BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Why do you read what you read?

  
 
illmatic
08:04 / 15.09.03
This is kind of ties in with Deva’s thread about “Books by people different from me” but is also coming out of my own musings on my changing tastes. Until about a year or so ago, I’d wasn’t reading novels at all. This has gone on for quite a while, maybe even as far back as my college days, I’m not sure. I think this first arose out of my tendency to read all the occult and esoteric books I could get my hands on, and then to fill the gaps in my appalling ignorance of history, philosophy etc. Underlying all of this though was the weird value judgement that this sort of reading was “more important” than reading fiction. Lately, I’ve gone through a bit of a sea change and can hardly bear to pick up anything that’s not a novel. I think on one hand, this is due to general ODing on the sorts of books I tend to read, I feel “full” and need to give my brain a chance to digest but also that value judgement seems to have given way, and, while the appalling ignorance remains, I can see it as a bit absurd – what was I going to do with all this knowledge anyway? Seems a very “protestant work ethic”/ anti-pleasure way of driving yourself also, never mine the assumption there that novels are less of a valid route to knowledge than “non-fiction”.

So I thought I’d throw the question open to the board. What do your tastes in reading matter say about you? What informs the choices you make in selecting books etc? Do they come out of any commitments to a certain sphere of knowledge or writing projects? Or are you just looking for the rude bits?
 
 
Jack Vincennes
09:00 / 15.09.03
Most of what I've read in the past six years has been informed by the fact that at around fifteen I decided I wanted to study English at University, and should therefore read as many classics as I could in the next three years. This meant that I would read any book which either had the word Classic(s) on the spine, or which I had seen referred to as such somewhere else. Clearly, this was a ridiculously narrow way of defining what I wanted to read (and I didn't study English in the end) but when I read novels now they still tend to fulfil the same criteria as they did then, largely out of habit, but also because such books tend to be easier to find second hand.

Of late I've been reading more history and science, and I'm quite enjoying the break from reading nothing but novels for pleasure.
 
 
Grand Panjandrum of the Pointless
20:24 / 17.09.03
I strongly suspect that most people's 'value judgements' on what is and is not worth reading have more to do with what that person really likes than any well worked out system of values. Or at least that's what I say to excuse myself for reading what I damn well like all the time. If one cramps one's (non work related) reading around some silly abstraction one will end up reading books one doesn't like badly, which is no help to anybody.
I started off my reading career very early with an unhealthy but entirely normal obsession with things that exploded and killed people, preferably in the most violent manner possible. By 16 I had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the stupider factoids of c.20 military history.
From there I moved, rather bizarrely, to an obsession with the life and works of Virginia Woolf, and thence to the rest of Eng. Lit. in which I ended up doing a degree, along with Icelandic and various other useless things.
Recently, I have found myself drawn to philosophy and linguistics, which demand a very different + much more concentrated reading style. This is interesting as an exercise in discipline and awareness broadening. However I still read far more novels than I should.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
14:02 / 18.09.03
I understand the impulse to read to improve oneself - and I do think that autodidacticism has terrific appeal, and it's something I do myself. But I agree with Grand Panj'm that it is pointless trying to read something you're not enjoying just because you feel you ought to do so... I have frequently espoused the idea that, if you're not enjoying a book, you're wasting your time and should stop reading it. It doesn't do anyone any good...

Reading just to fill up time isn't very helpful either. I read tons and tons last year because I lived in a bedsit and had a huge commute to and from work, and I really can't remember much of what I read at all... you need to be really engaged to take things in, I think.

I also love to read for the pleasure of reading. I think reading just to enjoy a good yarn is one of the best things in life really - I wish I could just lose myself in books the way I used to when I was younger (hobbles around a bit). That's one reason why I like great big thick C19 novels... I'm no critic though. I just like the stories.

So generally I read history for work (and for enjoyment as well, I like my subject and would read it anyway - probably will be doing so for pleasure only soon, bastard bastard funding people grr hate rage). I read popular non-fiction on things I find interesting - generally anything from the alphabet and writing through to history of the British pig, though I'm not always big on pop science because I don't understand very much of it. And I read novels and children's books for happy joy.

I'd like to read more philosophy, and more science, and to know more about religion, and... I like to know things. But I think that the way I read probably indicates that I'm a bit indolent in that department and look for pleasure above all else when it comes to reading.

Also the papers, magazines, food packets, etc.
 
