Step inside my time machine. It’s a DeLorean DMC-12 with a hot tub in the backseat and a dead Morlock in the trunk. It’s 2017 right now. We’ve just finished binge-watching House of Cards, Breaking Bad, and Narcos. We hardly know what’s real anymore. Our clothes are filthy, we stink, and, apart from ransacking twelve bags of Cheetos and accidentally slurping from the pee-bottle, we’re severely malnourished. To top it all off… we don’t even remember what we just watched.
But that’s all gonna change now. The DeLorean just hit 88mph. Whoosh….
The year is 1898 and Henry James has just written The Turn of the Screw. The first of its twelve instalments will be published on January 27 in Collier’s Weekly. We’ve still got a little bit of time before the edition comes out. Feel free to explore the tail-end of the nineteenth-century. It was a good one. Just try not to bang your great-grandmother or grandfather and stop yourself from existing. You need to be alive to tick off the first of the 24 challenges from your Love Reading Book Challenge 2017 list.
Read A Book In Serial Form
When I say “read a book in serial form”, I don’t mean get your favourite Stephen King printed on the back of a Cornflakes box (can you imagine the toy that would come free in a Stephen King cereal?).
I mean read a book that was originally serialised – released in daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly instalments – in the order and timing of its original publication.
Let’s take an example of how to do this with the book I’m reading for this challenge: Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.
The Turn of the Screw first appeared in Collier’s Magazine, replete with gorgeous accompanying illustrations, in the following publication schedule:
- Week 1 – Prologue – January 27, 1898.
- Week 2 – Chapters 1 & 2 – February 5, 1898.
- Week 3 – Chapter 3 – February 12, 1898.
- Week 4 – Chapters 4 & 5 – February 19, 1898.
- Week 5 – Chapters 6 & 7 – February 26, 1898.
- Week 6 – Chapters 8 & 9 – March 5, 1898.
- Week 7 – Chapters 10, 11 & 12 – March 12, 1898.
- Week 8 – Chapters 13, 14 & 15 – March 19, 1898.
- Week 9 – Chapters 16, 17 & 18 – March 26, 1898.
- Week 10 – Chapters 19 & 20 – April 2, 1898.
- Week 11 – Chapters 21 & 22 – April 9, 1898.
- Week 12 – Chapters 23 & 24 – April 16, 1898.
How do you read a book in its true, originally published serial form? Simple. In the case of The Turn of the Screw, you have the publication schedule outlined right there. You just follow along, forbidding yourself to read on until you have reached the time in which the next issue would have been published. If you start by reading the prologue of The Turn of the Screw today, you won’t read the first and second chapters until a week later. And if you really love those chapters and can’t wait to read on… Too bad. You gotta wait another week to get the next instalment.
But WHY read a story like this?
Well, for one, it’s an entirely different experience reading like this as opposed to gobbling a story down in one or two sittings. Especially with a story like James’ that can easily be started and finished in a single evening, pacing yourself and forcing yourself to take the story across several months is a whole new way of experiencing the narrative.
Well… I say ‘a whole new way’ but really this way of reading is as old as time. It’s only recently that we’ve started binging like coke addicted ferrets and barely stopping to breathe, let alone THINK about what we just read. We still love our stories – that will never change – but do we still savour and appreciate them like a fine bottle of scotch? Or do we belt them back like a cheap bottle of bourbon?
I picked up a gorgeous edition of The Turn of the Screw, reprinted for the first time as it actually originally appeared in Collier’s Weekly, and the editor, Peter G. Beidler, has this to say on the rationale of reading the story this way:
There is much to be gained […] by experiencing The Turn of the Screw as James’ first audiences experienced it, in illustrated and serialized format. For one thing, reading the story as it first appeared in Collier’s Weekly reminds us that James originally wrote The Turn of the Screw to be read not in a sitting or two but as a periodical story in weekly instalments.
James knew that serialized fiction needed to excite readers’ curiosity, stimulating them by making each instalment in some sense an adventure in itself. He also knew that most readers could not be expected to remember many details from earlier instalments. He might well be surprised, even amused, at the intensely close readings that modern academic readers give The Turn of the Screw. Many of those close readings assume that readers had the whole text in front of them and could and would make specific comparisons across the chapters.
So why read a book in it’s originally published serial form?
Well…
- It’s a whole new reading experience (for many readers today).
- It’s how many authors intended their work to be read.
- It gives you a whole new appreciation of the work.
- You really live with a work, rather than devour it.
- And… it’s just fun.
If you wanna be a great big copycat, you can read The Turn of the Screw according to its original publication schedule like me. If you do, be sure to let me know so we can gab about it around the water cooler and wonder about what will happen next?!
If you go for The Turn of the Screw, I recommend you pick up this wonderful edition that follows the Collier’s Weekly format.
Or you can pick another book that was originally written in serial form.
A few recommendations:
- The Green Mile by Stephen King
- The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
- Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Or, if you want to get a glimpse into the indie market and see serialisation in real time, check out Wattpad and find a book that has just kicked off its serialisation. Then you’ll really be forced to stick to the schedule.
Another great idea for this is to subscribe to Mousehold Words, which will deliver serialized fiction to your email. Or you can download an app called Serial Reader, which will deliver serialized fiction to your phone. Just pick your poison, choose the correct publishing schedule, and read a work in the way it was meant to be read.
Let me know what book you choose and how you’re enjoying the serial reading experience. I’ll be starting The Turn of the Screw on January 27.