Appreciating Voice: The lost art of subtlety

I think I might be living my life backwards. When I was younger, I read the classics: Dickens, Lewis, Tolkien, Collins, Austen. When I went to college I read Faulkner, Hemingway, Morrison, and Shakespeare. I didn’t start reading Harry Potter until I was around 20 and in the last few years I started reading Young Adult books. So I’m definitely regressing.

There is nothing exactly wrong with Young Adult (YA) literature, except that, not surprisingly, I am discovering that I’m too old for it. In this statement I exclude the Harry Potter series because that is one of the most well-crafted beautiful stories of our time. But the rest of the books that cater to the dystopian/fantasy craze that is sweeping the nation are disappointingly lacking. Just the other day I picked up a book that a friend had recommended and I couldn’t even get through the first chapter. It wasn’t that I could tell this was the same story I’d read in every other YA book – as discussed in an earlier blog post, no one really writes new stories – it was something else. There was something missing that wasn’t missing from Rowling’s books. 

So naturally I went back and began rereading the series. While reading, I came across a section that lifted the veil ever so slightly and it was as though I could see Rowling at her desk writing, and chuckling as she did so at the witty words she was penning. (I know she probably uses a computer, but when I picture authors, they are always handwriting the story, usually with a quill and dressed like they are from the 19^th century for some reason.) This happened often when I was reading Dickens as a child. I’m pretty sure the image below was burned into my brain long before I ever actually saw it:

Credit: Google Images

You see, what these YA popular fiction books are missing is voice. Not just those delightful moments where the author can get away with commenting almost directly to the reader, but in general. I know that voice varies depending on point-of-view and a number of other things, and I’m not trying to argue that every author should insert their authorial presence all over the book. I am arguing that stories need a voice (narrative, authorial, anything) like my dog needs food in the morning: without it they are dead.

Since I’ve been reading these rather dull tales crafted for today’s youth, I have realized that there is nothing like the voice of Dickens filling the space after the cruel and unjust act of a character with a rant against the social evils of his day. It is like the chorus of a song, heightening the tension and unifying the reader, the writer, and the characters.

And there is nothing quite like Rowling’s quiet voice asserting that “it is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow time down, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up” (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 317).

So this is what was missing and I think I know why. 

I had one of the best classes of students last year that I think I am ever likely to have; often, while trudging through Julius Caesar, my students would be sitting with brows furrowed, trying to decipher the language (they were honors students, so I’m not making this up, they really were trying). Shakespeare is a very funny man, so sometimes I would read a line and pause, waiting for them to chuckle. Silence. “It’s a joke guys. It’s ok, you can laugh.” They would look up confused. I’d explain it to them. A rather lame attempt at a laugh would circulate briefly and we’d continue. I don’t blame them in the slightest for not understanding Shakespeare, but I do blame them for missing the humor in easier pieces. I blame them for missing the subtle humor often layered in the tone of a sentence. Because there is a grave result from the fact that much of the younger generations don’t read: they’ve lost the art of subtlety. They are used to everything being violently overt, thanks to sitcoms, televisions, and movies. And with that loss of the understanding of subtlety goes the voice of authors everywhere as they write novels that cater to the youth of today.

I don’t believe that every author should always launch into rants about the state of the world or constantly lift the veil to wink at their reader. But I do think that every author needs a well developed voice that is grounded in the subtleties of tone, that supports their narrative, and, quite frankly, makes their book worth reading. 

Then again, maybe we just need to add laugh tracks to books.