Developing the Critical Eye

Developing Your Critical Eye

In This Chapter

• What makes a work of fiction absorbing?

• Learning to read nonfictions

• Start asking (more) questions

• Uncovering author techniques

• Backing up your reading with even more reading and research

Reading is a growth experience. As you change, so do your reading tastes. Now that you've made the conscious decision to learn more, it is inevitable that you will start to look deeper into the literature you choose to read. But what exactly are you looking for?

There's the rub! It's simple, really; you're looking for connections in the text: between events, between thoughts, between ideas, between the author and his era, between the author and his readers ... and the list goes on. In this chapter, we take a deeper look at the techniques authors use to get their point(s) across, both in fiction and nonfiction.

What to Expect from Fiction

Let's begin with some definitions and some criteria. A work of fiction is a piece of imaginary prose that can be in the form of a novel, novella, or short story. A novel is a long work of fiction, whereas a novella is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. The writer of a piece of fiction may draw on his or her own experiences or imagination to create the story. What makes it fiction is that strictly speaking, it is made up—created out of the thoughts and feelings of the writer.

You should approach reading fiction as you might approach any adventure (such as a vacation, for example). Reading a work of fiction is like taking a trip to an unfamiliar location. You are entering a world of the unknown.

I Just Can't Put It Down!

As a reader, there's no better feeling than picking up a book that's so absorbing you can't put it down. Some book lovers will read very slowly to put off the inevitable end of a book. It's an amazing feeling when a book grabs you so completely that you find yourself walking down the street, book in hand, knocking into lampposts and fellow pedestrians. (Well, it might not be so amazing for those people you bump into!)

What is it that makes a particular piece of fiction so absorbing? Generally speaking, it's the element of surprise, the author's ability to tell the story in such a way that you just have to know more. You have a secret desire to skip ahead and find out what happens next (but resist the temptation to do that—you'll ruin the surprises along the way!).

The Able Author

A story should be interesting or funny enough to hold your interest and make you want to know more about what happens next. The author should care enough about his characters (or at least be involved enough) to make you care about them, too. The plot should flow and make connections between events, thoughts, and feelings as it moves along. It should contain the basic structure of rising action, climax, and falling action that leads to some kind of resolution.

Fiction is sometimes written strictly for entertainment purposes without expecting to teach you much of anything. Other times the author has a larger message that he depicts through allegory, a symbolic statement of an idea, philosophy, emotion or feeling, or all of those elements combined. We talk more about allegory in later pages What you should come away with by the time you close the book is a new perspective, a new insight into a universal theme. Isn't that what you expect from a vacation—to come back with new images and new ideas?

How to Read Fiction

You've already learned the basic structure of fiction. But what makes fiction different from any other form of writing, aside from the fact that it is imaginary?

In addition to identifying the structure of a piece of fiction, it's essential to ask yourself two questions as you read:

• Who is telling the story?

• How is it being told?

In answering these questions, you're identifying the narrative voice and the point of view. The narrative voice is the voice of the person telling the story (not to be confused with the author). Point of view determines how much the narrator knows and how the story is told. These concepts are discussed in detail in the next pages. For now, however, just be aware that the narrator has a great influence on how the story ultimately unfolds.

Accepting the Author's Choices

As the reader, try to begin every fiction reading experience with an open mind. Even if you don't necessarily learn something new, and even if you don't particularly like the book, authors are quite adept at depicting old ideas in completely new ways. The story line, the characters, the atmosphere, and the descriptions of a new book just might show you a different way of looking at things. The author's creative process helps you see things in new ways. The reader's creative process involves going along with the author for the ride.

I Don't Get It

If the author is successful in translating his or her ideas to you through the story, the author has done what he or she intended to do. If you walk away scratching your head, there could be one of two things going on: either the author failed to communicate with you, or you failed to grasp the intended meaning. Just as there are bad readers, there are bad writers. So don't jump to the conclusion that the inability to connect to the author or to the story is your fault. Sometimes it just happens.

