“klee village” by devi laskar

When you’re in doubt, emulate.

This week in the Book Writing World, we are bringing in to class our favorite passages from our favorite published books, and sharing them — as a way to appreciate good writing, but also to learn new techniques. To study and (hopefully) pick up how to create effective dialogue or character development, and how to create more conflict or raise the stakes. We are helping ourselves to these published authors’ structure but substituting our own content, our own stories.

One of my favorite books in the world is Thaisa Frank’s novel Heidegger’s Glasses. Ms. Frank will be doing a Q & A with members of the Book Writing World 5-6p.m., on Sept. 6, as she launches the paperback edition of her latest collection of stories, Enchantment.

One of the passages I selected for this week comes early in Ms. Frank’s ingenious novel set in World War II Germany:

“She also accepted his offer to carry everything across the field, where the snow was still soft, and the sky still promised pageants of light. Elie let the officer kiss her on the lips just once and hold her longer than she would have liked. Then she drove deep into the North German woods where pine trees hid the moon.

At one point a think girl without shoes darted across the road. Elie wasn’t surprised: at this stage of the war, people appeared just like animals. But she couldn’t stop, even to offer bread. There were as many guards as trees. And one rescue was dangerous enough.”

This passage does a lot of work in a very short amount of time: there is character development, and a lot of action under the surface of a woman flirting with an SS officer so she can take supplies to group of people the Nazis would like to kill. There are also subtle comparisons between the trees and the character’s work in hiding people; and also between the driver of the car and the girl who darted across the road.

*****

Banned Books Week 2012 will take place September 30 through October 6.

2012 marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week and the theme is “30 years of Liberating Literature.” Enclosed is a partial list of classics that have been banned in some parts of the United States and continue to be challenged in court:

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
38. All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren

40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

These are wonderful books, and I’ve been lucky to have teachers throughout my life who insisted I read them.  Pick one from the list that you’ve always meant to read but didn’t have time for, and plunge into another world. Liberate yourself through literature.