No, I haven't taken up ranching. This is a title of a book by Tom Robbins, the same guy, by the way, who wrote Still Life with Woodpecker. I read both of these books when I was in college, and in fact, they continue to yellow on my family room bookshelf. I'm thinking they may simply be there as evidence of my desire to remain "cool" after all these years (or possibly the image that I once was), but in truth, their musty condition might be a clue to the exact opposite.
But the reason I even bring up these fine literary works in the first place is that I have no memory whatsoever of what either one is about...nothing, nil, nada. Nonetheless, you have to admit that the titles, all on their own, are worth some recognition (that and the fact that Still Life has a picture of a pack of Camel cigarettes on the cover...talk about marketing to children...). And as luck would have it, titles are something I've been thinking a lot about lately.
Personally, I think I have done a pretty good job coming up with catchy titles...apparently Scraps of Eternity was especially intriguing, at least according to my fan club. Okay, maybe that was just my husband's opinion...I forget. Might even be one and the same, now that I think about it. But I realized recently that the reason I work so hard at creating good titles is that this is often the basis of my own reading choices, the result of which, by the way, I give mixed reviews.
I once assumed, for example, that a book called Clock Without Hands would be enormously fascinating, especially since the author was one of the more intriguing short story writers I encountered in my teaching career. I never did get all the way through that one. Another thing I learned from my teaching career, however, was that there are a significant number of novels with extremely boring titles that have somehow risen to great literary renown. War and Peace, for example; doesn't that kind of sum up where the plot is going without having to slog through all 1200+ pages? I can't really picture Tolstoy finishing his manuscript and then saying to himself, "hmmm...what shall I call this thing to get people to buy it? I know, War and Peace, that'll be the perfect hook!"
Mark Twain came up with a pretty good idea also. Instead of just titling one of his first books Tom Sawyer, he called it The Adventures of Tom Sawyer...I don't know about you, but if someone is not just out there, but actually having "adventures," then I'm all in. Of course, just to be on the safe side, when later Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he started the story with Huck telling the reader: "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer..."
See what Twain did there? Not only did he not have to come up with a creative new title for this new book, but he managed to get in a pitch for the previous one; i.e., the reader feels that if he happened to overlook the first novel, he really must go back and read it now, in order to get the full effect of the sequel.
My favorite titles for teaching purposes were Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Both were good for at least one 40-minute period of discussion and analysis, if not a test essay question (provided there was no advance notice prompting the proverbial Spark note response...do kids really think we teachers haven't read these?) Anyhow, it was only after a number of years of teaching and research of both authors, that I came to realize neither had intended any deep inner meaning in their choice of titles.
Both men were heavy drinkers, if not downright alcoholics, and also great buddies during many of their prolific years. Can't you just picture them tossing down a few at the Dome in Paris and saying, "I know what's let's do...let's create some crazy enigmatic titles for our next books that will drive those high school English teachers nuts for the next 100 years or so!" Then Fitzgerald, always looking to make an extra buck, says, "how about we also write these stupid little summaries with a lot of inane analyses of our books to make high school students look dumber than dumb." And Hemingway says, "yeah, we'll call them Spark Notes, because there is not a spark of intelligence in any of them anywhere!"
So, what to do...I still envy Robbins' title talent and then there's Anne Tyler (A Spool of Blue Thread? How cool is that?) and how about Sara Gruen's irresistible Water for Elephants? On the other hand, I truly loved Jane Eyre and The Help. I know. Maybe I'll just title my next book This is a Great Book and You Should Read It...Yeah, okay, that could work.
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