How To Read A Novel Without Really Reading It

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Professors don’t have any mercy on students. If they did, they wouldn’t make them read at all, much less a whole novel (or even several of the damned things). Haven’t these old fossils heard? We’re living in the Digital Age! Books are passé, as dead as the slaughtered trees from which they’re made. If they have to be printed (and they don’t), they’re best used as doorstops, not educational resources.

 

But, for good or ill, professors, like books, are here, it seems, to stay, and since they had to read the same books they’re forcing their students to read (payback is a bitch!), they’re not about to let any of their pupils off the hook.

 

What’s a student to do?

 

I have a few tips on how to read a novel without really reading it. Hence, my essay’s title, “How To Read A Novel Without Really Reading It.” (Always put the titles of articles or essays in quotation marks.)

Follow these easy steps, and the pain associated with reading, although it won’t go away completely, will be reduced to manageable proportions. 

1. First, read the blurb. A blurb is the text on the inside of a hardback book’s flyleaf (the paper cover in which hardback books are usually wrapped) or on the back cover of a paperback. I know, I know, you’re asking, Why would I want to read even more text than I already have to read? The damned novel is way more than enough already. No doubt, you’re also thinking, This is the stupidest advice I’ve ever run across for avoiding reading! Don’t quit reading! Not yet. Give me a chance to explain. You’ll see there’s a method to my madness. There’s somewhere between 200 and 250 words in the typical blurb. That sounds like a LOT of “extra” words to read, I know, but, by reading them, you’re saving yourself from having to read maybe fifty, or even 100, PAGES of the novel itself, each one of which can contain 400 word or more, so, conservatively, that’s a savings of between 20,000 to 40,000 words! (Aren’t you glad you didn’t quit reading my essay.) It gets better. As a result of having read the blurb, you will know certain facts about the novel that you can use in your book report, lit crit essay, or whatever the hell your professor’s making you write. For example, you will know the main character’s name. (In your essay, refer to him or her as the “protagonist”; professors are windbags, and they like to read, as well as speak, long words.) You will know the setting. You will know the basic storyline, or plot. You will probably learn the inciting moment. You may also learn the names of lesser, supporting characters. All this for only 250 words or less!
2. Realize that a chapter can be summarized in one sentence. Then, read the chapter only until you can summarize it in one sentence. (Unfortunately, a “Prologue” and an “Epilogue,” if they are part of the novel, must also be read and summarized.)
3. After each chapter, write a sentence that summarizes what it presented. Here are examples, summarizing the prologue and the first two chapters of Lincoln Child’s novel, Terminal Freeze (always italicize the title of a novel): (Prologue) A Native American shaman’s attempt to appease the gods for a woman’s careless violation of a taboo fails, requiring him to take the woman southward, to a mountain, where a greater violation of a different taboo has occurred. (Chapter 1) The face of a melting glacier falls away, revealing the mouth of an ice cave. (Chapter 2) Scientists exploring the cave find a monstrous beast frozen in the ice. (When you finish summarizing each chapter of the novel, you will have summarized the whole book. For example, there are 53 chapters, a “Prologue,” and an “Epilogue” in Terminal Freeze. Therefore, the whole damned thing can be summarized in 55 sentences. Not bad.)
4. Keep a list of characters’ names, brief phrases that identify them, and the names of the places in which the action takes place. Here are examples from the first three chapters of Terminal Freeze: (Prologue) Usuguk (shaman), Nulathe (woman who violates taboo), Koukdjuak the Hunter (god); igloo village in an “arctic desolation”; (Chapter 1) Evan Marshall (protagonist; a paleoecologist), Gerald Sully (research party leader)., Wright Faraday (evolutionary biologist)--they work for Northern Massachusetts University in Woburn and are researching global warming in Alaska’s federal Wildlife Zone; their base is at Mount Fear Remote Sensing Installation, which they’ve rented from the government; (Chapter 2) Penny Barbour (fourth member of the scientific research team, a computer scientist), Ang Chen (graduate student)
5. Most of the text in a novel is unnecessary. It’s filler, the rambling philosophical musings, existential questioning, and self-indulgent wishful thinking of the author, or descriptions of various persons, places, or things, including, believe it or not, the weather, little if any of which has any bearing on what is actually happening in the story itself and may be ignored without any ill effect on your grade, so SKIP IT. Instead, read just the dialogue (the words supposedly spoken by people--the characters--who don’t even exist). By reading just the dialogue, you will be able to keep track of the story well enough to summarize it (remember,. Each chapter can be reduced to a single sentence!). Only dip into the descriptive or expository (explanatory) blocks of text when you need to do so to reestablish a sense of continuity and context--maybe twice or so every four or five chapters. You will find that you are skipping entire pages of the text and still know what’s going on, kind of like returning to a movie after a bathroom break, which just goes to show you that most of a novel is unnecessary padding.
6. After reading and summarizing each chapter and updating your list of characters and settings, stop! You are done with the book. Do NOT return to the novel. Close the cover! You are finished! Do not second guess yourself, wondering whether you missed something (you didn’t) or whether your summaries are detailed enough (they are). It’s a novel you’re reading (or, if you follow my guidelines you are not reading, not the Bible or the Koran of the Bhagavad Vita or even the Kama Sutra. How important can a book of fiction be, anyway? (Not very!) You’ve done more than enough, so quit already!

