who donates how many books to what. If kids don’t want to read, they won’t. Borders’ announcement won’t change that.

Finally, Tricia, I’ll play your game. In fact, if you can guess my book without cheating (honor system), I’ll buy you a Frosty.

Harut.
Sleepers of the Cave.
Iblis.
Prophet.
Night journey.

Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

It’s interesting that Okcopatrick would post Harold Bloom’s review of the first Harry Potter book. The friend with whom I was conversing in my last post had previously sent me the same review.

I will restate the response I gave to Bloom’s review then: Rowling’s books improved over time. It would be fair to say that Rowling’s first and second books are steeped in cliché. The Sorcerer’s Stone? A three-headed dog? Witches transforming into black cats? These are well-worn fantasy ideas and Rowling adds nothing new to them.

I would contend that it’s not until the third book that Rowling’s series becomes something besides commonplace.

But let’s test it. Roy Peter Clark and Bloom each offered quantifiable ways to test Rowling’s writing. Clark criticized Rowling’s overuse of adverbs that modified the word “said,” noting she used five in a 2-page span to describe the manner in which characters spoke.

To wit:
said Hermione timidly
said Hermione faintly
he said simply
said Hagrid grumpily
said Hagrid irritably

Bloom counted seven identifiable clichés of the stretch-his-legs variety in a single page.

Let’s take a look at one of Rowling’s latter books and see if it is also infested with unnecessary modifiers and lazy clichés.

My wife and I only own Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final one in the series. We borrowed the rest.

I’ll read the first chapter and keep a scorecard of clichés and talking adverbs. (Because readers may disagree on what is or is not a cliché, I will try to include any phrase someone might consider a cliché.)

Talking Adverbs:
None

Cliches:
“sliding in and out of sight”
“(they) passed through, as though the dark metal were smoke”
“lingered for a moment”
“He was so pale that he seemed to emit a pearly glow.” (Better than pale as a ghost, but in the same vein)
“His red eyes fastened”
“his gaze had wandered”
“lost in thought”
“squared his shoulders”
“Voldemort stroked the creature absently”
“‘I speak nothing but the truth’”
“an eruption of jeering laughter”
“the laughter died at once”

In 12 pages, Rowling completely avoided using an adverb to modify “said,” “spoke” or “told.” However, it would only be fair to admit that the chapter did not lack for adverbs. They were legion and most of them added little to the narrative.

As per clichés, I tried to err on the side of inclusion. In fact, you could argue that some on my list are not proper clichés. However, laughter dies more often than it ceases (which is weird, because it never lived, but it does erupt.) “In thought” is one of the most common places to get lost, gazes often wander (or drift) and “smoke” is the most popular way to end the mad lib, “passed through, as though it were ____.”

Twelve in 12 pages is a considerable improvement when contrasted to seven in a page. But is it still an uncommonly high amount?

I took another modern writer who is well-respected in literary circles, Sherman Alexie, and read 12 pages of his The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven for comparison’s sake.

Seven. I counted seven clichés. So Alexie—generally recognized as a good author—has slightly more than half as many clichés as Rowling. (This does not bode well for my argument.)

Rowling’s first chapter also suffered from stilted dialogue—the kind of stuff you can only get away with in romance or fantasy novels. For example: “I speak nothing but the truth.”

Well, it isn’t an exhaustive study, but I seem to have hurt my own case. Rowling is a writer who, even after she matured, depends on unnecessary adverbs (though not the kind Clark noted) and uses clichés almost twice as often as Sherman Alexie.

This doesn’t change the fact that she’s good at characterization and longitudinal plotting, but I can’t speak for the strength of her narrative voice.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

PS According to Wikipedia, Harold Bloom discovered poetry through Hart Crane's White Buildings. Portage County stand up!

I’m tired of seeing Obama on Sportscenter. I’d rather watch Ozzie Guillen on C-SPAN.

It’s Friday. Welcome to the melange.

In If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino classifies books not by genre or author but by our excuses for not reading them. I have since applied the Calvino System to my library.

1. Books You’ve Been Planning to Read for Ages
That would be Gone with the Wind.

2. Books You’ve Been Hunting for Years Without Success
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. If either of my readers has a copy, they can name their price.

