| Great Books vs. The Trash |
February 27, 2009
Yesterday I read Nick Hornby's book, Housekeeping vs. The Dirt. It was recommended to me and I liked it. But it is not a book that most people would enjoy reading. Sure, it is funny and sometimes there are great insights but basically it is a book of one-liners or one-paragraphers and only a real book lover -- crazed book lover -- would want to read through it. The book was not even written as a book, it is a compilation of columns Hornby wrote, and those columns were meant to be digested quickly, laughed over, and maybe a few interesting and provoking thoughts thrown out there would be absorbed. And a few great book recommendations picked up (I added six more books to my list of definite-reads over the next year). I've already read Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson (one of the favorite books of the last century) and have no desire (I fear it might kill all my desire, after reading Hornby's assessment of it)to read The Dirt by Motley Crue.
Hornby 's writing is funny and self-deprecating, quirky and zipping off on tangents here and there, but the only place in the whole book where I felt his love for books and for reading was in his wonderful introduction. He is right on when he says, "One of the problems, it seems to me, is that we have got it into our heads that books should be hard work, and that unless they're hard work, they're not doing us any good." Yeah -- I agree! Reading that is hard work is reading to put away for another day, when it might not seem like hard work. Or just put away, forever. Caveat: reading that is hard because it is making you see something you did not want to see, I say that you must sit there and read it and figure out why it is bothering you! You will learn something from that book, that self-examination.
Speaking of self-examination, what is truly great about reading and Hornby does not mention this (how could he miss such a vital aspect of reading -- how?) is that reading is a way to STOP looking down into your own soul and instead look over into someone else's. And that glimpse off to another person and world, or a deep intense stare into another's navel, is a break that your own self needs -- your navel needs ignoring while you go off and enjoy some one else's problems and pleasures for a change. We all know reading is an escape -- why doesn't Horny mention it? I forgive him because of his advice at the end of the intro: "Read anything, as long as you can't wait to pick it up again." Of course -- and of course I have a caveat to that: don't read trash. It will trash your brain and seal it closed tight, instead of blowing it wide open. But more about that later.
I identified with what Hornby was doing -- writing about the books he was reading every month-- because that is what I am doing here on this site and I wanted to see how he went about doing what I am going about doing. He is a writer and I am a reader, and I figured there would be a difference on how we would approach the review of what we read. And there is a difference: other than in his introduction, Horny is not writing about loving books. Or about needing books and wanting to understand what makes a book great and why it is important that a book is great. In fact, Horny argues that whereas no bad can come from reading, no good can come either. I disagree with him on both counts.
Reading trash is not good for you. Formulaic romances, mysteries, and thrillers, and any novels that follow a set regime of format, character, and style create a pattern of expectation in readers that leads to undisturbed and conformist perceptions of what life is all about. Even when the life portrayed is completely wacko or sicko, unbelievably sexy or depraved, these formulaic books (standard type characters and situations) coincide with popular ideas and prejudices, and jibe with current acceptable notions of how life should be. And books --ART -- should disturb settled notions of how life should be. Because there is no one way that life should be. The broader the range of ways to live that we can experience -- genuinely experience through genuine portrayals -- the better. We can have whole new vistas of experience through books, paintings, sculpture, music, movies, (and conversations about these events with a diverse bunch of people), and our brains and our hearts benefit, becoming bigger and broader, more accepting and more compassionate, and best of all, more open to life in all its varieties.
Real life is portrayed in great books: no matter how extraordinary the elements and the details, the genuineness of the writer brings to the reader a recognition of humanity, of the humane and of the evil and of the chances for redemption or not. Great books give us real life where mistakes are made and we don't get what we want and we suffer and cause suffering but where we also experience joy and even ecstasy and peace and contentment -- that is what great literature presents. And by seeing our humanity reflected, we see our possibilities. Great good does come from reading great books.
Maybe the difference is not that I am a reader and Hornby is both writer and reader; maybe it has more to do with the fact that I am American and he is English. He notes the huge difference between American fiction and British fiction, summing it up as "Don't Abandon Your Dreams" (the message in American literature) and "Abandon Your Dreams" (the message in British literature). Maybe I am the optimist, sure that books can make the world a better place and maybe Hornby is the pessimist, counseling us to read for pleasure only, and to forget all the rest of it.
I can just imagine what Hornby would say about my one book a day project: nothing very good. He seems to be speaking directly to me when he writes, "If you are so gripped by a book that you want to read it in the mythical single sitting, what chance has it got of making it all the way through the long march to your soul?" That is what I do -- I sit and I read and I absorb. Writing about what I read is what helps the absorption rate enormously. I've always read voraciously but now I am really thinking about what I read, not just reading for the pleasure of the words but also reading for the agony of figuring out why I like a book or why I hate it, or what this book has to show me. The reading is the pleasure, the writing is the hard work, but together, the two make this the best year ever. My year of reading one book a day.
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