I thought I would talk about book titles in this blog. Like book covers book titles either grab our attention or maybe even deter us from chosing a book.
Would you select a book with the title Everything I Know About Women I Learned From My Tractor.
How about Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.
The first book is virtually unknown whereas the second is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The author, Robert M. Pirsig, said the title was a play on the title of another book published in 1948, Zen And The Art Of Archery and that readers should not accept him as an authority on either zen or motorcycles. What this book has become, however, is a best selling book of philosophy.
It is a title that both makes fun of itself and then delivers on its promise.
Other titles find shorter ways to get their point across:
Crime And Punishment
1984
Alice In Wonderland
And then, of course, there are the titles that got changed prior to publication:
Mules In Horses’ Harness And Tomorrow Is Another Day is quite a mouthful. Gone With The Wind rolls off the tongue better.
Trimalchio In West Egg doesn't sound that interesting. The Great Gatsby on the other hand conjures up a different image.
First Impressions is OK but Pride And Prejudice is better. Similarly, Something That Happened is a bit dull. Of Mice And Men is definitely an improvement.
So how do authors come up with titles for their books? Leon Uris writing about the the immigration ship Exodus, uses the name of the ship as the title for his book but like the ship itself the name Exodus has a broader meaning of a mass leaving of a place. It’s a reference to Israelites leaving bandage in Egypt and how they founded their homeland. East Of Eden written by John Steinbeck also takes it’s title and its themes from the bible wher Cain is banished to Nod, which is to the East of Eden, after killing his brother Abel. William Faulkner chose Absolem, Absolem! as the title for his book about the rise and fall of southern culture based on the name of King David's wayward son who dies fighting his father’s Empire. Even Margaret Attwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a reference to Abraham procuring a son by sleeping with his wife Sara’s handmaid because she feared that she was barren.
Shakespeare also offers writers a place to scrounge for titles. John Marsden uses The Third Day, The Frost from Henry VIII. John Forsyth takes the title The Dogs Of War from Julius Caesar. Both Charles Dickens and Nathaniel Hawthorne used the title Twice Told Tales from King John. And Something Wicked This Way Comes, a Ray Bradbury favourite, comes from Macbeth. The list is long and can be found in great detail on Wikipedia.
As for my own titles, like many books they started with a different title. I called When All Hope Is Lost, The Cure. Pretty plain and there are already lots of books with the word ‘cure’ in the title. Then a friend, Dead Richards, who loves making up titles for his electronic music albums, called me up and said, “Write this down. When All Hope Is Lost.”
I did as I was told and then asked him what it meant. He replied it was the title of my book. At first I was sceptical but I liked the sound of it. Then I decided to not only make it the book’s title but to incorporate it into the story. I remembered how, in the years leading up to the Millenium, someone had gone around Sydney stencilling the word Eternity. No one knew who was doing it or what it meant but it was everywhere. I wanted to incorporate that concept into my history of the pandemic. When I wrote my second book, Dean gave me the title Pray To The Dead. The preposition ‘to’ rather than ‘for’, he pointed out, was significant. So, I had my character Patricia and her mother discuss this philosophical difference at length. My latest book, For Where There Are Harps is also a gift from Dean. I have no idea how he came up with it but I liked it because I thought its biblical links suited the third book in the series.
Psalms 137:2 says: We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
The song psalms were written by David who was known for playing the harp so it had great significance to him. Hanging up the harps stood for the captured Isrealites refusing to entertain their captors, the Babylonians. There’s a sense of hopelessness in that verse which I thought fit nicely with the tone of my book.
Similarly, harps also appear in Revelation 15:2: And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire — and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands.
Although this verse comes from Revelations, it is a hopeful passage. The beast is vanquished and those standing before God, the survivors are ready to celebrate. This also tied in well with the end of my book because it is as much about hope as it is about sorrow and loss. The third book is also the end of the Old One’s Revelations. Fortunately, it is not the end of the story. Angels Have Tread picks up the story but from a new teller’s point of view.
If you have a story about a book title that you’d like to share? Please leave a comment.