We were talking about lewd books.
“There’s this one, mostly from a teenage boy’s perspective, that was just so frank, and it was written in the 1960s
so it was this big controversy. Damn, what was it called …” My story trailed off into nothing. The conversation moved on. But I had tuned out, desperate to recall the very memorable book with a terribly unmemorable name.
Portnoy’s Complaint. No wonder I couldn’t remember the title. Portnoy is the protagonist’s surname of Philip Roth’s celebrated 1969 novel. But several years after reading it, “Portnoy” had lost all meaning, and the title too, was lost.
My apologies Mr Roth, but I feel like your title failed its most important role. It didn’t provide a convenient hook to rest your art. So when I wanted to pull your book from my internal library, I had nothing to grab. It remained on the shelf, dusty and untouched, when it really should’ve been shared.
Good books deserve good titles. Firstly, good titles have to be memorable. But they also have to lure the unsuspecting shopper in the book store, satisfy the reader afterwards and, I guess, work with Search Engine Optimization in mind. Some say titles should be 70 characters or less, others say there’s power in a three-word title. Use key words and an active voice.
I can think of fabulous titles that break each of the above rules.
Goodreads’ Best Book Titles list is rife with quirky titles that immediately pique curiosity. Like, for example, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Then there are titles that are 80 per cent normal, but an unexpected turn of phrase or twist in syntax, averts expectation, and hence the unforgettable Love in the Time of Cholera, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Owls Do Cry.
The cleverly titled Eats, Shoots and Leaves win points for its puns, while simple alliteration in Pride and Prejudice helps commit the title to memory. And then there are titles that are just so apt that you can’t imagine anything else. Like The Slap, which covers the novel’s central issue while its snappy sound evokes the sharp, succinct sound and action of a slap. There’s no way that novel could have a long-winded, curious-incident-of-the-night-time, sort of title.
To labour over tens of thousands of words and then pick just a handful to summarise, incite, imply and entice, I imagine it’s not a decision that’s taken lightly.
And on that note, this blog entry needs a title. Something clever, quirky, and 70-characters-or-less. Umm … ahhh … Hmm. I’ll get back to you.
runningwithabook 