If you could live in any book world, which one would it be? The
Featured Grownups question has been tugging at a corner of my brain for a couple of days now. You see, in a very real sense, I already live in a book world. As the author of the Cassie O'Malley Mysteries, I have lived in Cassie's fictional world for nearly a decade now. I've had breakfast with her at The Eggery, ordering my eggs and potatoes from Greta, the Eggery's popular waitress with Tourette's. I've spent the night with Cassie at the Bhait's Motel (we have a very close and entirely platonic relationship, me and Cassie) and met it's unfailingly polite, but eerily creepy proprietor, Mr. Beejit Bhait. I've ridden shotgun with Cassie in her classic Mustang, in the hour before the sun comes up, hunting for the Jersey Devil and I've sat with her at the Mall of New Jersey, nursing a flat soda and hunting for a story.
But what I've learned from my experience as an author is that the writer by himself (or herself) does not create the book world. The book world happens as a result of a partnership that develops between an author and his/her readers. You see, for a very long time, I carry that fictional world around inside my head. It is so real to me that I nearly forget, at that stage, that I am the only person who has visited that particular world. And then, through some magical process, I download the mess from my head to my computer. Amazingly, my publisher sends me a check and she arranges for the world to be captured between the book's covers.
And then, the truly magical thing happens, the most amazing thing of all. Other people read the book and suddenly, they're carrying that world around inside their head too. It's only then that the book world can truly be said to exist. When you find it not in the author's head, but in the reader's head. That is the partnership between a writer and a reader. That is the magic of books.
So, I return to the question. If I could live in any book world, which one would it be? I could go On the Road with Jack Kerouac. I could spend Two Years Before the Mast with Richard Henry Dana. Perhaps I could hang out in Horse Badorties' Number One Pad.
"I am all alone in my pad, man, my piled-up-to-the-ceiling-with-junk pad. Piled with sheet music, with piles of garbage bags bursting with rubbish and encrusted frying pans piled on the floor, embedded with unnameable flecks of putrefied wretchedness in grease. My pad, man, my own little Lower East Side Horse Badorties pad." (from The Fan Man, by William Kotzwinkle).
Maybe I could check out what's going on at Queenie's apartment, instead.
"Queenie was a blond, and her age stood still,
And she danced twice a day in vaudeville.
Grey eyes.
Lips like coals aglow.
Her face was a tinted mask of snow.
What hips-
What shoulders-
What a back she had!
Her legs were built to drive men mad.
And she did.
She would skid.
But sooner or later they bored her:
Sixteen a year was her order." (from The Wild Party, by Joseph Moncure March)
As tempting as that all sounds, I think if I really had to choose, I'd like to live on Mulberry Street where a writer's genius and a little boy's imagination conspire to turn a "plain horse and wagon" into the most fantastical of parades and, somewhere along that parade route, cement a lifetime love affair with books.
"With a roar of its motor an airplane appears
And dumps out confetti while everyone cheers.
And that makes a story that's really not Bad!
But it still could be better. Suppose that I add...
A Chinese man who eats with sticks...
A big Magician doing tricks...
A ten-foot beard that needs a comb...
No time for more, I'm almost home."
(from And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, by Dr. Seuss)
If I could live in any book world, which one would it be? Mulberry Street.
(If you'd like to know more about the Cassie O'Malley Mysteries, please visit my website -
jeffmarkowitz.com.)
Comments (22)
I would live in The Hollows, as created by my favorite author, Kim Harrison. I would like to be a witch, or a living vamp, I think.
What a gentle post for you to write, Jeff. You're getting mellower.
@AprilsPlace - I know. I'm turning into such a teddy bear. Perhaps I need to start a series of blog posts about serial killers and other miscreants and evil-doers...
If I were to live in any book world, I think it would be Discworld. I could imagine walking the streets of Ankh Morpok, experiencing the sights, sounds and especially the smells.
This is a good post. I live in the world of the book I'm writing and I can't wait for people to read it.
