Looking for meaning between the covers

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Book Editor

The Advertiser Book Club wants you Here's how to get involved in The Honolulu Advertiser Book Club: Membership: There is no formal membership. Just read the book and participate in the virtual discussion by sending in your comments and questions. Our book: "Makai" by Kathleen Tyau (Bluestreak imprint of Beacon Press, paper, $15) Reading period: Through Sept. 6 Next "discussion": Sept. 15 To participate in the discussion: Write Wanda Adams, Books Editor, Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Fax: 525-8055. E-mail: bookclub@honoluluadvertiser.com. Or record a short comment at 525-8069, the Advertiser Book Club Reader Line. Listen: To the "Sandwich Islands Literary Circle" at 9:30 tonight, KHPR 88.1 FM, KKUA 90.7 FM Maui, KANO 91.1 FM Hilo; or hear the program online, starting tomorrow at the URL below. If you have trouble finding the book: Please call Wanda Adams, 535-2412. We want to keep tabs on supply.

But after you've said what you liked or what bugged you, where do you go? How can you read more deeply, and therefore discuss more deeply?

Author and University of Hawai'i English professor Ian MacMillan, who has been introducing college undergraduates to the art of book talk for more than 36 years, says there are a few standard questions that can be applied to any work.

MacMillan admits that his is a rather conventional approach, but it works, he said.

There's no need to diagram all the answers out on paper. Just tease your unconscious with these questions as you read along. It's helpful, too, to keep some slips of paper or Post-It Notes on hand to scribble a few notes or mark a passage worth thinking about or referring back to.

MacMillan begins by introducing the concept of form and content.

He explains that the book or short story takes a certain form. "It's a story involving some people that takes place in a certain setting and that has a certain style and may use certain devices."

The subject matter, or content, is contained within that form. In a sense, the story is a vessel into which the writer has poured his or her ideas, attitudes or convictions about a particular topic.

The form can be interesting to discuss and can reveal something about what the author is trying to say. For example, Kathleen Tyau marries a present scene and a past one under a single, suggestive heading in each chapter of "Makai." This may indicate her concern is with how the past affects the present.

The real work for the reader is in analyzing content, MacMillan said: discerning the theme, implications and applications, and discovering what this novel is about, but in abstract terms.

You could say, for example, MacMillan's Hawai'i novel, "The Red Wind" (Mutual, 1998) is about a family on the Windward side of O'ahu. It's about a canoe-builder. It's about a guy who is trying to fit in and figure life out. But that's not what the book is about in abstract terms, any more than Moby Dick is about a whale.

What you're looking for is the central idea of the novel, MacMillan said. Such as, this book is about the nature of forgiveness. Or this book is about living with the choices you have made.

Here's the part MacMillan's students like: You can't be wrong about this. The question is what the book is about FOR YOU.

When the Advertiser Book Club was reading Sara Backer's "American Fuji" earlier this year, one Maui reader, Marilyn Morikawa, focused on what the book brought up for her about the illness and untimely death of her daughter. Her daughter's illness resembled that of "American Fuji's" key character, Gaby, and in the book, the loss of a child was experienced by another key character, Alex. Morikawa took from the book lessons about the need, like Gaby and Alex on Mt. Fuji, to "keep moving" and "live in the moment." That very personal interpretation may differ from anyone else's, but it can't be argued with.

MacMillan stresses that it doesn't even matter if your idea of what the book is about doesn't accord with the author's vision. This isn't a guessing game and you're not trying to get it right. You're trying to uncover the deeper (or higher) ideas or problems that the book raises for you.

Kathleen Tyau says that "Makai" is about her fear of water. That might not be what many readers get from it, though a near drowning is a central event in the key character's life. But MacMillan says knowing what the author says the book is about can be a clue.

Fear of water in "Makai," he said, is an idea that can be opened up and expanded upon. Is Alice's fear of water a fear of being smothered or extinguished by the needs of her family?

The next question, once you've identified the subject, is: Does the author manifest an attitude or conviction about the subject? What are the implications of the author having chosen this subject, and having had it play out in this particular way?

The writer was motivated to write this book, perhaps by an experience he had or a book contract she landed or — and this is the richer vein — by the need to explore something or he or she feels strongly about. "The process of interpretation is to try and figure out what it is that motivated that person to write the story in the first place," MacMillan said.

Is the writer trying to point out a problem, right a wrong, explain something difficult or mysterious, lay ghosts to rest?

So once you've nailed that down, what do you do with it?

"What you do with it is try to figure out if this book as an object and in all its apparent meaning has any use for you. Does it apply to your own life?" MacMillan said. "Most good literature tends to do that."

And here's one final thought: If you didn't like a book, perhaps it's not because the book was badly done. Perhaps it's because it's about something you have trouble thinking about.