3. Books Dealing with Something You’re Working on at the Moment
Because I’m blogging about it, If on a winter’s night a traveler.

4. Books You Want to Own So They’ll be Handy Just in Case
The Handy Religion Answer Book. (A wonderful reference, not comprehensive but has often prevented me from asking stupid or offensive questions.)

5. Books You Could Put Aside Maybe to Read this Summer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

6. Books You Need to go with Other Books on your Shelves
That would be any Leatherstocking Tale after The Last of the Mohicans.

7. Books that Fill You with Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified.
Only in America: The Life and Crimes of Don King.

8. Books You Needn’t Read
Scarlett, the sequel to Gone with the Wind. Obviously, I’ve read neither, but my wife has finished both and she compared Scarlett to a root canal without the laughing gas.

9. Books Made for Purposes Other than Reading
I think my psychology coffee-table book would qualify. Instead, it’s intended to be used as a talking piece or, in lieu of that, a bludgeon.

10. Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written
The Mary Higgins Clark joke would be too obvious; but, yes, I’d assume most of her library qualifies.

11. Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
Brothers Karamazov

12. Books You Mean to Read but There Are Others You Must Read First
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

13. Books That Are Too Expensive So You Are Waiting For Them To Be Remaindered or Sold in Paperback
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I’m a cheap man. I haven’t paid full price for a book since college.

14. Books You Can Borrow From Somebody
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

15. Books That Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Read Them Too
Probably my most shameful admission, but I’ve never finished Moby Dick. I’ve started it at least a dozen times, but I couldn’t get through that thing with a harpoon. Its page count is not the problem either. I just can’t stand Melville’s pace. The man will expend entire chapters describing a single room.

I get that pacing has sped as attention spans have shrunk, and to judge a historical author by modern standards is unfair; but I shouldn’t be able to use your novel as a soporific.

Fortunately, everyone else has read Moby Dick and talked about it enough that I can discuss it with my normal level of competency. (My normal competency level hovers between “troglodyte” and “drummer in Run DMC cover band.”)

Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

In the last few weeks, a gaggle of people (read: seven) have asked how I feel about Kindle.

For those who don’t know, Kindle is a wireless reading device that Amazon sells. You can use it to read downloaded books, magazines and newspapers.

It’s like an iPod for reading, except you can’t upload your already existing library for free.

Sherman Alexie (National Book Award winner, author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” fantastic writer) caught some flack for calling Kindles “elitist.” Most of the negative attention focused on him saying that he saw a woman reading a Kindle on the subway and wanted “to hit her.” (He wasn’t being serious.)

Alexie later clarified that he objected to the Kindle’s price. (They cost about $359.) He also didn’t like that one company controlled the content that was available.

In defense of Kindle’s price, one savvy writer noted that it would cost the New York Times half as much to give all of its subscribers Kindles as it would to print and deliver its paper. (Granted, I think that says more about the costs of newspaper production than anything else.)

But Alexie makes an interesting point. Like most expensive electronic gear — iPhones, for example — they have become status symbols. That may or may not be intentional. Alexie and I have similar knee-jerk reactions when we see Kindles. I called a friend “bourgeois” for having one and quickly regretted it.

Do some people use Kindles as status symbols? Sure, but at least they serve a function (unlike those stupid butterfly sunglasses).

I’m an anachronism. I was the last person under the age of 25 to get an mp3 player. I refuse to get TIVO because my VCR still works. I grumble about the minibloggers on Twitter. Throw in a case of cirrhosis and I’m my grandfather.

I like the feel of a book and the sense of accomplishment as the pages accumulate underneath my left hand. I like having a study in which I can relax, surrounded by my bookshelves. (Now, that sounds bourgeois.) But if you just want the words and have a few hundred dollars to burn, there’s no reason not to use a Kindle.

We all use computers to read already. (If you don’t, then how are you reading this blog?) Kindles represent the next step, but it’s probably a step that I will take hesitantly. I don’t want to sacrifice my hardcovers and paperbacks any more than I want to get rid of my CDs.

If that makes me the world’s youngest grumpy old man, so be it.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com