Rating: - It's a love letter! It's a textbook! It's a ?
I picked up this book because I recalled that the author, several years ago, wrote an impossibly high-minded rant in Harper's about why high school students don't like to read. I wondered what her "Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them," might say, although the superlatives that adorn the book ("a love letter to reading...," a jewel of a companion...," and so on) gave me pause. These are the kinds of things people say who haven't made it past the first few chapters. A reading of the book bore out my initial unease. It's not clear for whom Prose intends this book. On one level, it seems to be a kind of helpful textbook for people who might like to think of themselves as writers, but it's pretty hard to imagine the young Alice Munro or the young Philip Roth giving it a look. On the very first page, Prose herself asks the question "Can creative writing be taught?" and by the end of her book, one sensibly concludes (along with Prose): probably not. On another level, the book seems to ask: Can close reading be taught or, at least, encouraged? Here, I suspect, the answer is: not through a book like this one. The problem is that much of the book sounds positively strangled, as Prose tries to introduce you to writers and passages she admires, all the while struggling to not give away the plot. She has a good critical eye, but many of the chapters have the lifeless feel of classroom conversations written down on paper. Occasionally, Prose the writer comes through, as in her account of riding the bus and reading Chekhov, but mostly one plods from one "close reading" to the next. Finally, the book asks: can a writer who loves reading get us to throw down "Reading Like a Writer" in order to rush to our Amazon carts? And here the answer is: not this way. At the end of her book, Prose enthusiastically appends a five page list of "Books to be Read Immediately." Unfortunately, the list includes everything "King Lear to "The Elements of Style." Oh, how I wish she'd annotated that list, offering up her short lists of Unappreciated Writers or Overrated Writers or Books to Read Once More Before You Die. Alas, she didn't. Students, if you're assigned this book, you'll just have to work your way through it in search of that good read you've missed. For the rest of us---well, there are dozens of book blogs that will give you any number of books to be read immediately. You could start with the Modern Library Lists (Top 100 Novels, Top 100 Nonfiction). They're free.