By Sarah Statz Cords
During my college years you only had to say two words to me to make me cringe: “Literary Criticism.” Because I have no natural math or science skills, I naturally gravitated to literature classes, where I had to read way too many dull works of literary criticism.
I’m trying to overcome that reaction, though, because I’m learning that a lot of works of literary criticism, theory, and history can be quite useful when trying to learn more about genres and books. Take, for instance, a book like Thomas Larson’s recent The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative. Although I think it was written for an audience interested in writing their own memoirs, I still found it a very helpful explanation of the form. And its bibliography! What a thing of beauty. All the classics are here (and many are discussed in the text as well): All Over But the Shoutin’, by Rick Bragg. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers. Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi.
Over the years I’ve found lots of helpful books like this, including such titles as Robert Weinberg’s Horror of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History, and Randy Broecker’s Fantasy of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History. (What can I say? I’m a sucker for the illustrated books.) I know we barely have enough time to be reading the actual books, but does anyone have any favorite “books on books” that have helped you in your understanding of readers and genres?
Jessica!
I won’t tell anyone about your weakness for deconstructionism if you promise to keep quiet about me reading memoirs about memoirs…
“Understanding Comics” is a great book! It’s been years since I read it now but I often thought it should be required reading for library school and also, what the heck, MFA and English Lit programs. Great intro for those who don’t understand the point of pictures with text…like yours truly. Thanks for the reminder!
I *love* literary criticism. This is okay, because I’m the world’s biggest nerd. I think deconstructionism is sexy.
Anyway– probably the funnest book-about-books you’ll ever read is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. It’s not exactly criticism, of either art or writing, but it’s the best possible guide to comix out there.