I would have a hard time choosing my favorite book world. I was leaning toward J.R.R. Tolkien until I read this.
I think a good author is like a good actor, with both you can imagine what they would write/how they would be outside of the book or script.
I think your world with Cassie O'Malley or any other world of your creation is more legit for a writer. They are places where you can do what you are driven to do and places where you can grow and change things. I suspect if writers truly had to be in another writer's created world they would eventually hate the place. Not that writers cannot be readers, but I do not believe a writer can ever stop being a writer and succumb the way a pure reader can. I dig both and am glad there are such things as pure readers in the world. Knowing which created worlds they'd choose is very interesting. But for a writer, I'd feel such sympathy. I'd want to give him or her an escape hatch no matter how wonderfully fitting someone else's created world was. I think for a writer the question morphs into: Which prison is going to be the best?
The Fan Man and I are complete opposites! He must be related to the good guy!
@GoodGuyTheBoss - You think perhaps, The Fan Man could benefit from a bit of feng shui?
Ooooh, this is a different take on the topic. I like it! Linking you now
It's a toss up. Steinbeck's "Travels With Charlie" or Asimov's "Foundation" Series. Having a dog with me in Foundation would be the best of both worlds, although not necessarily a poodle.
I'm reminded of a documentary about Stephen King during which a college classmate and buddy of King's was asked what he thought was the secret to King's success. After thinking a moment the friend answered, "We had a creative writing professor who told us, "If you want to be a successful writer don't just make things up out of thin air. Write stories based on real experiences you've had in your life." That gave me a chuckle.
Any Seuss would be a fun place to live. Who wouldn't be happy all the time when you could talk like that?
Oh, the place I would go with brains in my head and feet in my shoes...
I loved that book when I was little. I think that was the first of the Dr. Seuss books. Let's see.......what would I pick now? Probably Jan Karon's Mitford series, and I would live near Father Tim and Cynthia.
We were talking of "Travels with Charlie" just last night, I mentioned that I thought my father in-law might enjoy it as he is finally home recouperating from almost a year in the hospital. However, I remember the days of Steinbecks journey in my own lifetime. Where I would go is the town of Green Town, Illinois a pseudonym for Ray Bradbury's home town of Waukegan, Illinois in the year 1928. Unlike his science ficton this is a semi-autobiography of the summer when he was 10 years old. A sleepy little town where in the morning you could tell the timeof morning by the screen door sounds, the smell of a neighbor's bacon and coffee as they made breakfast. You could lay on the porch and hear the sound of a push lawnmower. Ah...if you have ever heard that sound you will never forget it. Mom didn't take you to your friend's house, they were close enough you could walk and if you were lucky you had a bicycle. People had names then, not just the neighbor two doors down. I haven't read the book in a long time, but I think now when it comes back from dad, I will go visit again. ~ mom
I love what you said about the book really becoming real when other people have read it and the story now lives in their minds, too. I know there is an extra special thrill for me when people read my books and the story grows.
@mommachatter -
Love your description of sitting outside and hearing the slam of a screen door, smelling the coffee and bacon, etc. Really evoked some good images and memories.I don't know of the book you chose, but this is a great post nonetheless !
Ok so I don't know what I did to the comment I wrote....but I can't read (or watch) much mystery stuff because I have nightmares. ha! I prefer cheesy romance novels that take me away from reality!
Curious, have you watched the show "Castle"? He's a mystery writer....but it's really more silly than anything!
Great post! I think I'm going to have to check out your site. Gonna head there in just a bit!
I know what you mean by living in your own books. One thing I love about writing is living in your story. I write mostly sci-fi and fantasy, and living in those worlds is fantastic. I sometimes write horror, and when I told my wife I sometimes get chills writing the scary stuff, she laughed and said, I hope you don't write erotica.
You chose a fantasy world of Dr. Seuss...great choice. With tongue-in-cheek I chose the fantasy world of Al Capp. LOL