Still reading like a mad woman. . .
. . . last night it was a harrowing emotional journey through Carolyn Parkhurst's debut novel, The Dogs of Babel. The emotion was on my side, as I went from hate to love, annoyance to admiration and finally, why?

The why question stems more from wondering why a publisher would take a novel that is obviously not polished. There was such potential for a truly original piece of work (how many novels deal with a professor of linguistics trying to teach his dog to talk so he can find out how his wife died?), and instead it only showed that Parkhurst has potential. In some later chapters, the more meditative ones, her writing shines through, but on the whole there are just some strange plot twists and unbelievable coincidences that wind up sticking out. The characters are contrived and honestly, well, the wife doesn't act at all like someone who would have given the protagonist peace, which is what he claims in the beginning, and yet the author fails to show.

Why do I rail on this?

Well, let's see. Firstly it seems that a lot of books showing up on the market these days are first books by MFA grads. Likely these are the products of two to three years of intense workshopping, and after that amount of time, naturally the author would want to publish. But sometimes first books should remain unpublished, or given time to ripen with considerable amounts of revisioning. Not editing, but revisioning.

Secondly, who on earth selected this book to be the Today Show's Book Club selection? With all the millions of books out there, they select this one? I find this baffling . . . As far as books go, it is a rather mediocre read, although the author shows promise. She isn't ripe yet.

How do we, as writers, know when we are ripe? I still cannot tell from my own poetry what poem is actually worthwhile and which belongs in the trash. (Okay, sometimes the trash ones are glaringly obvious.) While I was reading this book last night I kept thinking, if only she and I could discuss this point here, and see how she would rewrite this aspect. . . So much potential.

And so I fear writing fiction myself. So much potential, but what if you reach your potential and find it isn't half as good as you'd hoped? So much easier to be a critic. So to Carolyn Parkhurst, wherever you are, keep on keeping on. The next one is the one to shoot for.