One of the questions of our day, at least in this field, is whether or not anybody reads anymore. Apparently it's not a rhetorical question. I read an interesting piece, I think it was in the New Yorker, not long ago that said humans aren't genetically predisposed towards reading. It's a learned behavior, and we could be coming upon a post-reading era. V.S. Naipaul has said much about the death of the novel. Newspapers are increasingly becoming incubators for online content, under which the imperative is shorter, shorter. Life is increasingly busy, or so it seems, and the energy and attention for reading is becoming harder and harder to come by, etc.
Lately, though, I've found a real solace and enjoyment in reading. So much so that I barely watch TV anymore. In the past half year I've read more than I have in a long, long time. I can't even recall all the novels I've read, but here are a few: Dirty Work by Larry Brown; Solo Faces and Light Years by James Salter, Rhythm of the Road by Allbyn Leah Hall, LA Rex by Will Beal, an LAPD cop, and most recently Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson. I'm currently reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
Each of these books has been an experience unto itself. I've lost myself, at a time when I need to, in every one. James Salter and Johnson's latest have been particular revelations. In fact, DJ's book is enough to revive one's faith in the novel as a vital form all by itself. It's sprawling, complicated, vivid and transcendent all at once. If you ever thought you had nothing left to read about our Vietnam experience, please do yourself a favor and read this book. Of course, the themes are applicable to current times.
I'm not sure what I mean by sharing this, except I'd like to know how you out there feel about such things and what you're into if you are actively engaged in this supposed anachronism. Either way, I hope you make time for it in your lives.
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There are 5 comments posted for this article.
Reading still matters. And people still do it. It's funny that the most read article on the New York Times for the past several days is "It’s Not You, It’s Your Books," about relationships falling apart (or never starting) because of the partner's bad taste or disinterest in books.
"We’ve all been there. Or some of us have. Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed — or misguided — literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/books/review/Donadio-t.html
More books are published now than ever before. It doesn't mean more books are being read than ever before, or that the books are better, but there are plenty of readers, plenty of book people.
Try out Steve Erickson's new novel, Zeroville or Tom Hodgkinson's Freedom Manifesto, or Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke
Posted on April 1, 2008 12:03 PM by Mark
Except for Ugly Betty, TV pretty much sucks. Download the song "Television the Drug of a Nation" by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Great line "T.V. is the only wet nurse that would create a cripple."
I'm heading out to Joshua Tree next week and plan to take The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, 1984 by George Orwell (embarassed to admit I haven't read it) and a book of poems by Mary Oliver. I did read Light Years. It was beautiful and rare. Have you read any of Salter's others?
I enjoyed your blog about Henry Miller. It's been years since I read Tropic of Cancer. I tend to give books away after I've read them but that one stays in the permanent collection. It may be the only thing left on my bookshelf worth reading. And that's how I know people read. They take all of my good books! I'm left with an odd asssortment of titles like Lesbian Sex Secrets for Men and Kung Fu for Girls, neither of which get any use.
Posted on April 2, 2008 1:48 PM by erica walker
Perhaps it's just a personal preference, but real escapism doesn't happen for me unless I read a book. Movies, videos or YouTube sound bites can’t compete. Nothing can compete with a great book—or even a good one. Well, maybe I’m wrong. A gutsy, gritty soul song comes close. Whether I have time or not, I make it to sequester myself away from the daily drudgery and dive into a book that is well-written, humorous, sometimes melancholy, always ironic, and peopled with quirky characters. It doesn’t matter if it’s fiction or non-fiction. As long as the protagonist and plot are funky, a book is pure bliss. With the immediacy and distractions of cyberspace, new millennium Americans are tempted by instant entertainment. But slowly flipping through the pages of a book rather than a website is worth the time.
Posted on April 3, 2008 9:18 PM by Wayne Trujillo
It's 1 a.m. and I just got home from Psychobabble in Los Feliz, where I go to read the paper while surrounded with cafe noise. It has always been hard for me to concentrate on the written word when I'm reading in my leisure time. A million other things pop into my head and I find myself reading the same sentence over and over again just to get the basic meaning sometimes. But even though I rarely read fiction, I find that newspapers open up the world to me. I might take forever and read each article twice, but I end up feeling like I traveled to all these foreign places and was physically standing in the middle of their story. I haven't plugged my TV in in months. American TV is shit, it is SO much more dumbed down than British TV, though British TV is getting worse too, in an embarrassing emulation of U.S. programming style. You know how they say you can't be a good writer unless you've read a lot. I used to think that was rubbish, that you could pick up a voice, a vernacular, from the streets, from TV, from life. But there's nothing like reading to arm you with that knowledge, and insight (fiction or not), which is why a nation of kids and young adults today are sorely unprepared for any kind of conversation of substance. And you're right, it's funny how much more absorbing reading is when you're aching to get away from something else.
Posted on April 4, 2008 1:23 AM by Mel
Hello! I am always reading a fiction and non fiction book at the same time. I alternate between the two. Currently, I am doing reading Jack Miles' "Biography of God" and Cormac McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men." The latter is my favorite contemporary author.
Recently, I knocked out two novels by Charles Baxter. Also, not a bad current writer. The last outstanding novel I read was Robert Penn Warren's "All The King's Men."
Reading is my passion.
John
Posted on April 17, 2008 11:15 AM by John