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Literature for life 101

By Daily Bruin Staff

April 17, 1996 9:00 p.m.

Wednesday, April 17, 1996

This weekend’s ‘Festival of Books’ offers different
perspectives, discussions and an enthusiastic appreciation of the
written word. By Rodney Tanaka

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

If reading is fundamental, then visiting UCLA this weekend
should be required by law.

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books celebrates reading with
a weekend of activities at UCLA. More than 100 authors and literary
agents will participate in readings, panel discussions and book
signings. Bookstores and publishing houses will offer 158 booths
for browsing and buying. A children’s area will feature
storytelling and appearances by beloved characters such as Spider
Man and the Cat in the Hat.

Read any good books lately?

"This is for people who love books and love reading," says
program chair Claudia Luther, "people who want to learn about and
celebrate and honor books and authors."

The festival offers opportunities to mingle with favorite
writers, participate in panel discussions on everything from
mystery novels to travel books, and locate that hard to find book
directly from the publishing source. UCLA donates more than just
the site for the event. UCLA professors Carolyn See and David Wong
Louie, among others, will moderate panels on Hollywood novels and
Asian American writers, respectively.

Author Dean Koontz will command center stage with a discussion
on the metaphors and choices made in a section of one of his
novels. The writer of bestsellers such as "Intensity" and
"Watchers" wanted to participate in the festival because of his
love of books. This love does not extend, however, to the
introductory reading materials given to him in the first grade. If
he finds time to browse the booths during the festival he most
likely will not look for the Dick and Jane primers that he grew up
with, which featured memorable moments such as "Dick and Jane go
for a walk" and "Dick and Jane meet a puppy."

"They seemed like the most boring kids in the world," Koontz
says. "So I’d do my own stories with drawings: Dick and Jane get
chased by a gorilla, Dick and Jane fall off the ends of the earth
and who gives a damn."

The intervening years between his first writing attempts and his
place on the top of bestseller lists contained many tests of
perseverance. His monetary fortunes evolved from a struggling,
unknown writer into his current status as a recognized name that
almost guarantees success. Koontz remembers the first time he
signed a contract for a large amount of money. A colleague remarked
that after fulfilling the contract he never had to write again.

"What am I going to do then, take up plumbing?" Koontz says.
"This is what I love to do, and money, whether it’s not there or is
there, isn’t the motivation."

"If that was the case, I was an idiot for a very long time
because I wasn’t making any money," Koontz adds. "I was on this a
long, long time before anything really clicked and I never assumed
it would, certainly not on the level that it has."

Before success arrived, one literary agent suggested that Koontz
use exotic locales to ensure large sales. Instead, the Southern
California resident often places his stories in familiar territory.
His protagonists will more likely drive down the San Bernardino
freeway than a country road in France or Japan. Koontz enjoys the
singularity and the familiarity of this area.

"Its ethnic diversity is totally different than any part of the
country and its view of the future is totally different and on the
edge of things," Koontz says. "I think the fact that we all live on
unstable ground has a deep psychological effect on us that we
aren’t even conscious of and forms our whole culture here in a
different way."

A panel moderated by UCLA professor Carolyn See addresses the
idea of Los Angeles as the home of the apocalypse. Such notions are
reinforced by the city’s habit of flooding, sparking into flame,
and collapsing from earthquakes.

"There’s also the whole problem of civil strife," See says.
"Nobody knows when it will break out again or in what form. It’s a
nice place for apocalyptic vision."

See will also participate in a panel discussing the "Hollywood
novel." A fellow panelist, novelist Roger Director, provides an
inside view of Tinseltown with knowledge culled from working on the
television series "Moonlighting" and "Hill Street Blues." His novel
"A Place to Fall" depicts a writer who creates a hit television
series and then gets trapped in the cutthroat machinations of the
industry.

"It’s not altogether different from those Hollywood fables that
we know about, people who are lured out here by fame and glory or
flock out here very willingly," Director says. "They wind up seeing
that the golden river that runs through Hollywood can be pretty
toxic and polluted and once they dredge themselves they fall prey
to some real disappointments."

Writing novels allows Director to flex different literary
muscles than television allows.

"The nice thing about writing a novel for me was a chance to
blow the dust off a whole sealed-up bottle of metaphors and big
words and long sentences that I can’t put in the mouths of
characters in a screenplay," Director says.

UCLA professor David Wong Louie also indulges in the act of
creating fiction, but he does so with the images of Asian Americans
in the back of his mind. Louie moderates a panel discussing Asian
American writers and their work.

"We’ll talk about ideas of representation and authenticity of
experience versus more commercial types of writing which authors
have been known to take certain liberties," Louie says. "What I
think is interesting about this particular venue is (that) it will
bring into the conversation a more general reading population."

Louie says he is aware of the narratives and preconceived
notions about Asian Americans that are circulating in popular
culture. He attempts to influence and question these notions in his
work by creating characters that ring true.

"What I strive to do in my own work is to make characters that
feel real through their language and the gestures they make," Louie
says. "When they seem to have a life of their own they don’t have
to rely on external stereotypes."

The novel he is currently working on addresses such stereotypes.
The main character is a Chinese American who works as a cook and
whose parents own a laundry shop.

"I hope that I’m humanizing those figures and at the same time
I’m making fun of some of the stereotypes surrounding those
figures," Louie says. "I’m thinking about it but it’s not my
mission."

"I’m still writing this story of these people that I’m
interested in," Louie adds. "I talk about them as if they’re people
I know, I’m not thinking this represents a certain stereotype."

Authors, whether discussing Asian American images, Los Angeles
as the end of the world, or the meaning behind their work will
gather at UCLA this weekend because of one unifying bond: the love
of books. The festival offers fans the opportunity to meet their
favorite writers. Authors benefit from the chance to break free
from the contrasting feeling of loneliness that often accompanies
their passion for writing.

"It can be a fulfilling but very frightening and even
debilitating process to put yourself in the prolonged isolation
that writing a book frequently demands," Director says. "People who
dedicate their time, their lives to that pursuit should be
extolled."

Koontz will attest to the rigors of writing books. He finds
writing both an undiluted joy and an endless nightmare.

"You’re always at one level on a certain state of depression
over how things are turning out, but overriding that is the joy of
the use of the language, of imagery and of communication," Koontz
says. "I would hope that in the little presentation I give there
will be a greater sense of the joy than of the depressing
part."

EVENT: L.A. Times Festival of Books this Saturday and Sunday,
April 20-21 in Dickson Plaza at UCLA. Admission is free. For more
info, call (800) LATIMES, ext. 7BOOK or check out their
website:http: \www.latimes.com HOMEENTBOOKS

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