Fantasy Genius Rewriters

I love to read. Love.

I love to read because I love art—I love to revel in those creations of man that seem to somehow transcend human ability, human comprehension, human beauty.

I love to read because, better than any other art form, writing can show you worlds with which you are totally unfamiliar. Writing can teach you things about mankind you never knew you needed to learn. A genius writer understands people, can create a complex or amazing or beautiful story, and, without having to explicitly state a thesis, teaches you incomprehensible and thought-provoking things about the world.

I love to read.

Which is why I must...give up on best-sellers. Haha!

Really, though, every time (but one!) that I've picked up a popular novel in recent years, I've sworn to never try one again. On my last try, I thought for a good long while about why I don't enjoy them. The perfect explanation came to me in the form of one word: replicatable. Ironic, isn't it, that "replicatable" isn't even a word? "I love words so much that I refuse to read anything that isn't unreplicatable." Hahaha!!

To some is given the gift of writing, to others, the gift to see the gift of great writing. ;-)

My soul is filled by things that cannot be replicated. I love to soak up great art and marvel: "How was this done? How?" Somehow my soul understands that what was done could never have been done by anyone else. Somehow my soul understands that, for a moment, a person's incredible gift tapped into the eternities—something was done that only God could do, but He did it through one of His children. It's too beautiful for words to me. It's my favorite thing people do.

I love to feel like the half-fictional Salieri in Amadeus:
"Displace one note, and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase, and the structure would fall."

I remember a moment while reading The Last Day of a Man Condemned to Death by Victor Hugo (and thank you, too, great translator :)) when I noticed I wasn't breathing. My goodness, I thought! Those sentences...literally...took my breath away....

I love that feeling. I love to marvel—truly, and with awe, marvel—at great art, maybe especially great writing. I love to feel that it is not replicable. But by contrast, to listen to a work that could have been composed by another, read a book that could have been written by another, watch a production that could have been done by another.... It leaves me cold. No matter how diverting it may have been.

Which is why I always swear I've read my last best-seller. They leave me cold! They leave me needing to read a real book. :)

They all feel soooo . . . replicable. Like another could have written it.

The worst of the worst leave me feeling like I could have written it! Which is the worst feeling of all!

I started playing a game the other day imagining some of these books written by great authors. I had so much fun thinking of it! Here goes with the best-sellers I've read in the last few years:

Book: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Author: Kim Edwards

Synopsis: Doctor lies to wife about their newborn dying when, really, he had given the baby away after noticing she had Down Syndrome. Doctor falls apart because of the lie that eats him all his life. Wife falls apart because of mourning that eats her all her life. Down's baby grows up with nice family.

I might have liked it if... 
If the author hadn't reminded us on every stinking page so explicitly: "She was aching for the loss of her child...." Or, "He had given away his baby! And lied about it! And he just couldn't look his wife in the face without his lie haunting him." How stupid do you think I am? You think you had to tell me these are the reasons for the story I'm hearing? And on every other page, at that. BZZZZ!! You're out! Bad writer, bad writer!!


Fantasy genius to rewrite this book: Dostoevsky could have made this super-dark and super-beautiful at the same time. Oh boy, I feel a little awful daring to think of Dostoevsky and this thin story in the same thought. (You have to admit, though...! He'd have made it fascinating! Superbly fascinating.)

Book: My Sister's Keeper

Author: Jodi Piccoult

Synopsis: I don't really remember. Something about a girl being used to help medically treat her dying sister. And some twists and turns...? Something about seizure-sniffing dogs and a whacked-out brother. I actually enjoyed this book but, obviously, it didn't make a lasting impression on me.

I might have liked it if... 
I think I did like it. I remember feeling kind of refreshed by it, like the writing was decent and the story sort of compelling. But.... Not a good sign that I can't say more about this book. BZZZ!! You're out! I forgot you within a couple years, which can only mean bad things. (Maybe I should read it again. ;-))

Book: The Time-Traveler's Wife

Author: Audrey Niffenegger

Synopsis: Poor, poor Clare and Henry.... He's in and out of her life by way of involuntary time travel.

I might have liked it if... 
Ok. This book tore me apart. Into little pieces. I curse this author for making me care so much about Clare and Henry. The last few pages...! Ahhh!! Ahhhh!!! It was like I had turned into a glass form of myself, with a little chisel going at me, then WHAM!!! Total destruction when I wasn't even braced for it. Was the writing amazing? No. Was their sex life a leetle too well-described? Probably. But she made me care about those characters. She made me imagine the beauty that would have been my 17-year-old self, or even my current self, being visited by a 50-year-old Matt who has spent his life with me and loves me to the tune of many, many years. She made me ache at the thought of the inevitability of death. She painted as tangible a picture of waiting with hope and also despair as I had ever felt. She created a beautiful couple.


Fantasy genius to rewrite this book: I'm seeing C.S. Lewis making every bit as beautiful a couple, negotiating the complexities of the time travel far better, and all in all making this book incredibly meaningful. Yes. Yes!

Book: Life Expectancy 

Book: From the Corner of His Eye

Book: Hideaway

Author: Dean Koontz

Synopses: Various intense thriller stories involving such things as: serial killers, boys without eyes who see things, clowns, and so on and so forth. You know. That kind of thing. ;-)

I might have liked it if...
Next to Life of Pi, these were the best written! Dean Koontz! Really! Are you shocked I read three Dean Koontz novels? My uncle gave them to me and, surprise, I actually enjoyed them. He's really a great writer, even if these stories weren't going to change the world.