Understanding Nonfiction

Now it's time to switch gears. Nonfiction is a completely different from fiction in form and style of writing. Rather than finding its origins strictly in imagination, nonfiction is based on facts. Whether it it's a how-to book, biography, autobiography, or a book about a specialty area such as physics or computers, the author's purpose is to convey information to you — real information in as "true" a form as possible.

When you pick up a nonfiction book, you are usually looking for specialized information, and the one thing you may demand of the writer is that he or she be clear. If the book is assigned to you for a class, you might have to trudge through difficult information to get to the root of what you need to learn; if it's a book of your choosing, however, the style of the writing and how the information is presented will be important in making your selection. Your choice of book has everything to do with your personal preferences.

Specialty Books

If you are choosing a book in an area of special study, clarity should be your first criteria.

Regina knows a person who recently lost her job and needed to update her computer knowledge and skills to find new employment. She took some computer classes, but, unfortunately, she couldn't keep up with the class because the teacher was racing through the material like he was trying to make the Guinness Book of World Records for speed teaching. So she went to a local bookstore to pick up additional texts that she could follow at her own pace.

Regina's friend knew that some of the material might be over her head and she would need a text that would start with the basics. What she found, to her surprise, was not so much that the books were over her head, but that many of them were disorganized and poorly written. She had to really look around before she found something she could follow and that would help her update her computer skills on her own. Although some of these how-to books may have appealed to one person, chances are there are a lot people like Regina's friend who would not have been able to follow these texts. The point is that the material must be clear, which means it must be organized in an easy-to-follow style, and it must be written so that a beginner can understand the content.

Who Is This Author, Anyway?

The second criteria for choosing nonfiction is to expect help from an author that goes beyond the style of writing. Check out the information on the back cover or inside the dust jacket, or look for a section called "About the Author." (In this book, the "About the Authors" section is on the inside back cover.) Knowing about the author's background and knowledge base will help you make your choice. If you are confident in the author's expertise in the subject, you may be more likely to want to read the book.

There may be other references in the book that will convince you that what you are reading is based on a solid knowledge base and therefore as accurate as you would expect a work of nonfiction to be. You may find a preface, introduction, glossary, bibliography, as well as footnotes and/or endnotes. The more information the book contains, the more credibility you are likely to feel it holds. (See Chapter 4 for more on how a book is structured.)

The reason for all of these extras is that the author wants to help you to understand the material more completely. It's important that the author add additional references and information to back up the text and to show you that he or she is a reliable source that you can count on for accurate information. The author also wants you to have the sources so that you can further your study of the topic. Just keep in mind that just because a book references many different sources and seems to have all the elements required of a work of nonfiction, the most important thing is that you understand the text.

Biographies

You have to be especially careful about whom the author of a biography is. (Remember, a biography is the story about someone's life told by someone other than the person who lived that life.) Who is telling the story exactly? A family member? A friend? A housekeeper? Or someone who simply has an interest in studying that person's life?

Is the person still alive? Is the author writing the life story from historical documentation or from eyewitness observation? You need to do your research before you accept a biography as fact.

Unauthorized biographies are written without the subject's consent or cooperation. Although these books claim to tell the true life story of someone, you really need to check out the author and his credentials before you can trust the story being told.

Usually, there's some hidden agenda involved in these books, whether it's money, revenge, or the author's quest for fame. So although you might enjoy these juicy reads, keep in mind these books should really be classified as entertainment.

Let's look at the one of the most notorious biographies, Mommie Dearest, about the life of the legendary screen actress Joan Crawford, star of many films from the 1920s through the 1970s. Mommie Dearest was a book before it hit the big screen in the early 1980s. As you may know, Joan Crawford was depicted in both the film and the biography as anything but a loving mother of her adopted children. In fact, she was portrayed as an obsessive-compulsive egomaniac who often used her children to show what a great benefactress she was. In the end, when she died, she left daughter

Christina absolutely nothing in her will.