 
Ex
14:45 / 18.09.03
I have to fight my brain. Reading is part of my job (I'm an Eng Lit lecturer) and my Protestant work-brain says that I should be incorporating whatever I read into teaching, or researching it. Last time I set aside a week to read for pleasure, I found I couldn't concentrate on novels. I'd forgotten how to read for fun. Spent the week in short stories, teen and children's fiction and comics, which was a self-conscious attempt to read stuff that wasn't "proper". All perfectly proper, of course, and I eventually researched some of it. But my Protestant brain is a traditionalist and doesn't approve of any of it (or genre fiction).
But I've also avoided reading a huge amount of the "classics" - both Victorian and modern novelists, and a whole swathe of other periods and genres. Work-brain apparently both a hard task-master and a lazy sod. That and the gradual breakdown of high-low culture valuation may mean I never get round to Bleak House.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
11:01 / 19.09.03
Illmatic pointed out to me that I should probably have added that, owing to conditioning forced upon me at a tender and impressionable age, I am forced to spend every waking minute (that is not occupied by talking to people) reading. Don't particularly care what, but must engage with text - it's my prime directive.
 
 
illmatic
12:08 / 19.09.03
It is very endearing though.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
10:50 / 20.09.03
Reasons to read:

1. It's a classic, everyone else (or people whose opinion I respect) has read it.

Still hasn't enticed me to wade through Joyce or Proust but has worked with others. I sought out The Balkan and Levant Trilogies a while ago purely because several people raved about them and my faith was well rewarded. I started Dune umpteen times, in response to earnest recommendations, and gave up before finishing Chapter One. Then, one day, something clicked and I was sandworm-happy for years to come. I have now read every damn book, prequels and sequels. Now just kicking off Life of Pi with a cynical eye, hoping it justifies the hype.

2. I'm bored /stressed /on holiday and I want to engulf myself in words and fictional friends.

My sci fi default comes to the fore here but happy to immerse myself in the most formulaic thrillers (Michael Crichton's Prey occupied a bored and stressed day and a half recently) and even the cheesiest chic lit will do.

3. It's by X and I'm (slowly) working my way through the whole back catalogue because I once enjoyed something they did.

Read the glorious Left Hand of Darkness and then read nothing but Le Guin until there's nothing in print I haven't consumed. There are a few of her short stories I still need to get round to, truth to tell, but I'm taking a little break. It has been a joy to know each wonderful book would be followed by more from her imagined worlds. Have had Anthony Burgess, E M Forster, D H Lawrence readathons in the past. Some completist gene at work here.

4. It's full of bite sized chunks of arcane information that might provoke unexpected insights or provide idle pub small talk.

e.g. ridiculously detailed biographies of the codfish, of the history of salt use and production, biblical concordances, Orlando Figes, Simon Scharma's earlier tomes. Best left by the bed to inspire sleep after a few paragraphs or by the toilet, for brief episodes of contemplation.

5. It's part of a three-for-two in Waterstone's or wherever.

99% of my reading results from taking a chance on something to get a third one free. The unalloyed pleasure of perusing bookstores and buying new books means my shelves groan with titles I may never read or will only get round to during financial crises or prolonged bouts of 'flu.

6. Somebody gave it to me.

Unless I actually asked for it, don't bother. I can recall about two occasions when I went ahead and read a book someone else handed on to me or presented me with, unasked. I don't know what that's about. I often avoid something everybody else is raving about just because the hype is pissing me off and giving me the book seems like a further development of that hype, demanding that I give my time and attention to something I have not chosen. This is, I'm sure, a major character flaw of mine. If I didn't decide myself to buy it and read it, I will not be directed to read it. Pathetic, really. How many good books have I missed out on because of this trait?

7. It's about Ancient Egypt.

I will read, and have read, any old shite that's got the keywords "Ramses", "Hyksos" or "Thebes" in it.

I will read a bus ticket or a crisp packet, if there is no newspaper or novel to hand. My work requires me only to consult nursing and education websites, journals and other publications in moderation. This gives me little pleasure and I do as little of it as I can get away with. I am in the blessed position that I read purely for pleasure, entertainment and unfeigned interest almost all the time.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
07:16 / 29.09.03
I don't *have* to read anything either. it's a good posish..so, i read:

Things vaguely connected to vocation/eventual likely 'career', which is also often personal development/process stuff: counselling, mental health, bodywork, healing, sexuality...

Ongoing 'head' projects, ie things i think about on and off and pretend to be writing about:

georges bataille, been obsessed with him since MA. reread him constantly, sexuality/gender stuff again

Indian post/colonial history/culture
/spiritualities= wanting to know 'where i/we come from'...

Pop(music)culture obsessive: will read *anything* about pop music/pop culture/club culture /subculture/youth culture etc even if it's dreadful... via this, getting into contemporary musicology

Years away from half a lit degree, fiction still often feels like work, sadly.

so fiction i read is stuff like jacqueline susaan, jkr, armistead maupin, kureishi... Tend to do runs on authors(do this with films/directors too), last was murakami.
 
  
Add Your Reply