Book: Life of Pi

Author: Yann Martel

Synopsis: Boy discovers science and religion in most lovely ways. Boy's ship sinks. Boy ends up on small raft with wild animals, surviving on the open sea for many months.

I might have liked it if... 
I. Loved. This. Book. This is the one I mentioned—the one best-seller I was so happy to have read. This writing could not be replicated.... His metaphors! Talk about taking my breath away.... He had this amazing ability to make you see exactly what was going on, down to the core of this boy's soul. And even when the ending made me irate and I began to second-guess all the love I'd had in this story's message, I was still in love with this book for how amazing the writing had been. The first section, where he searches out religion, is one of my favorite things I've read. Ever.

Book: The Hunger Games series

Author: Suzanne Collins

Synopsis: Absolutely shameless author thinks she will be clever and give Twilight a 1984 treatment. Or maybe she wanted to give 1984 a Twilight treatment. (She even tries to make her own 1984 vocabulary. Jabberjays? You've got to be kidding me.) Author writes beyond ridiculously for first book, then gets an editor with new money and dramatically improves for the second and third books. (Just one teeny example out of thousands: the author actually used the word "revenge" instead of "avenge." As in: "She needed to revenge her death." Seriously? That's a 4th-grader's mistake. BZZZ!! Ack!! BZZZ!!) Author's improved writing doesn't actually make her idea any less ridiculous or self-indulgently NOT clever. Everything about this series is infuriatingly mediocre (except in those moments when it's downright poor), and it's made all the more infuriating by being such a page-turner! Makes you wonder what the heck is wrong with you that you can't put them down...! Can't! Put them down!

I might have liked it if... 
If I were reading 1984 instead.


Fantasy genius to rewrite these books: No one. Let's just forget them. (Unlike most books, I actually think this story will work much better as a movie. Might be good! I can't imagine how it won't be the most violent film ever made, though, so still not up my alley.... I have to say, too, that I resent how ridiculously unsafe these books made me feel. Made me want to sleep with my windows closed. Come on! I'd be happy to feel that for a better book, but...aaaahhh!)

Book: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Authors: Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Synopsis: Um. I just read this not long ago and it's already lost to my memory. Something about World War II fluffiness. (Thought WWII couldn't be fluffy, did you? ;-))

I might have liked it if... 
If it hadn't been yet another book that spells everything out for you. Newsflash lady writers (it always seems to be the ladies): good writing doesn't need to name everyone's emotions.


Fantasy genius to rewrite this book: L.M. Montgomery, if we still want carefree (I like! That could be amazing!). If we want more sophisticated genius...hmmm.... Charles Dickens?

Book: Tending Roses

Author: Lisa Wingate

Synopsis: Too boring to remember. Something about a granddaughter and grandma.

I might have liked it if...
Eh. Not even worth wondering about.

Book: Marley and Me

Author: John Grogan

Synopsis: Man loves dog.

I might have liked it if... One word!: J. M. Barrie. (Ok, one word plus two initials.) Brilliant!! Can you even begin to imagine the pure delightfulness that would have been this book? I love this idea so much! Did J.M. Barrie ever write about his dog...?! I would need to read that.

Book: The Help

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Synopsis: It's circa 1964 in Jackson, Mississippi. Hero white lady wants to listen to hero black ladies. They all face wrath. 

I might have liked it if...
If the author were just plain better at writing. The way she switched voices—writing from one character's perspective, then another—just didn't work. (An accent does not a character make.) The way she'd create "suspense" by dangling half-information was just annoying and never enhanced the story. (It was a trick for pure trick's sake. And, boy oh boy, she used it liberally.) I'm sure she thought she was being all profound to leave the story open-ended, too—like the way you talk about a masterpiece leaving you thinking, enhanced by being unresolved. But this story hadn't been good enough for that kind of treatment, and the treatment itself was not even well done. I'm all for an unresolved ending, but this just didn't do it for me.... I felt like she employed all these cliché writing tricks to seem all sophisticated but never pulled it off.


Fantasy genius to rewrite this book: I'm liking the idea of Joseph Conrad on this one. But my original idea of Steinbeck is a goodie.

P.S. Just saw the movie, and I enjoyed it far better than I expected. It is leaps and bounds better than the book. I especially liked that, unlike the book, the hero black ladies—particularly Abilene—maintained ultimate hero status, not so much the white protagonist. Which is how it should be. I mean, come on, Abilene is downright noble. It's offensive to make the white lady THE PROTAGONIST just because she's SOOOOOO amazing that she would TALK to black people, go white lady!! I think the author could have been more successful in the book by making it all from Abilene's perspective or, better yet, 3rd-person omniscient. Or, BEST yet, narrator who turns out at the end to have been Abilene all along.... Hm.

Book: Twilight series

Author: Stephenie Meyer

Synopsis: Like you don't already know.... ;-)

I might have liked it if...
Ok. I admit it! I liked these! Hahahaha!! Surprise of my decade, I tell you. But I found them to be quite fun. (Even if I did overconsume and dream about vampires at my high school for a few weeks afterward....) Not that I'm comparing Stephenie Meyer to the writing greats (nor her editors, who she apparently relied on heavily. Have you seen that unedited Edward book she has online? Beyond terrible! Truly shockingly bad!), but this was not replicable. ;-) She did something no one else could do. The Twilight series is, like it or not, a feat.



Do I really think I'm done with best-sellers? Haha! Somehow they keep finding their way back in my life. But as long as I've got my stack of goodies to go back to for some fresh air afterward, and as long as I can keep playing this fun game of Fantasy Genius Rewriters, I might just survive.... ;-) Haha!

And, who knows.... Maybe another Life of Pi will come along one of these days. Ahhhhh....