On Reading

[peterbirks]

There was an interesting piece in The Guardian today on "Books That Move Men".

A year ago, Lisa Jardine and Annie Watkins asked women "which book had helped them most during their lives" — that is to say, a "watershed" novel. A wide range of books were mentioned, although Jane Eyre and Pride & Prejudice were the winners (why, I wonder, were this pair two of my set books at my, all-boys, school? A good question).

So, the women thought, in an idiotic idea clearly drummed up over their fifth Friday-lunchtime drink, let's do the same for men.

The problem was, the concept of "watershed" novels, ones where you identify with the lead characters, ones where the emotional angst and manner of coping with difficulties in life are parameount, is not one that you can apply to most ment. Indeed, as the researchers noted, with something approaching a note of puzzlement, "Between 20 and 40, many men we talked to openly showed an almost complete lack of interest in reading which drew them into personal introspection, or asked them to engage with the family and the domestic sphere."

Well, surprise surprise.

The outright winner amongst men was, by the way, Albert Camus' The Outsider.

But, as surveys do, it got me thinking. Watershed novels? Being drawn into personal introspection? Clearly I do not approach novel (or book) reading the same way these people do. I mean, I must have read 1,000 novels in my lifetime, maybe more, with maybe 500 of them by the age of 25 and another 500 since. But I'd be pushed to think of a novel that I would describe as life-altering, or life-affirming, come to that. I do remember reading Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice and The Mill On The Floss and thinking "what a pile of tosh" (opinions that I still maintain, by the way). And I guess that, as a youngster, the two books which I liked the most were 1984 and The Man In The High Castle, both of which have certain echoes of Camus. But I wouldn't have called either of them watershed novels in my emotional development. Later I came to Joseph Conrad, and I realized that there was great writing (Conrad) and middlebrow chick-lit dressed up as literature (Jane Austen). It wasn't me that was mistaken; the teachers were. There was great writing out there, but these twats wouldn't recognize it if it jumped up and bit them. (By way of atonement here, I did have The Power And The Glory as a set text for A-Level, and that is, I think, one of the great novels of the 20th century. To compensate for this, some donkey on the exam board at London University thought that Barchester Towers deserved to be ranked alongside it.)

I just read books because I enjoyed reading words. I loved words. Plots were useful, characterisation was more important, but words were everything. Not for nothing is one of my favourite novels Earthly Powers.


Have I ever read a novel for emotional reinforcement, to say to myself "ahh, yes, the author understands just how I feel about life"? Perhaps I have, just once. Kafka's The Trial sums up human existence for me. But it's not something that I like to remind myself of.


+++


£:$, 1.7523. Gain since last report, 77 points. Yay. Loss so far, 121 points. Boo.

The recent dogged recovery on Party came to an abrupt halt tonight as the Gods decided that Aces would be crap and flops would not hit. The month had been going very well and is now back to average overall with a (yes, you've guessed it) small loss on Party.

I once went something like 14 months on Paradise without being able to get anywhere, even though I had won several thousands in the previous 12 months. It almost feels as if I am going through that kind of run on Party at the moment. I was quite happy with my play tonight (an unusual statement when you have just gone through 50 big bets in total on four different tables). with no desperation calls just to show how unlucky I had been. Indeed, I saved quite a few bets by judicious folds. However, as the $200 loss approached I could feel myself heading into the dangerous uber-aggressive mode, where the raises come on more and more marginal hands. So I upped sticks and left.

Working at home tomorrow. Hooray. Lots of things to do. Boo.

Comments

Lit crit

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry Pete, but Pride and Prejudice is a book that sums up huge areas of the human condition. For example, would I ever have managed to cope with my Mother-in-Law without having read about Mrs Bennet and realised that she (mMiL) wasn't a one off? I've probably read more novels than even you, and several, (many?) have led me into personal introspection, but where the survey goes wrong, IMO, is to believe that this period of introspection actually makes a blind bit of difference to the introspector's subsequent life. No, P&P didn't change my life, neither did L'Etrange, (can't find acute here) but both set me back a bit and did make me think, does that count?

John W

Re: Lit crit

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

It's okay John. I always put in the "Pride & Prejudice is middlebrow chick-lit crap" line. It's the one thing almost guaranteed to generate a response! I'm sure that the book has some merit and speaks to some about the human condition, but it never did so for me.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

and I hated "The Power and the Glory", but then I have a problem with "Catholic"n novels, that even Greene would be hard put to overcome

John W again

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Ahh, but it isn't a Catholic novel. It's just dressed up as one. It's about having to do what you have to do, even though you don't want to, because that's the way it is. It questions the existence of free will. The hero of the Power and the Glory knows that he doesn't have free will, whereas the soldier chasing the priest merely thinks that he does. Both are trapped, but one has self-awareness, while the other does not. That the priest has this self-awareness because of his Roman Catholicism is, in a way, irrelevant. More interesting is that he sees this self-awareness not as liberating, but as a curse. "God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

PJ

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

For me I think the single most mind-altering novel I ever read was Billy Liar at age twelve, which taught me that I wouldn't have to give up all the things I expected I would have to when I became an adult. And this remains the case.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

You appear to be an SF person Maenad. I went to one or two of the One Tun meetings back in the early 1980s, as well as having nodding acquaintance with Dave Langford, Pete Darvill-Evans and the (then) Pete Tamlyn. Have we met?

