Killspeak

I have tried to rid myself of the guilt of being poorly cultured. It is, in my case, an unreasonable self-criticism and a drain on my bank balance: it has made me purchase books like Camus’ The Rebel (I’ve started that book a half dozen times, but never finished it) and Macunaíma. (The latter purchase was motivated by many kinds of guilt, among which were those stemming from my weakening Portuguese, my feeling of having never cultivated my Brazilian identity, and of recently having read a bunch of comics and sci-fi paperbacks—not “worthwhile literature.”)

The pressure to read canonical or acclaimed books is something I believe many of us feel, those of us educated enough to feel poorly educated. It pushes us to pursue books that may be dull and difficult to get through. We have been convinced that these books are worth the effort, if not for the ideas or experiences they give us, then for the illuminated company in which we’ll be once we finish the book.

It is hard to admit to yourself (more so to others) that this is bullshit. Slogging through the Aeneid or The Wealth of Nations will not make you a better or more authentic person. You’re likely to get as much out of the Cliff’s Notes. Your patience, schedule, and personal habits won’t allow you to become as ridiculously erudite and well read as you’d like to be. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t read it (unless it’s for a course or some such).

I’m working at this myself, trying to accept the limits of my own attention, to be realistic, to pursue books that I am interested in—and capable of finishing. So long Complete Stories of Franz Kafka. Hello Neal Stephenson.

If only it were so simple. I’ve just finished reading Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and feel a little disappointed. It’s well written, but not exciting: I had heard and agreed with much of what he writes about well before I read it. This is something I’ve felt after reading many of the books I’ve chosen for myself lately. The characters, phrases, and ideas are already reasonably well known to me; drained of novelty, I only really enjoy the small refinements and differences that haven’t managed to escape their original source. I finish these books, but slowly and for the satisfaction of knowing—later, bragging—that, yes, I’ve read that book.

It’s this reading-to-have-read-it that I was trying to move away from in the first place. I’m still a victim of my own self-conscious book selections, though now not because of a self-hating drive to become well read, but because my selections are too familiar. To some extent, I already know much of what I’m reading, and this takes a lot of the fun out of reading it. Sure, Here Comes Everybody and Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions had some neat ideas, but they were only refinements of ideas I’d already seen or gleaned from other essays and books. I got even less from The Prestige (I’d seen the movie several times) and re-reading Ender’s Game.

The interest that motivated me to obtain and start these books faded quickly, and somewhere between the front and back cover, reading them began to feel like a chore. I did not enjoy them as I thought I would due to spoilers or redundancy. This isn’t because I’m all-knowing, but because I’ve over-applied my new standard.

(I wonder if Brottman covers this in The Solitary Vice. Her insights on reading are quite keen.)

I sound whiny and pompous, don’t I? I do. This frustration is not as bad as I make it out to be; I think that choosing for myself is still better than following some literary consensus against my own patience and curiosity. The Selfish Gene was not nearly as arduous as was my World War I-like struggle to complete The Brothers Karamazov. There were many ideas of interest in Dawkins’ book, though they seemed to have been packed in at the end. (I should have read The Extended Phenotype instead.)

I need some non-Lucas noise to throw-off my book selection methods just enough to keep me interested. Perhaps I should try reading books recommended to me by others, a compromise of my own tastes, as they perceive them, and theirs (a received opinion, a should read).