Appeal Factors

Three book reviews and three ways of working with the appeal factors: this is pretty straightforward, I will use a different method for each book review.

In the name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and the Continuum Method

The first method is the continuum in which each reader responds differently to each of the eight appeal factors (pacing, characterization, story line, language, setting, detail, tone and learning/experiencing). It goes from total indifference to great influence on the reading experience.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like to learn when I read. And In the Name of the Rose is a perfect example of historical fiction that teaches you a lot of facts and details about the period and the setting, here 14^th century Northern Italy. In that regard, the learning/experiencing of this novel is very close to a non-fiction book. The details are omnipresent. Not only the medieval way of life and mentality, but also about the story. The storyline concerns a series of mysterious murders in a Benedictine monastery. As a detective thriller, In the Name of the Rose has a fast pace and is a page turner, despite the theological arguments and the erudite language of certain passages. The tone is rather naive and inquisitive because the narrator is a young novice monk, new to the area and the priesthood, as most readers themselves are. Most of the characters are ambiguous, and their motives are hidden from the readers. Until the end, when the masks and lies are unveiled by the main protagonist/detective to all, including the readers.

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry and Saricks Method

The Saricks Method is based on genres and identifies four of them: Adrenaline (Thrillers, Adventures, Suspense, Romantic Suspense), Intellect (Science-Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mysteries, Psychological Suspense), Emotion (Romance, Horror, Gentle Reads, Chick Lit, Women’s Lives) and Landscape (Westerns, Fantasy, Historical).

Under the Volcano is a good example of a literacy fiction. Lowry is often describes as a writer’s writer. The book is even on the list of the best 100 novels English language of the 20^th century by the Modern Library. The story takes place in a single day, the Day of the Dead in a small Mexican town called Quauhnachuac. The main character is an alcoholic consul from the UK looking for his next drink. During that day, the reader learns about lost love and ambition, difficult relationships and hiding truths, boredom and violence, and more literary themes.

According to the Saricks Method, readers who like Under the Volcano will also like Science-Fiction, Mysteries and Psychological Suspense. All those genres focus on language and characters. So readers who value those two appeal factors will like Under the Volcano. Lowry uses beautiful and meaningful language, each of his words was cautiously decided and contains many level of meanings and significances. So far for the characters, their inner world is as rich as complex. At times it seems the characters discover their deep motivations and desires at the same time as the reader.

Maus by Art Spiegelman and the Doorway Method

Personally, I feel the doorway method is the easier way to work with appeal factors. Like Neal Wyatt wrote, most readers already use the four doorways (story, setting, character and language) to describe books and movies. However, Neal also wrote that the two most influential appeal factors on the readers are the pacing and the tone. So I will use them as well.

Maus was published by in Art Spiegelman between 1980 and 1991 in Raw, a small carton magazine. It is a true story about the author’s Jewish family during WWII. In a way, it is a historical fiction written as a graphic novel, one of the first graphic novels to reach the general public. As a holocaust fiction, it can be compared to Night by Elie Wiesel or If this is a man by Primo Levi. The setting is Europe, mainly Poland, under Nazi occupation and how the civil population, Jewish and not, tries to survive. The tone is dark as the subject, but still lighter than Wiesel or Levi by the utilization of drawings and the illustrations of daily situations. Also the characters are portrayed as animals rather than human. This allegory creates a aloofness between the reader and the story, which made the tone of the book almost comical. Thus, the Jewish people are represented as mice, the German people as cats, the French people as frogs, the Polish people as pigs, etc. As a graphic novel, the pace is determined by the reader. One can read the dialogue very fast without paying too much attention to the drawings, while the other can examines each square for each detail. Finally, the language is very much alive, being mostly dialogue, but visual as well.

Week 1 Assignment 5

Very astute answers.

My favorite one is The Catcher in the Rye, the book “does not really have a story.”

I have to say, the kids who wrote about The Great Gatsby and To kill a Mockingbird have quite a imagination. 

Week 1 Assignment 4

For the Recommended Links – Books, I choose Goodreads. I just happen to have opened a Goodreads account (I know, I know, I am a few years late) and I feel I should already be familiar with the website and what it has to offer.

I had a hard time choosing the Recommended Links – Genre. Only because I am not familiar with any of the four options (mystery, SF, Urban or Romance). I read a lot of non-fiction (history, memoirs and essays), and I even like my novels to be set in a real place and time. To me, reading is a way to understand reality, not to escape from it. This is why I finally settle on the opposite of reality, something I would never read on my own: Science-Fiction/Fantasy.

Week 1 Assignment 3

I feel Reader Advisory is like swimming, you can read about it as much as you want, you will never really know it till you do it. However, the twelve RA golden rules are a good framework to start.

The first three rules (read, write and prepare) are common sense. More you read, write and prepare, easier it will be. A broad knowledge about books and DVDs is a good start, but the art of RA is the way to apply this expertise in specific situations.

Rule 10 (keep current) and rule 12 (pass it on) also concern training. RA is a never ending skill, and one has to keep learning about new trends. And there is no better and easier way than exchanging with colleagues. We all have our specialties and tastes, why not sharing them. Like Lincoln would say, one can have all the answers some of the time, and some of the answers all the time, but one cannot have all the answers all the time. A whole team of librarians might, though.

Rule 5 and 6 (don’t pigeonhole the readers and the books) are the most important to me. Everybody is different, and will react differently to the same book. Books, like people, cannot be reduced to a single category. The best thing about books is to be surprised, to discover an excellent book when you only open it “to see”.

I put rule 4 (attitude) and rule 11 (enjoy yourself) together. I always try to the customer at ease, not to be too serious or to have definitive answers. I want to make the customer try new books and AV’s, not to impose them on her or him.

Finally, rules 7 (it’s not personal), 8 (no perfect answer), 9 (invite back the customer) show how RA is not a science. It’s not because I love a book than a specific customer will like it as well. It’s not about my taste, but the books themselves. The only way to find out if a customer likes something is to give it a try. If s/he likes it, good, if not, stop reading, bring it back to the library and try something else. 

Week 1 Assignment 1 &2

While I scored 70% in the adult section, I only found 50% of the titles in the children section. Children books are certainly my weakness. I blame it on my non-American childhood, but also on the fact that as a kid I was more interested by “grown up” books than children’s. It’s certainly something I can work on. Still, I am surprised to have beat the average (39%) for the children section.

For the second assignment, I only missed one out of twelve (the Hard SF). Obviously, I am good to judge a book by its cover. In a way, it’s supposed to be easy, publishers want the customer to be able to know immediately what kind of book they are buying. I don’t take too much credit on this one.