Verlyn KlinkenborgKirja-arvosteluja

A few things hit home. Like trusting your readers and not dumbing things down for them. Breaking out of the templates you were handed in school. And at the end, he actually goes through a bunch of sentences and explains what's wrong with them in layman terms. Hardly anyone does this in 'How to Write' books, though it seems requisite.

The only thing I really disagree with is the turning over of sentences in your head until you get them perfect before writing them down. He gives his reasons. I just disagree. The hardest thing about writing is just... writing. So throwing up on the paper is fine as long as you get it down. I would rather have a so-so short story completed that I never have time to revise to perfection, than nothing but the first two perfect paragraphs of said story. I rant.

Overall, would recommend as there are plenty of ideas to pick and choose from. Not that it matters to anyone, but I listened to the Audible Audiobook, though that edition was not listed.

It is difficult to pretend that Gilbert White’s tortoise Timothy had the same literary skills as his ‘owner’. However, picking up a copy of Timothy’s book: notes of an English country tortoise by Verlyn Klinkenborg whom I took first to be a publisher rather than the author, I was spurred on to things that I thought might be great. It was the handwritten inscription that provided the spur. ‘For Kurt on his 19th birthday. You’ll learn a lot from this book. Love Rachelle and Anastasia’. Gilbert’s observations are seen through Timothy’s eyes. I soon came across a corner of a page turned over, a despicable habit. This was on pages 3 and 4 out of a total of 181 pages. I realised too that it was the only such instance of a turned over corner. That is as far as I got myself. The device of an observant Timothy is clever but just did not work for me.½

On the cover of this book, there is a blurb from the New York Journal of Books: “Best book on writing. Ever.”

It’s an excellent example of the Klinkenborg’s advocacy for the power of short sentences. Even if it is, perhaps, a bit hyperbolic.

This is a book I am going to read again. I think it will take a second and third reading to maximize the potential benefits.

Klinkenborg offers a philosophy of writing and it is a lot to absorb in one reading.

One of his main points is that aspiring writers write too soon. They’re too anxious to get something on the page. Even if it sucks. He counsels that writers should have more patience. Think about each sentence, don’t put something down as a placeholder so you can get on to the next sentence.

I’ve been trying to do that. Spend less time stressing on number of words and more time thinking about what it is I’m trying to accomplish.

When I win some major writing award. Or secure an agent. Or find a publisher. I’ll let you know if his ideas have helped.

It is probably a truism that we tend to like books and essays where we agree with the author, so I’m not sure everyone will love this books as much as I did. But I did.

Very good, rather sad. I take care of an iguana. I like the non-mammalian viewpoint.

To be dipped into as needed. I use the book as a refresher and a pick me up. Super smart and matter-of-fact.

An interesting and useful book that, despite its brevity, is too long.

The affectation of short lines (each sentence is its own paragraph) makes it difficult to read, even though it is not a difficult book.

There are some beautiful sentences in the book. My copy is thick with underlining.

The book is for a college-level writer who has been taught to outline, to develop an idea logically with clear transitions, know her audience and the conventions of her genre, and be aware of where she is going from the first sentence. Klinkenborg will have none of that: You should start with the first sentence and go on from there, he says. And then, "Out of all the possibilities created by the first sentence, / Make a second sentence, full of possibilities, even disconnected ones." (102)

Charming book.

Reading this small pastoral book was something like sitting on a covered porch on a hot summer day, with lemonade. In a rocking chair. Nothing much happens. You're so happy anyway.

I only got to page 47 before this got too annoying to finish. There may be gems in there; I'm not willing to swallow that much dirt to get to them.

Klinkenborg writes about life in the country with humour, elegant prose and poetic imagery. He is a marvelous observer and every word seems just right. Take this passage about a late spring:
The signs of spring are thrown away, like unheeded hints. Robins mope in the lower branches of a thick-budded magnolia, waiting for the worms of open turf. The red-winged blackbird I heard in a treetop the other day sounded, somehow, like an asterisk. The chorus of birdsong is entirely different than it was a few weeks ago, but to me it lacks an objective correlative. The tip of a single crocus would do. The house is full of seedlings, especially basil seedlings, all of them at the two-leaf stage, but hooded and mum. The horses are shedding, and it looks like bad management on their part.