That’s all there is to it, six simple steps. Now you have all the information you need to write your book review or your lit crit essay, or whatever the hell your professor’s making you write. What you do with the information is up to you.

 

Anatomy of the Sitcom: “The Haunted House”

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

“The Haunted House,“ episode 98 (Season Four)

Several of the scripts for The Andy Griffith Show featured supernatural or paranormal themes. (For an explanation of the difference between these two terms, visit my other blog, Chillers and Thrillers: A Blog on the Theory and Practice of Horror.) One of these is episode 98 (season four), “The Haunted House,” by Harvey Bullock. Like many of the other episodes of the show, this one is structured according to a series of problematic situations, the results of these problems, an attempted solution to each problem (which only gives rise to another problem), a turning point, and a recognition by the main character that leads to a resolution, which is then followed by the results of the resolution:

Initial Problem: Opie hits a baseball thrown by a friend and breaks a window at the abandoned Rimshaw house.

Results: Both boys are nervous about retrieving the ball because the house is rumored to be haunted. As they approach the door, they hear a spooky noise that scares them away. They go to the courthouse and tell their story to Andy and Barney. The men tell them it was probably just the whistling wind. Andy wants them to stay out of the house because it is likely that the floorboards are loose.

Solution-Problem: Then, sensing that Barney was putting up a false front when he said there was nothing to be afraid of, Andy asks his deputy to go get the ball for the boys.

Results: While it is clear that Barney doesn’t want to do it, he can’t back out now. When Gomer suddenly comes by, Barney quickly enlists him to come along. The nervous deputy enters the house first--”Age before beauty,” says Gomer. Unfortunately, they don’t get much farther than the boys did. Ghostly moans send them scrambling for the door. Back at the courthouse, Andy chides Barney for failing to get the ball and for believing the house is haunted. Barney says that he recalls that when old man Rimshaw died, his last wish was for his home to remain undisturbed. Otis Campbell chimes in with rumors he has heard: the walls move, the eyes on the portrait of Mr. Rimshaw seem to follow a person around the room, and axes float through the air.

Solution-Problem: Andy dismisses all this as nonsense, and he goes to the Rimshaw house with Barney and Gomer in tow. They quickly locate the baseball, and despite objections from his cohorts, Andy insists they look around the place.

Results: While he wanders off into another room, Barney and Gomer slowly move around the room, looking scared to death. Suddenly, Gomer disappears! Barney panics, and Andy returns. Gomer suddenly reappears. He had inadvertently stepped into a closet or something. The eerie thing is, Gomer says that someone or something pushed him out. Next, Andy notices that the wallpaper above the fireplace is peeling and the wall is warm. Barney suggests that maybe an old tramp has been using the fireplace. Andy ventures upstairs and asks Barney and Gomer to check out the cellar. Gomer correctly surmises that the cellar is downstairs. When Barney opens the cellar door, he sees an ax. Too scared to go down the stairs, he softly inquires, “Any old tramps down there?” then quickly shuts the door. Gomer tells Barney that legend has it that Rimshaw put chains on his hired hand and then killed him with an ax. Barney notices the eyes on the Rimshaw portrait following him. When he tells Andy, Andy responds that it’s probably a trick of the light.

Turning Point: Barney knocks on the wall--and his knock is answered. Andy gets the same result when he knocks.

Moment of Recognition (implied, rather than explicit, in this episode): Suddenly, Andy appears frightened. He orders loudly, “Let’s get out of here!” Barney and Gomer quickly bolt out of the house, but Andy remains. He has a plan in mind.Results: Suddenly, we see Otis and the notorious moonshiner Big Jack Anderson in the house. They are laughing, and Big Jack is quite proud of the fact that his scare tactics have worked. He has found the perfect spot for his still, and claims he could probably stay there for twenty years. As they come out of their hiding place, believing the house is empty, they get the shock of their lives. They witness an ax hanging in the air, a baseball rolling down the stairs, and the eyes moving on the portrait. They make tracks leaving the house. Meanwhile, Barney has bravely determined he must go rescue Andy, so he comes in the rear entrance. He sees the suspended ax and hears moaning. He nearly passes out from fright before Andy can explain things.

