Kay's Bookshelf

My feelings on this book are somewhat mixed: I loved it because it was so uncomplicated, making one learn new things without appearing to be even trying, plus I love the books on philosophy anyway (I’m sort of a fan :P ). On the other hand, I have found it a bit too skimming for my tastes — just when I was grasping one idea or another the subject got changed and we moved to the next philosopher in line. Perhaps a wee bit of more depth on each subject wouldn’t have hurt :)

As for the jokes I found it quite amusing how… philosophically they could be interpreted :P While (probably) chosen not for their funniness but for the way they could relate to one philosophical idea or another (and while I already knew most of them — but then again I do happen to know A LOT of jokes), they made for a fun read, making the book colorful in a way normal reference books are not.

The glossary in the end is probably the most helpful thing in the whole book (especially for someone like me who tends to forget things quite fast :P), as it (re)explains all the important terms used throughout the book, being sort of a (very short) refresher course on the book itself.

What I liked most: The very idea itself — I have never thought about jokes and philosophy having anything in common before :D

What I liked least: It’s not a fault of the book’s but mine: I’m fairly certain I’ll get to forget about every single idea presented there in a couple of days or weeks at most :(

Recommend it? Definitely, it’s a fun and uncomplicated way to get acquainted with (or a refresher’s course in) the basics of philosophy. For example, did you know that Sherlock Holmes never deduced anything? :P

Two quotes:

Morty comes home to find his wife and his best friend, Lou, naked together in bed. Just as Morty is about to open his mouth, Lou jumps out of the bed and says,”Before you say anything, old pal, what are you going to believe, me or your eyes?”

By challenging the primacy of sensory experience, Lou raises the question of what sort of data is certain and why. Is one way of gathering facts about the world—say, seeing— more dependable than others—say, a leap of faith that accepts Lou’s description of reality?

and

Some historians now believe Machiavelli was pull­ing our leg with a kind of reverse Machiavellianism—appearing evil while actually subscribing to old-time virtues. In the end, was Machiavelli actually satirizing despotism? In his essay “The Prince: Political Science or Political Satire?” Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garrett Mattingly argues that Machiavelli has gotten a bum rap: “The notion that this little book (The Prince) was meant as a serious, scientific treatise on government contradicts everything we know about Machiavelli’s life, about his writings, and about the history of his time.”

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Although in my younger years I have given thought to the idea of writing a book of my own, I had to give up upon realizing I was missing a very important required trait: I had no creativity whatsoever (and the situation hasn’t changed a bit ever since). I am 100% convinced that, had the situation been different, this book would have been a very important resource. Which isn’t to say my reading it has been in vain — it is a great book offering a lot of insight on what goes on “on the other side of the shelf”, and, most important, what it takes to make a book great.

You know, while today I’m not into pure romance books anymore, I really used to be a while ago (my teenage years more or less). After reading bunches of books of the said genre, I was certain I got to know everything there was to know about writing romance books down to a T (boy meets girl, boy is attracted to girl, girl is attracted to boy, they get together, they have a conflict and break up, they realize they cannot live without each other and end up happily ever after), and, had I any inclination towards it, I could be just as good a romance writer as any. Well, this book showed me how wrong I was thinking it’s that easy to write a good romance book.

I’ve found out that imagining some characters and a reason for them to meet is only an infinitesimal part of the story. It is not enough to have characters do this and say that, their actual motivations have to be very clear to the reader too. That’s where “prime motivating events” and “prime motivating forces” come in: events (and feelings developed from them) that happened sometime in the character’s past, shaping them in one way or another and thus lending them justification about some of the less obvious things they say or do.

One of the most interesting things in this book (an obvious one but also one I’ve never given a moment’s though in all my time as a romance reader) is the way male characters have to act different from female characters in order to be truly believable. Ms. Grant seems to have studied the psychologies of both men and women (and the difference between them) quite closely, and her advice is useful both for an aspiring writer aiming to create believable characters, but also for a person without such aspirations but simply interested in the way people think (the sub-chapter “Different, how?” of chapter four has been very interesting from this point of view, though unfortunately it is too long for me to just paste it here). A short example:

“Men derive intimacy from doing things together. The term “male-bonding” usually refers to two men feeling close through sharing an activity such as fixing a car. Women derive intimacy from talking about feelings. When you want your hero and heroine to share an intimate period, have them do something while they talk.”

Another thing I noticed was that one piece of advice Ms. Grant gives her readers it that he/she should remain sensitive to the characters when writing, letting them guide the action the way their personalities (as the writer imagined them) would make them behave. I remember I have read a while ago an interview with Diana Gabaldon about how she wrote Outlander and she said that Clare had acted very brave since the very first scene written, too brave for 1700-something, so she (Diana) had no choice than to make her coming from sometime into the future. Back then I’ve been wondering how can that be, how can a writer lose control (in a certain way, of course) of what his or her characters might say or do. I’m still sort of wondering about that, although Ms. Grant did help me understand a bit of how that works.

There is a sub-chapter called “Grammar and Style” that I have also found very interesting, because it offers some advice on how to make what you write stronger, more graphic and easier to visualize for the reader. Some of them were obvious things now that someone thought of mentioning them, but I must confess I have never thought about any of them earlier. Example:

“Specific is better. It’s more powerful to say “It poured for 30 hours yesterday”, than “It’s been raining a lot lately”. The reader forms a sharper mental image of “a dozen college students” than “a group of people”; a sharper message of “a Corvette” than “a car”. Wherever you can be specific.”

What I liked most: The fact that for every counsel the author gives the reader at least one real-life example, usually taken from Ms. Grant’s own writing experience (or from a guest author’s experience if Ms. Grant’s doesn’t extend that far). I think it’s a really great thing to do in a book whose purpose is helping others learn stuff and understand how it works. Not to mention that the books comes with a CD with lots of helping stuff on it, including two complete books Ms. Grant wrote, so that the reader can see for himself or herself all the advice in the book put into practice.

What I liked least: As a personal quirk, the least interesting chapter has been “About computers” (but that’s only because I’m a computer geek myself so that chapter had nothing of the “wow, I learned something new” sparkle the others had — I am very certain that for people less geeky than I am that chapter is every bit as useful as the rest).

Recommend it? Definitely. It’s a must read if you’re on your way to becoming a writer but it’s pretty interesting and worth reading even if you don’t :)

Written by the same author:
Taking Chances

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