I couldn't write like that if I tried for a hundred years but Klinkenborg writes regularly like this for the New York Times. I get a kick out of the mental picture of some uptight suited lawyer in Manhattan reading his columns. It seems ironic that people who have no idea of real country life have access to his views while people who live in the real country can read them only when they are collected like this. However, maybe New Yorkers need this point of view more than those immersed in the country.½

The story of American families with roots in 19th and early 20th centry immigration. Despite difficult times through changing economics, this book provides the historical understanding of why it remains the city of good neighbours.

This book is a must read if you have any connection to Buffalo,NY and especially if you have Polish or German family that lived in Polonia/Kaisertown section of Buffalo.This book has brought me back to my childhood and numerous visits with my Grandmother.She was born,raised and died in this neighborhood. This book would probably be boring if you have no connection to the city. But the author writes this book as if he lived in this place and time,he has a true feel for the neighborhood and its people. It is hard to believe his information is from his Buffalo born wife and research.He brings second hand information to life. He brings this neighborhood to life again.This neighborhood is currently a gang and drug infested war zone. Much of what the Poles and Germans built and took pride in is long gone...only a memory.Very sad ending to a very rich and diverse culture and history.This is a very good read and highly recommended.

Picked up because 1. I have driven through/ past the country depicted here several times and feel it wouldn't hurt to educate myself a bit by taking a little closer look at it and the ppl who live there, and 2. because I want to know if I do indeed like the author's writing style to order a whole book by him.?� Turns out that Lindy and Verlyn are married, so that's kind of cool.?á Anyway, I have to admit that, so far, I'm admiring the heck out of the pix, but not actually enjoying them too much.?á I guess I just hate the idea of living like that so much that I can't empathize, and I need to empathize to appreciate.?á My personal failing.

But the pix are amazing.?á The camera angles, the 'poses,' the use of distance, of context, of light & dark & reflected light & shadow, the composition, the perspective... seriously, this book would be an effective exemplar for just about everything taught in Intro to Art classes.?á That is to say, the photographer pays attention to all those details, uses strategies to create images we've never seen before, but never gets audacious even as she breaks the rules.

So. I paused in my reading to come here to say that I absolutely love the picture Sheep Convention."?á Somehow she got all members of this large mixed flock to look at the camera, but she did so without making them look excited with either fear or eagerness; they're still as placid as laypeople tend to imagine sheep to be, just mildly curious....

And done.?á And the text is fine, if a little *L*iterary.?á And the pix, overall, are a little sentimental, a little too 'homage' or 'paean' ... but not too much.?á Highly ecommended if you are interested in photography or the real cowboys, not if you're hot...."

i like the idea of this book, and klinkenborg is obviously a good writer (just mostly not my style), but i couldn't get into this at all, or be made to care about any of it.

still, i liked this:

"He picks me up one day in Ringer. Idle question on his face. Feels my tail and feet and as much of my neck as I allow. Concludes that I have no perceptible pulse. As if I would keep my pulse where a human could touch it. What would be the point of all this armor then?"½

The layout of this book is worth mentioning: the "several sentences" are broken up on the page like poetry, so each new sentence is on a new line, and sometimes the sentences themselves are divided in this way to set some phrases apart. It forces the reader to go more slowly and pay attention. The book is slightly smaller than most hardcovers, and is set in the Bembo typeface.

Later in the book there are a few passages that the author examines ("Some Prose and Some Questions"), and finally there are example sentences ("Some Practical Problems"), which the author critiques and improves.

Exercise, p. 60: Take a page from an author whose work you like. Circle all the nouns in one color, all the verbs in another color, then the articles, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
This will clarify the parts of speech, and it will help you see how the author uses them.
On another copy, circle the direct objects, indirect objects, participles, relative pronouns, metaphors, similes, analogies...anything you notice.

Quotes

From the Prologue: Part of the struggle in learning to write is learning to ignore what isn't useful to you and pay attention to what is.

