I love words. I love books. I love reading.
It is my way of escaping the world and it’s sometimes all too awful realities: within the pages of many novels I have found the man I’ve been searching for all my life, the NYC lifestyle I aspire to, the places I long to visit, the jobs and children I wish to have. My bookshelves are bowing under the sheer weight of my need and desire to escape.
I’m rarely happier than when I am in bookshop (and love the American trend that has taken over bookshops of the world; the inclusion of great coffee right beside the books bringing two of my greatest loves into a threesome that poses no moral ambiguity or real physical risk.) My shelves threaten collapse under the weight of the books other book lover’s have urged me to read; and small spaces await the return of volumes I’ve loaned to friends in the hope that they’ll love them to.
An indecisive by nature my book collection (like my that of my DVD and ever more so of my CD) is eclectic: books from my English degree at Queen’s are heaped side by side with political biographies, childhood favourites and realms of popular fiction: including many examples of what is patronisingly described as chick lit.(A Carrie O’Hara chick lit definition: scorned as book versions of chick flick films: emotional drivel only suitable for girls at a certain stage of their menstrual cycle as an outlet of frustration against the world in general and men in particular). And in the latter we meet my literary stumbling block.
As an English graduate and English teacher: I’m often asked for book recommendations and often when people are asked about or offer information about their own reading material it is accompanied by a muttered apology: as if I represent some sort of Literature Police: whose job it is to walk the earth and tut at the mediocrity of the book choices of others. At the very least I should be able to quantify what makes great literature great.
I can’t.
Beauty or greatness in literature as in all art (and physical beauty in our ‘objects’ of sexual desire) lies in the eye of the beholder. For some that beauty will only be contained in the works of the established literary canon. And while we are tiptoeing across this much lauded plain, I have to confess that three years of ‘reading English at Queen’s’ didn’t quite establish the factors required to have your writing included in what is, I believe, quite an extensive list; instead I hid behind the viewpoint of one particularly feminist lecturer who demeaned the canon, and I paraphrase, as: ‘Yet another historical example of the patriarchy quelling the voice of the feminine’. This saved me from having to read more Dickens or ever having to read Thomas Hardy.
People are judged by their bookshelves, much like their houses, cars and fashion sense. In fact I love pouring over the books in other people’s houses; delighting in what the list of titles suggest about their owner. I often wonder if the readers of Plato and Dostoevsky have celebrity ‘biographies’ and chick lit hidden away under tear stained pillows: items scurried away with embarrassing photographs and dirty laundry when visitors come a calling. (The paperback equivalent to carrying The Sun wrapped up in The Guardian)
But as I stand and gaze often in wonder I can’t help but think of my own collection on my achingly full shelves at home. Often I find myself making a comparative literary study as I stand there only half listening to the chatter of my hosts: does my choice of titles measure up? Am I less intelligent if I haven’t studied various world religions? Does my lack of books of philosophical merit suggest I’m actually an unthinking bimbo? Does my penchant for popular fiction suggest I’m unworthy to enter into any debates of literary merit? What does my book collection say about me?
A closer look reveals many of the books I ‘had to read’ at Queen’s and in personal truthfulness I should rid myself of those that I never did and never shall read. Within these relics of my misspent youth are volumes and volumes of poetry: words I use for comfort; words I’ve read at weddings and funerals and transcribed upon cards to those I love hoping to somehow encapsulate the feelings I myself lack the creative power to order and articulate. Within these anthologies lie examples of great literature.
And yet alongside the meritorious lie childhood favourites I can’t let go and having lost my original copies have bought various replacements: many of these: the Anne of Green Gables collection and Little Women amongst them are also considered classics: works that have stood the test of time and continue to delight each new generation of library goers. Not having quite found their rightful place in my collection; are a collection of political biographies / books of contemporary political significance and also books of religious searching: the former help me find a reality I often loose between the English classroom and the Drama room and the latter are all too often disappointing as I remain a reluctant non-believer.
But this brings me to the point of contention: my contemporary literature/ popular fiction section. What distinguishes The Kite Runner and Boy in the Striped Pyjamas from the numerous Marian Keyes and John Grisham editions I’ve thoroughly enjoyed (and given that Ms Keyes and Mr Grisham have made handsome livings out of their ‘those who can do’ epistles and I’m firmly in the ‘those who can’t teach’ category do I have the right to condemn them by even the mildest of ridicule?)? Is the hint in the genre title: this particular piece of fiction is great because it is popular? What makes a modern classic: is it selling figures alone? Does a book have to appear on a bestseller/ Oprah’s or Richard and Judy’s book club lists to gain credibility? Or should literary opinion rise above the purely mercenary? Should the books that make it all the way to Hollywood sound stage (and I’m purposefully avoiding the ‘What is better the book or the film?’ argument: feeling that only in the exception does the film win out: but I realise that for many without my ‘leaping imagination’ or free time, find cinema a much more engaging medium.)
I know that as much as enjoy the chick lit I read it is something of a guilty pleasure: to switch on only my emotional intelligence and escape; not to learn about war torn Afghanistan, not to re-engage with the horrors of the Holocaust or the lives of women in Tehran: sometimes I need my escapism to be just that: a trip to world where I’m guaranteed a happy ending. I make my book choices (from the two shelves of books I’ve bought but ‘have yet to read’: I’m Carrie and I’m a book shopping addict) based on my proposed emotional capability in the coming few weeks it will take me to read it: recently and probably the impetus of this meandering mouthful, because I knew I would be lost in that infuriating tidal wave of exam fever: the last two choices belong firmly in chick lit territory: and I loved every page of each of them: in fact I’m still recollecting my emotions from the tragic end of My Sister’s Keeper.
I love words. I love books. I love reading
Literature can be great, bad, indifferent and miraculously life changing: but as to which book falls into which category I don’t’ feel it is for me or anyone else to quantify. Literature is as diverse as humanity itself: what a reader brings to and takes away from a particular work is as individual as that reader: and there, within the endless pages that stretch across time, place and culture; is perhaps the very quality that makes literature great.