Resolution: The lawmen later use the infamous ax to smash Big Jack’s still. Andy captures Anderson and surrenders him to Federal Agent Bowden of the Alcohol Control Division.

Results: As usual, Andy generously shares the capture credit, in this case with Barney and Gomer.


Note: The plot synopsis is taken, nearly verbatim, from Dale Robinson and David Fernandes’ The Definitive Andy Griffith Show Reference: Episode-by-Episode, with Cast and Production Biographies and a Guide to Collectibles (McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, NC, and London, 1996).

Anatomy of the Sitcom: “Gomer the House Guest"

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

“Gomer the House Guest,” episode 97 (Season Four)


This episode is constructed of a series of problems (conflicts), followed by its results (often examples of a character’s behavior), and solutions which themselves give rise to additional problems (often examples of a character‘s behavior or the results of the attempted solution). The problems are and solutions are situations; the examples of instances of a character’s behavior (action).

Near the middle of the story, a turning point occurs, during which the protagonist plans to take, or actually takes, an action that moves the plot in the opposite direction from that in which it has been progressing. At some point, toward the end of the story, the protagonist makes a discovery (moment of recognition), which allows him or her to solve the problem once and for all time (resolution), and the story ends with the results of this final solution.

Since situation comedies are, by definition, comedies, they end with the main character in a better situation than the one in which he or she found him- or herself at the story’s beginning.

Initial Problem: Wally is upset with Gomer because he spends too much time telling stories to some of his customers, while others get impatient for service.

Result(s): Wally notices one impatient person driving away in disgust.

Solution-Problem: This incident causes Wally to fire Gomer, which puts Gomer out of both a job and a house because his living quarters were in a back room of the station.

Result(s): Gomer asks Andy if he can stay in one of the cells at the courthouse for a few days.

Solution-Problem: Sympathetic, Andy invites him to stay at the Taylors’ until he finds a new job; Gomer turns out to be a real nuisance..

Result(s): Gomer talks throughout an episode of “Shep and Ralph” (a story of a man and his dog), ruining it for Andy and his family. When Gomer decides to do some chores for the family to earn his keep (since Andy won’t accept any rent payment), he chooses to do them overnight. He does some sawing, and while trying to repair the toggle switch on Aunt Bee’s vacuum cleaner, he turns on the machine. These escapades wake up the entire family. Finally, Andy gets him to prepare for bed, but Gomer gargles loudly and sings “No Account Mule” over and over, annoying Andy.

Solution-Problem: The next morning, Andy, exhausted, bluntly tells Gomer that due to the racket last night, he did not get much sleep.

Result(s): Gomer apologizes and vows to be more quiet. Sure enough, in the evening, Gomer retires when the family does and quietly reads his comic book in bed.

Solution-Problem: Unfortunately, two of his former customers come by the house asking for Gomer’s appraisal of the condition of their automobiles. This situation creates such a din that Andy’s neighbors wake up and complain.

Result(s): The next morning, Andy, Opie, and Aunt Bee are unusually cranky with each other. They realize they are not getting enough sleep.

Turning Point: Andy becomes determined to tell Gomer he must find other arrangements.

Solution-Problem: Meanwhile, he goes off to work as usual, where he demonstrates that his grumpiness is even-handed.

Result(s): He begins handing out tickets to any driver whose automobile is in poor shape. He discovers a lot of offenders.

Moment of Recognition: Andy also discovers that Wally’s business has dwindled drastically since he fired Gomer.

Result(s): When he returns home, Andy finds Gomer chatting with his old customers, who have missed their stories as much as his mechanical skills.

Resolution: Andy orders them all to follow his car, and they parade straight to Wally’s, where Andy points out that Gomer is Wally’s business.

Result(s): Wally needs no coercion to rehire Gomer. Andy suggests to Wally that he could improve Gomer’s “kitchenette” by providing an extra burner and an icebox. Wally readily agrees and even adds some fresh paint and some groceries to make his prized employee more comfortable.



Note: The plot synopsis is taken, nearly verbatim, from -- Dale Robinson and David Fernandes’ The Definitive Andy Griffith Show Reference: Episode-by-Episode, with Cast and Production Biographies and a Guide to Collectibles (McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, NC, and London, 1996).