How long is a good idea? (8)

Every word is optional until it proves to be essential, something you can only determine by removing words one by one and seeing what's lost or gained.
...
Without extraneous words or phrases or clauses, there will be room for implication.
The longer the sentence, the less it's able to imply, and writing by implication should be one of your goals. (12)

Every form of writing turns the world into language. (14)

The obsession with transition negates a basic truth about writing, a magical truth. You can get anywhere from anywhere, always and almost instantly. (26)

...every word was different once. (33)

If you notice something, it's because it's important. (37)

Noticing is about letting yourself out into the world, rather than siphoning the world into you in order to transmute it into words. (39)

A true metaphor is...a renaming of the already named. (43-44)

When the work is really complete, the writer knows how each sentence got that way, what choices were made. (48)

...our reading habits are impatient and extractive. (49)

Here's another reason for learning the basics of grammar and syntax: Syntactic and grammatical accuracy is the precondition for being sure your sentences say what you think they say. (66)

The idea of writer's block, in its ordinary sense, exists largely because of the notion that writing should flow.
But if you accept that writing is hard work, and that's what it feels like while you're writing, then everything is just as it should be. (68)

Humans have a language instinct but not necessarily a writing instinct. The difference between talking and writing is the difference between breathing and singing well. (72)

...it's always useful to ask yourself, "What exactly am I trying to say?"
The answer to that question is often the sentence you need to write down. (74)

The reader you construct in your imagination changes the way you write almost without your noticing it. (75)

...the excitement of feeling the galvanic link between language and thought. (77)

Anything you think you need in order to write...becomes a prohibition when it's lacking. (80)

Pursue clarity...in the pursuit of clarity, style reveals itself. (85)

All writing is revision. (85)

Writers of every level of skill experience the tyranny of what exists. (87)

Revision is thinking applied to language. (90)

...noticing that every sentence might be otherwise but isn't. (91)

We like to think we move from thought to expression, with no more fuss than a handshake. (92)

...you may have to cling to a partial outline for a while. That's okay, as long as you're prepared to abandon it. It's a map of the places you may end up not going. (99)

Aren't you already thinking in sentences? (104)

Why reproduce the whole scene when only one moment matters? (123)

Authority arises from the way you write, not from the subject you write about. No subject is so good that it can redeem indifferent writing. But good writing can make almost any subject interesting. (129)

It's never hard to work when you're interested in what you're working on....If it doesn't interest you, how could it possibly interest anyone else? (134-135)

Imagine a reader you can trust....All your life you've been reading books that trusted you... (139)

We're so trained to read for meaning - to look through the sentence to what we think is the author's intention - that in our search for it we're prepared to disregard the literal significance of the prose itself. (169)

[Adverbs often create redundancy] (171)

Never substitute noun phrases for verbs. [Also beware "as," "with," "since," "while."] (198)½

This is a pleasant collection -- 173 vignette-ish essays, most of them previously published in Klinkenborg's column in the New York Times. They're gentle observations on nature, animals, farming and living the rural life, grouped into 11 years (chapters), within which they're organized by month. In the middle of the book, a harsher "Interlude" section cleanses the readerly palate with op-ed about modern agri-business. At the end, a "Coda" section muses on the cosmos (the ultimate rural life?) and the evolution of scientific knowledge. A delicate, perfect, pen-and-ink drawing (black and white) by Nigel Peake opens each chapter.

I wished for a bit more of a gathering narrative to the collection, but in the end simply enjoyed it as a book to dip in and out of, e.g. by reading a year's (a chapter's) entries each day. Five of my favorite passages:

A couple of months ago, I began getting up at four in the morning. I'd been reading a lot of William Cobbett, who believed that an hour in the morning was worth two in the afternoon. {...} The dogs are thrilled to get up at four, because it means they can run around outside for a few minutes, have their breakfast, and be back in bed by four fifteen.

I go outside at night now just to admire how steep the temperature gradient has become, how the mercury seems to roll off the table once dark comes. Fall is here.

