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Appeal Characteristics - The Language Gateway
The language gateway has fascinated me for some time, but it has always been more of a morbid fascination, as I could not understand how people could rave over ‘such beautiful language’; ‘so descriptive’ – so boring?
Lately I have come across a number of books that use various formats to tell their story and wondered if they really shone a light on character (another doorway) or if they truly belonged to the language gateway. Being the sceptic that I am, I also wondered if some of these choices were for marketing reasons, or were they the best means to tell the story. I’ll leave it up to you to decide and list below some examples to consider. Perhaps you can add some further examples of your own.(Fran)
Mark Haddon. The curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Jean Webster. Daddy-long-legs
Lucy Kellaway. Who moved my blackberry? / [Martin Lukes with] Lucy Kellaway.
Helene Hanff. 84 Charing Cross Road.
Jodi Picoult. My sister's keeper.
John Boyne. The boy in the striped pyjamas : a fable.
Meg Cabot. Every boy's got one.
Paul Torday. Salmon fishing in the Yemen.
Matt Haig. The Dead Fathers Club
D. B. C. Pierre. Vernon god little : a 21st century comedy in the presence of death.
Sue Townsend. The lost diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001
You could also include non-fiction such as letters and diaries. These books can make you feel somewhat voyeuristic as you read the personal experiences of notable people.
Love letters of great men / edited by Ursula Doyle. Macmillan, 2008.
Devonshire, Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish, Duchess of, In tearing haste: letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor. John Murray, 2008.
Charles Darwin. The Beagle letters /; edited by Frederick Burkhardt . Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Penelope Fitzgerald. So I have thought of you: the letters of Penelope Fitzgerald / edited by Terence Dooley ; preface by A.S. Byatt. Fourth Estate, 2008.
Dirk Bogarde. Ever, Dirk : the Bogarde letters / selected and edited by John Coldstream. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.
Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke and Andreas-Salom*e: a love story in letters / translated by Edward Snow and Michael Winkler. W.W. Norton, 2008.
Erica Wagner. Ariel's gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the story of Birthday letters. W. W. Norton, 2002.
Sidney Poitier. Life beyond measure: letters to my great-granddaughter. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Arthur Conan Doyle. Arthur Conan Doyle: a life in letters / edited by Daniel Stashower, Jon Lellenberg and Charles Foley. HarperPress, 2007.
Noel Coward. The letters of No*el Coward / edited and with an introduction by Barry Day. Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Donald Horne. Dying: a memoir. Viking, 2007. Summary: A journal of Donald Horne's last few months of life, accompanied by an account of his death, written by his wife, and a selection of Donald's essays.
The Freedom Writers diary: how a teacher and 150 teens used writing to change themselves and the world around them / the Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell.
Riverbend. Baghdad burning: girl blog from Iraq. Volume 2, October 2004 through August 2006 / by Riverbend ; introduction by James Ridgeway. London: Marion Boyars, c2006.
Elizabeth Cowling. Visiting Picasso: the notebooks and letters of Roland Penrose Thames & Hudson, c2006.
Anne Frank. The diary of a young girl: the definitive edition /Puffin, 1997.
James Joyce - Ulysses (the ultimate in 'language' doorways given its changing tempo, scene, language and movement from a descriptive dialogue to a play to a stream-of-consciousness monologue minus any punctuation)
Jasper Fforde - The Eyre affair, The fourth bear, etc. (in fact the entire Thursday Next series) - Fforde is known for his use of language & the way he also uses it against itself, these are plays upon literature, plays upon words & ideas of language which lift the reader beyond the story)
Lately I have come across a number of books that use various formats to tell their story and wondered if they really shone a light on character (another doorway) or if they truly belonged to the language gateway. Being the sceptic that I am, I also wondered if some of these choices were for marketing reasons, or were they the best means to tell the story. I’ll leave it up to you to decide and list below some examples to consider. Perhaps you can add some further examples of your own.(Fran)
Mark Haddon. The curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Jean Webster. Daddy-long-legs
Lucy Kellaway. Who moved my blackberry? / [Martin Lukes with] Lucy Kellaway.
Helene Hanff. 84 Charing Cross Road.
Jodi Picoult. My sister's keeper.
John Boyne. The boy in the striped pyjamas : a fable.
Meg Cabot. Every boy's got one.
Paul Torday. Salmon fishing in the Yemen.
Matt Haig. The Dead Fathers Club
D. B. C. Pierre. Vernon god little : a 21st century comedy in the presence of death.
Sue Townsend. The lost diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001
You could also include non-fiction such as letters and diaries. These books can make you feel somewhat voyeuristic as you read the personal experiences of notable people.
Love letters of great men / edited by Ursula Doyle. Macmillan, 2008.
Devonshire, Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish, Duchess of, In tearing haste: letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor. John Murray, 2008.
Charles Darwin. The Beagle letters /; edited by Frederick Burkhardt . Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Penelope Fitzgerald. So I have thought of you: the letters of Penelope Fitzgerald / edited by Terence Dooley ; preface by A.S. Byatt. Fourth Estate, 2008.
Dirk Bogarde. Ever, Dirk : the Bogarde letters / selected and edited by John Coldstream. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.
Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke and Andreas-Salom*e: a love story in letters / translated by Edward Snow and Michael Winkler. W.W. Norton, 2008.
Erica Wagner. Ariel's gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the story of Birthday letters. W. W. Norton, 2002.
Sidney Poitier. Life beyond measure: letters to my great-granddaughter. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Arthur Conan Doyle. Arthur Conan Doyle: a life in letters / edited by Daniel Stashower, Jon Lellenberg and Charles Foley. HarperPress, 2007.
Noel Coward. The letters of No*el Coward / edited and with an introduction by Barry Day. Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Donald Horne. Dying: a memoir. Viking, 2007. Summary: A journal of Donald Horne's last few months of life, accompanied by an account of his death, written by his wife, and a selection of Donald's essays.
The Freedom Writers diary: how a teacher and 150 teens used writing to change themselves and the world around them / the Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell.
Riverbend. Baghdad burning: girl blog from Iraq. Volume 2, October 2004 through August 2006 / by Riverbend ; introduction by James Ridgeway. London: Marion Boyars, c2006.
Elizabeth Cowling. Visiting Picasso: the notebooks and letters of Roland Penrose Thames & Hudson, c2006.
Anne Frank. The diary of a young girl: the definitive edition /Puffin, 1997.
Yet for those readers whose doorway is Language there is no doubt that the following are treasured pieces....... Perhaps you have more to add. (CatyJ)
James Joyce - Ulysses (the ultimate in 'language' doorways given its changing tempo, scene, language and movement from a descriptive dialogue to a play to a stream-of-consciousness monologue minus any punctuation)
Jasper Fforde - The Eyre affair, The fourth bear, etc. (in fact the entire Thursday Next series) - Fforde is known for his use of language & the way he also uses it against itself, these are plays upon literature, plays upon words & ideas of language which lift the reader beyond the story)
J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Jane Austen - Emma
Bram Stoker - Dracula
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
CatyJ |
Latest page update: made by CatyJ
, Jan 16 2012, 11:18 PM EST
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