PJ

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Ah, Peter, Peter. Is my memory so short, is my fame so fleeting? Do six years of trading Greatest Hits for U-Bend mean naught?

Yes, we've met.

[pb9617.livejournal.com]

I'm on your side in almost every aspect of your survey cim literary critique.

I tend to shy away from fiction altogether, preferring philosophy, histories and historical biographies. I've rarely had a book "connect" with me. I, like you, hold Conrad in the highest regard, and the rest of the books that connected were histories: Ben Franklin's autobiography, Heart of Darkness, Willie Stargell's autobiography, Nolan Ryan's autobiography, histories of WWII, these are the things I most enjoyed, but I don't know if they "connected" with me. Rather, I took lessons or thoughts away from them.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi PB.

I didn't want to get into the non-fiction section because, yes, here we do have books that have changed my outlook on life, in some cases fundamentally. They didn't tend to be autobiographies, but they were often histories (and occasionally left-field histories). I think that if I had to name one book that changed my life most significantly it would be Scarne on Cards, which I read when I was about 12 years old.

I still read a lot of fiction, mainly to admire the technical skills of the author (hence Auster, Faulks, Boyd, McEwan).

Heart of Darkness? A History?

PJ

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Scarne's Complete Guide to Gambling left me, at a similar age, with a burning desire to go to a US casino that instant and win lots of money.

I finally made it to Las Vegas in 2004, but by that time, a combination of the passage of years and the fact that the place was less like a James Bond film and more like Southsea sea front with blackjack instead of penny falls, made the experience sufficiently different to my expectations that I couldn't bring myself to actually gamble.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I assume that you are referring to Downtown rather than the strip, Sandra (well, how the hell was I meant to know that it was you?).

I'm getting slightly worried that Vegas might be going the way of the London casinos -- kind of "let's pretend it's Mayfair and everyone still dresses for dinner". Part of the attraction of LV was its declassé nature, but the Wynn and the Venetian seem to be trying to introduce a "snobbish" element, an "upper class" if you will. That is not what Vegas is about. When the time comes that I am required to wear a jacket and tie to play poker, then I shall decamp downtown and start playing amongst the piss smells of the Plaza (the food is better value downtown, anyway -- I had an excellent meal in the cafe in the casino opposite the Plaza, with coke, for about $7.95.)

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Now that I'm within sniffing distance of being a respectable lawyer, I like to maintain a certain anonymity online. But have I really changed physically so much that you couldn't recognise me from the several usericons with my face in?

This was downtown, yeah.

I was very sad about how little I enjoyed Vegas. The damn place is in a desert. Boiling hot in February.

[pb9617.livejournal.com]

Crossed wires. I was trying to agree with you on Conrad and say that HOD is a great book.

It's the reader not the book

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

The trouble with this sort of thing is that for something to be life-changing depends both on the book and the person you happen to be at the time. Thus I have at various times in my life been 'altered' by say Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance because I was a 6th former and a student dropout at the points when I read those books.

The last book to alter my life perspective was Iain Banks' The Crow Road and that must be at least 10 years old now. I think as you get older you get more certain about your life and how to live it. You begin to read books as a bit more of a dry experience admiring the technical expertise rather than being moved by the story - not that there isn't pleasure in that - Atonement and Any Human Heart are probably better books than nearly everything I've ever read, but they don't move me.

However I think if I'd have read books such as these at a more maleable point in my life they'd have been a more cathartic experience.

Life-altering?

[(Anonymous)]

I've never thought of counting, but a thousand novels doesn't seem many. I suspect I have almost a thousand novels in the house and I've read almost all of them, plus all the ones I read in the past but don't own. As a child and young adult, before I got a computer, I read constantly and rapidly; I remember reading seven books in a day once, though I don't think they were all full-length novels.

Although I obviously enjoyed them and sometimes felt "Wow!" after reading, I doubt that any of them changed my life. Except by taking up lots of time that I could otherwise have spent in some other way. But I don't really begrudge it. My favourite books are friends, and spending time with friends is good even if they don't change your life.

I don't think I know of any author (or, more generally, person) who "understands just how I feel about life". I'm completely normal, but I'm living on a planet populated entirely by weirdos. Help! Beam me up, Scotty!

-- Jonathan

Recount

[(Anonymous)]

Correction: although I probably have more than a thousand books in the house, a better estimate suggests that I may have only about 500 novels -- not counting collections of short stories, and not counting Ana's collection of novels, most of which are in Spanish and none of which I've read.

But I'd be a small-timer even if I had a thousand novels. I think Dave Langford is said to have tens of thousands of books in his house (and must have read many others besides); and I seem to remember Steve Doubleday had a large collection once. My own collection would seem large only to people who don't really read books.

-- Jonathan