For the past few weeks, I've been wondering, just how sharp can an icicle get? In early afternoons the icicles outside my office window lengthen themselves drip by drip, and I conclude that an icicle can only be as sharp as a drop of water. But in the morning, when the rising sun turns that curtain of ice lavender, the icicles look as sharp as needles.

When I walk across the pasture {...} I can feel the history of this winter underfoot. Sometimes the snow crust from the Christmas storm bears me up so that I'm walking only calf-deep through the January snow, and sometimes I break all the way through to November.

My wife and I recently drove from the farm to California. The trip had a narrative. It was called Middlemarch, by George Eliot. We slipped the first cassette into the car stereo somewhere near Albany {...and we finished the last one...} somewhere between Bakersfield and Fresno. {...} It so happens that America is as wide as Middlemarch is long...

(Review based on a copy of the book provided by the publisher.)½

This is an American, current companion volume to Gilbert White's Natural History of Selbourne, narrated by Pastor White's own tortoise Timothy. Many times Timothy cites what Mr White said as there is such "a propensity in mankind towards deceiving and being deceived...that one cannot safely relate any thing from common report, especially in print, without expressing some degree of doubt and suspicion" (85). Timothy soon adds, " Mr White's true music is the repeated, unresolved music of birdsong. Melody that never finds the tonic again"(90).
Klinkenborg is a deft and skilled writer, a journalist of course, though not in this book. Associative, fragmentary disjunctive and surprising writing.

I haven't been a reader of the NY Times, so when I saw this book on a bargain table - didn't realize the author wrote a regular column for them, only that the last name had ties to my Iowa hometown.
Guess he's not from my area, but originally from NW Iowa, then has 'rural' ties to other states.
It's a collection of columns - tracing seasons in various parts of the country.
The writing is lovely and I pick it up often to re-read something from a month.
A most enjoyable book.
Read in 2009.

The descriptions transport you, the point of view will change you. Klinkenborg's 1940s Buffalo is romantic, idyllic, and transcends Buffalo-lore. It has reawakened the desire to read in my Dad and his twin. What greater compliment can a librarian give a book?½

I was sympathetic to the author's point of view, but this book was so painfully bad I couldn't finish it. Save your money; re-read Elements of Style instead.

The Rural Life made this city girl almost want to move to a farm. It's a month-by-month journal of rural life, mostly on the author's upstate New York farm but also including some memories of the Iowa farm he grew up on along with others from time spent in the west. I found it charming and the language often beautiful. Here are some excerpts:

(from April) "The signs of spring are thrown away, like unheeded hints. Robins mope in the lower branches of a thick-budded magnolia, waiting for the worms of open turf. The red-winged black-bird I heard in a treetop the other day sounded, somehow, like an asterisk."

(from September) I planted the dark side of the garden in squash and pumpkins, and for a few weeks the seedlings grew and the race was on. The French pumpkins have ovetaken the butternut squash, and they are all bearing down in a dead heat on the hops arbor, where the hops have lapped the climbing roses."

(from September) Real frost will come tonight, and it will bring down the garden, which was doing a good job of bringing itself down already. We should stack wood or lift tomato cages or till ground for next year's garlic. Instead we'll sit in the autumn sunshine and enjoy being bone tired, harvesting our fatigue."

"harvesting our fatigue"...isn't that a wonderful phrase?½

Timothy the tortoise as misunderstood alien in an English garden. Made a spokesperson for views of human race.

Essays about moving and starting over in the country. I never got deeply involved in this book; don't know why.

story of farmers and the people and equipment used to put up hay

About: A year-long chronicle of life on rural farms. Horses, weather, birds, insects and gardens are prominently featured.

Pros: Wonderful sense of place, well written.

Cons: Klinkenborg jumps around between several locations: Montana, Wyoming, New York, Colorado, Utah etc. It would have been much less jarring if he stuck to one place. Doesn't note until the last page of the book that this January-December organized work was not only written in several places but also written over several years and was originally just a bunch of essays. It would've been much more helpful if this information was given at the beginning of the book, so the reader knew what to expect. It would probably have flowed much better if he actually wrote the book as a book and not just tried to turn a bunch of essays into a book.