{"id":2632,"date":"2015-01-29T10:48:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T17:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=2632"},"modified":"2015-01-29T11:45:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T18:45:51","slug":"guest-blogger-jane-merryman-titillates-with-whats-in-a-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/guest-blogger-jane-merryman-titillates-with-whats-in-a-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Blogger Jane Merryman titillates with ‘What’s in a Title?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jane<\/a>What’s in a Title by Guest Blogger Jane Merryman<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Naked Lunch<\/em><\/p>\n

A Crack in the Edge of the World<\/em><\/p>\n

The Borrowers<\/em><\/p>\n

Book titles. Delicious. They provide entertainment in themselves, never mind what\u2019s between the covers. The words on the front offer promise, titillation, or confusion. Of course, some titles are strictly workaday: Wildflowers of North America; The History of England from the Accession of James II; Math Formulas and Tables.<\/em> But other titles are delightfully misleading, some are curiously ironic, others are satirical or even nonsense.<\/p>\n

A Moveable Feast<\/em><\/p>\n

Fezzes in the River<\/em><\/p>\n

Manhattan Transfer<\/em><\/p>\n

The title may or may not be an exact pointer to what\u2019s inside, but it\u2019s definitely a label that fixes itself in mind and memory. Take Pride and Prejudice\u2014<\/em>it has a lilt to it. But do you really want to plod through several hundred pages of unillustrated text enumerating the consequences of a couple of vices, or would you rather read about landing a husband? From its title, you don\u2019t know how much you might or might not enjoy reading this book.<\/p>\n

As a librarian I\u2019ve spent many hours \u201creading the shelves,\u201d an actual entry on the official list of library chores. I select a block of shelves and check every book, making sure it\u2019s filed correctly by Dewey Decimal Number, author\u2019s last name if it\u2019s fiction, or subject\u2019s name for biographies. This exercise affords plenty of time to savor the mystique of the title, pushing aside what I know of the work itself. I\u2019ve read The Great Gatsby<\/em>, but to someone who hasn\u2019t (yet), what is a gatsby? No matter, the alliteration is the hook.<\/p>\n

One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em> sounds as if it could get soporific really fast, but it doesn\u2019t. Men Are Like Streetcars<\/em>, Memoirs of a Geisha<\/em>, and The Plague<\/em> all live up to their promise. War and<\/em> Peace<\/em> appears to have taken on too much. A Thousand Acres<\/em> seems more do-able. Nine Stories<\/em> is something I could definitely finish.<\/p>\n

Some titles tell you right away that Things Fall Apart, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love<\/em>, and Friday the Rabbi Slept Late<\/em>. At times they advise you to Play It As It Lays<\/em>, to Go Tell It on the<\/em> Mountain<\/em>, or that You Can\u2019t Go Home Again<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My Family and Other Animals, Chocolat \u2014<\/em>these titles make us smile in agreement. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, A Clockwork Orange, Up the Down Staircase, A Wrinkle in Time<\/em>\u2014<\/em>these fill us with consternation.<\/p>\n

The Naked and the Dead <\/em>is one of those titles that leads us somewhat astray since it\u2019s about the fully clothed and the living. Seeing Through Clothes<\/em> might disappoint some readers with its lengthy footnoted discussion of the history of garments and fashion. Some books seem to be wanting to tell us about royalty\u2014The African Queen, All the King\u2019s Men, <\/em>and The Prince of Tides\u2014<\/em>but they never make it to the palace.<\/p>\n

Authors can lift their titles from other works, such as the Bible, Shakespeare, and famous and not-so-well-known poets, and give them a resonance that sticks with us. We have East of Eden<\/em> and The Sun Also Rises<\/em>, For Whom the Bell Tolls<\/em>, The Winter of Our Discontent,<\/em> and The Grapes of Wrath<\/em>. In nursery rhymes writers found When She Was Good<\/em> and When the Bough Breaks<\/em>. A book of travel essays went to a play to find its title, The Kindness of Strangers<\/em>, which helps explain its contents, but are the others so transparent?<\/p>\n

Birds figure in many titles: The Maltese Falcon, The Painted Bird, Lonesome Dove<\/em>, and Wild<\/em> Swans<\/em>. And of course mockingbirds, eagles, swallows, and blackbirds are all roosting on the library shelves, too. Little Birds<\/em>, though, is not at all about ornithology.<\/p>\n

Titles beckon\u2014invite us to go on a Forbidden Journey<\/em>, to take The Road from Coorain<\/em>, to venture Beyond the Khyber Pass<\/em>, and catch The Polar Express<\/em>. They offer to take us to a special place, anywhere from The House on Mango Street<\/em>, to Under the Volcano<\/em>, to Hiroshima<\/em>, or suggest that we stroll down Revolutionary Road, Half Moon<\/em> Street<\/em>, and Lonely Avenue<\/em>. Bridges turn up uncommonly often in titles\u2014bridges to Terabithia, of San Luis Rey, at Toko-Ri, over the River Kwai, and on the Drina\u2014and lead us on fraught, hardly light-hearted journeys.<\/p>\n

Need I go on? Haven\u2019t you been tempted to read a book just because its title played with you? There\u2019s a world\u2014a universe\u2014out there in books. Their titles might tell us exactly what is inside, what information we will tap into, what kind of adventure we will take off on. Some merely hint at the experience to come. Others don\u2019t give us a clue, even after we\u2019ve read the whole thing from foreword to appendix. But that doesn\u2019t matter. Reading a shelf of titles is a pleasure in itself without even opening the books. Take Chocolat\u2014<\/em>\u2019nuf said.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, though, all books should bear the subtitle Great Expectations<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Jane Merryman<\/strong> specializes in copy editing: correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage, and, as we say in the profession, infelicities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s in a Title by Guest Blogger Jane Merryman \u00a0Naked Lunch A Crack in the Edge of the World The Borrowers Book titles. Delicious. They provide entertainment in themselves, never mind what\u2019s between the covers. The words on the front offer promise, titillation, or confusion. Of course, some titles are strictly workaday: Wildflowers of North […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[104],"tags":[628,627],"class_list":["post-2632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-book-titles","tag-jane-merryman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-Gs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2632"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2637,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions\/2637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}