Consider who the author of this biography is: Christina Crawford herself. Now ask yourself, was Christina trying to get in the last word as revenge against her mother's lack of generosity, or was she finally free to tell the world the truth about what went on behind the closed doors of Joan Crawford's "perfect" world? Was she trying to make her own name known? (She went on to publish a novel shortly after Mommie Dearest came out.) Mommie Dearest was published in 1978, a year after her mother's death. Did Joan Crawford know that her daughter was writing this book and subsequently cut her out of the will? No one can know the truth for sure.

In the case of Mommie Dearest, knowing the identity of the author is critical to being able to believe the content of the book. This is true for many biographies.

Autobiographies

Again, with autobiographies, it's important to consider who the author is. Obviously, because an autobiography is a book written about one's own life, you would expect it to be as close to the truth as possible. (This applies to memoirs as well, which tell of significant events in a person's life. Like an autobiography, a memoir is written by the person who experienced the life events.) Keep in mind that those who write a book about themselves believe they have something of interest to say. Anyone can write an autobiography, but readership will depend on the level of interest in that person, and the more interesting the story, the more likely it is that the book will sell well (and make the author oodles of money). Most autobiographies are written by someone in the public spotlight.

Sometimes writers of autobiographies feel they have something to explain about themselves. Perhaps a person believes he or she has been misunderstood by the public and writes a book to set the record straight. Maybe the author is a person who has been gossiped about and feels he or she needs to respond to some of the things that have been said. In some cases, autobiographies are written because the person just wants to be remembered from his or her own point of view rather than that of someone else or a collective audience.

Asking Questions and Finding Arguments

What fiction and nonfiction have in common is that you begin both reading experiences with a desire to know more. With a work of fiction, you have chosen to read it because, for some reason, the story appeals to your senses, or to your personality, or to your life circumstance at any given time. Maybe you picked it up because it had an interesting title or a pretty cover or because you enjoyed other books by that author. It doesn't matter why, really; what matters is that the book is in your hands and you're reading it. The same is true for nonfiction material. Something caught your attention, and now it's in your grasp or on your bookshelf.

What Do You Want to Know?

The most important thing is to start asking questions as soon as you develop the desire to know more about the topic. Suppose you have an interest in the war in Iraq and want to know more. Do you want to hear the answer from someone in the Bush administration or do you want to hear it from a political activist's point of view? What is it that you want to know? Are you looking for a reliable and informed viewpoint?

A scholarly viewpoint? Or a radical viewpoint? You don't even have the book in your hands yet, and you've already begun to ask yourself questions about what you want to read in regard to the topic. Maybe you're interested in furniture and want to learn how to build your own mahogany dining room set. Whose book will you read? One written by a professional furniture crafter or one written by a self-taught carpenter? Again, we get back to you and the kind of questions you bring to a subject and to an author. These will ultimately lead to whatever opinions and arguments (which support your opinions) you are going to develop. Not all works of nonfiction will lead you to forming such strong ideas, however. Sometimes a nonfiction book is just a book that will satisfy a curiosity you have. Maybe you want to know more about growing African violets. In that case, you'll pick up the book with the most appealing style. There's no need to form an opinion or an argument supporting the theory behind growing African violets. You will just want to satisfy a curiosity and learn something new.

On the other hand, you may have always wanted to read the Roosevelt-Churchill letters because you wanted to find out how these two heads of state dealt with World War II. These are actual letters, so what you see is what you get. There is no interpretation of the letters unless you dig deeper. You will likely find that many political historians have interpreted these letters in several different ways. But without any background material, you are left on your own to read and comprehend what these two men said to each other and how their words led to action that would affect the world from that point on.

It is inevitable that you will form questions as you read the letters. (Why didn't Roosevelt or Churchill see what Stalin was up to? Why didn't Roosevelt go to war sooner?) Your questions may not be answered by the letters themselves. You will either have to find the answers on your own through research or you will have to research what others have to say about the letters in order to formulate further opinion on the material. While you are reading, however, it is up to you to form your opinions, build your arguments, and develop your own interpretations. Sounds like some serious work, but this is exactly why you're reading in the first place.

