Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @ Book Nook Bits and Dini @ Dinipandareads! Every Friday they have a different topic for participants to write about and discuss.
I thought I’d try out doing some more discussion posts and getting more content than just reviews, after the slow years while I was studying (I can’t believe it’s already been like nine months since I finished my course, and my brain’s still recovering). So let’s give this one a shot, and today’s theme iiiis Novels in Verse:
Have you read any novels in verse? Do you think novels in verse can be more emotionally powerful compared to regular prose, or do you think novels in verse are more difficult to connect with? What kind of stories do you think work best in verse (i.e. coming-of-age, grief, romance, historical fiction, etc.)? What are your favourite novels in verse?
So let’s take that a bit at a time!
Have you read any novels in verse?
Yes, a couple. Not a lot, but I’ve read Dove Cooper’s Seafoam and Silence, and I know there’s some other verse novel that I’m forgetting… It’s been quite a while since I came across one that called to me, though, so I haven’t got any recent examples.
Do you think novels in verse can be more emotionally powerful compared to regular prose, or do you think novels in verse are more difficult to connect with?
Neither, really! I think both prose and poetry have their place, depending on the author and the story’s needs, and the reader’s inclinations. Poetry is great at really condensing stuff into a tight package, and that can sometimes be devastating, and sometimes it just won’t land, and that quite likely depends on the tastes of the reader.
I’d probably find I connect better with prose, personally; I like the space it can give an author to give me detail and time with characters, and find that verse often makes things tighter and sparser. Prose is like a broadsword and verse is a little rapier that goes in deep: both of them can be deadly, but I find the broadsword a tad more painful and there’s a fair bit more tissue damage. Sometimes there are moments when the rapier thrust straight to the heart is enough, though.
This analogy isn’t perfect, but I think you probably get where I’m going.
What kind of stories do you think work best in verse?
I suspect that anything could, in the right hands!
What are your favourite novels in verse?
I can’t really pick a favourite, since I remember so few! There’s one where the title’s just on the tip of my tongue that I wouldn’t mind revisiting my review of to see how much I liked it… but since I can only remember the vaguest details, I’m having trouble thinking of it, ahaha. I’ll be curious to see other people’s recommendations!
I enjoyed Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate, back in the day, but it’s been forty years since it was published and I suspect it may not have aged all that well? (Though, even when I first read it in the 90s, I enjoyed the bravura performance of the form—a novel told entirely in tetrameter sonnets—more than the story itself.)
I have eyed that a few times, I think, but never got round to trying it!
Great post! While I’ve read a few novels in verse, I also find that I connect better with prose in general. It’s easier for me to connect with more details, but I find that it stays with more in a deeper (and of course different) way when I come across poetry that really connects with me! Thanks so much for joining LTB this week 🙂
Dini @ dinipandareads recently posted…Let’s Talk Bookish: Novels in Verse
I think it can be hard to find verse novels that really stick the landing — it’s a big ask to tell a story like that, after all! But when they do, wow.