When you are able to make up your own mind about the material, you will find new doors opening to you everywhere you turn in your reading experiences. This is why we call it a voyage of discovery. What you are discovering is what you believe and what you decide for yourself by means of reading the ideas and opinions of someone else.

Fact or Fiction?

With fiction, you know that what you're being told isn't being presented as true. When you read nonfiction, it's important to have a system of checks and balances so that you can stop and evaluate the author's point of view from time to time to determine whether he is being objective. Here are questions to consider as you read nonfiction:

• What are the facts being presented?

• How are they being presented? Are they clear and straightforward or muddled and perplexing?

• Is the author expressing an opinion? If so, what is it?

• How is he or she interpreting the facts?

• Do I see a particular bias or perspectives in the text?

• How does that perspective compare against what I already know or believe?

• Is this the first time I've read this point of view?

• Do I need to find further reading material to make up my mind about this author or the subject matter?

• Have I read enough about this topic to formulate my own arguments or do I need to do more research?

If you just accept the author as an authority on the topic and don't ask yourself questions such as these, you're not doing your job as an active reader or as a thinker. You should question everything that is stated as a fact. Question the point of view, research the background, and find your own answers. You may or may not come to the same conclusions as the authors. What is most important is that you have come to a conclusion that is your own—otherwise you might just be regurgitating someone else's biases or points of view.

Putting It All in Perspective

Who knew there was so much involved in reading? Not many of us, or we wouldn't need reference guides such as this one to help us along. There is so much more involved in reading than what you could possibly have learned in high school.

Now that you have all this information, it's time to make it work for you. Try following this simple list of questions (yes, more questions ...) to guide you in your reading. Some apply to fiction, some to nonfiction, and some to both:

• Based on what I know about it, why did I pick this book?

• Who is the narrator?

• What is the point of view?

• What is the author's point of view?

• What is the author trying to tell me?

• What is the theme?

• How does the author's opinion differ from what I already know and believe?

• What do I think about the story or book?

• How has this reading experience affected me?

So, What Do You Think?

This is the most important question of all, because that's the whole point, isn't it?

When all is said and done, what matters most is what you take away from the book.

The author's opinions and feelings are still out there waiting for another reader to interpret. Although two people may walk away with many of the same thoughts, their own experiences and personalities will make one reading experience different from the next.

If your curiosity leads you to further explorations, the books you are choosing and learning from are helping you to grow, be it in the area of politics, physics, or growing African violets. More than anything else, your reading experiences should make you a better you.

Drawing Conclusions

Be cautious when it comes to drawing conclusions. At best, you should draw only tentative conclusions, at least at first. No book can give you everything you want or need. There can be gaps in information or too much said about one topic and perhaps not enough about another. That's to be expected. The best you can do is pick up some information from a single text, which hopefully will lead you to formulate more questions that another author addresses in a different book.

Life is a never-ending process of learning. If you could pick up all the information you would ever need on a particular subject from one book, you would be all set. But that's not likely to happen. Even when an author is an expert in a given field, he will usually lean toward a preferred theory, which you may completely disagree with. It's up to you to find out about the other theories out there and then come to your own educated conclusion.

Your conclusions will be largely based on your expectations from a piece of writing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. And what you may be looking for can be found in pieces and parts of several different books. Be patient. Keep looking. Keep reading. There isn't any book that you pick up that you aren't going to get something out of, if, at least, it's written in an interesting and engaging way.

The Least You Need to Know

• Asking questions of yourself and of the author and his or her subject matter is the first step toward developing as a reader.

• Fiction and nonfiction differ in the questions that you ask yourself before, during, and after your reading experience.

• It is important to pay attention to an author's techniques and expertise. It is another way he or she is trying to communicate with the reader.

• Never take anything an author says at face value. Learn to recognize biases and opinions in yourself as well as in the author.

• Don't expect one book to be all things to all readers. It is almost always necessary to go looking for more information either about the author or about the subject matter.