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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

"Bookish" People

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All Acting Regiment

03:47 / 27.02.06

There's a view I've heard expressed quite a lot, often on interviews when the interviewee is asked about their favourite book, which goes something like: "People who read books think they're better than people who don't", or "I don't see why reading a load of books makes you special".

Have you ever come across this? Do you think this is true? Are readers a snobby lot? Aren't non-readers pretty snobby in their own way? This is intentionally vague, so feel free to put your own swing on it.

04:46 / 27.02.06

People think I'm snobby because I read a lot of books. I can be a man and admit I might be a little snobby. But I try to tell people that I read trash, too; I'm not completely annoying and pretentious.

I think anybody who reads a lot gets a lot of flak in a world of television, movies and instantaneous information. A book is an investment and some people don't want to make it.

10:14 / 27.02.06

And let us not overlook inverse snobbery, i.e. anti-intellectualism of the worst pedigree (People who proudly proclaim to have "never read a book in my life"- I know they exist, I'ver worked with em'). There are some who take a perverse pride in remaining ignorant.

10:21 / 27.02.06

God, that sounds awful.

I willfully agree that books are not for everyone, and even then people have their preferences (my father would admit to reading, but he's of the Bernard Cornwell/ Clive Cussler school).

I try to mix a diet of high and low brow, it just seems the natural thing to do. I think that a perceived snobbery can be found in any social group, be it music, art, politics etc.

To put it simply, some people just like to define themselves through opposition to other groups. Does that sound too A level Anthropology-ish?

12:58 / 27.02.06

A while back, I started a thread that covered much the same ground as this but from the other side - Television: The Runt of the Cultural Litter.
I do think added scorn is poured on people who claim not to read books, compared to people who claim, for example, not to watch television. And although I’ve heard people admit to never having read a book with a degree of defiance, I’ve never heard it said with pride. But then I think Mick-Travis’s interpretation that people who do are ‘anti-intellectual’ and taking pride in ‘remaining ignorant’ is telling. I might be wrong, but I doubt he’d make quite the same inference about someone who claimed not to listen to the radio, or use the internet, or watch telly.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:36 / 27.02.06

Ignorant is an interesting one, certainly. I mean, does Bernard Cornwell, for example, succour ignorance significantly more than the History Channel? There's some interesting stuff on how we read to be explored here...

All Acting Regiment

13:52 / 27.02.06

For me, there's two kinds of "I've never read a book and I'm proud of it" statements. The first one, I have sympathy for, having heard it from kids I was at school with, who hadn't read books because the family simply didn't have the money or "tools" with which to get into books- it was a defensive statement from a group of people who were unfairly looked down on for being "stupid" and who decided to use the act of not reading- a symbol of their perceived stupidity- and turn it on it's head- to use it as a source of power and identity, like Jean Genet's vaseline. The tragedy here was that the only tangible effect this had was to make it even harder for them to pass exams and get well-paying jobs, and so the cycle continues.

It's the second instance of the statement that I don't tolerate: in people who have all the means and ability to read books, who've been brought up in a house where books are readily available, but actively choose to adopt a no-book identity- this usually being part of an attitude that rejects input from other people, or engagement generally. I know that "rich kids gone to waste" is a stereotype, but it's quite often true.

14:49 / 27.02.06

Bookish people assuming superiority on the part of people who read books? Pah!

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:00 / 27.02.06

I don't know, I can't recall ever being in a situation where the reading of books was held up to define someone as being better, but I've had a few occasions (perhaps not necessarily at the level of 100% seriousness) of people being proud that they don't read.

17:49 / 27.02.06

Victoria Beckham has never read a book... despite putting her name to an autobiography... because she hasn't got time.... what the fuck is she doing? surely an example of someone who should know better? am i right to feel slightly superior... damn right i am!

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:35 / 27.02.06

Yeah. If she'd read more, maybe she would have made something of her life.

19:54 / 27.02.06

Mordant Carnival's Posh Spicy Book Club from prehistory.

P. Horus Rhacoid

20:26 / 27.02.06

In my younger days I definitely got a lot of flak for reading of the "you read books? NERD!" variety. If I'm being honest I did feel a sense of superiority that I read and other people didn't (I probably still do), but mostly I think it was reflexive in the face of being made fun of, a sort of reversal of what Legba was saying a few posts back. "You think I'm a nerd? Well, I'm having more fun than you, silly football players!"

I also know a fair number of people who are proud of not reading. The one who comes most immediately to mind is a kid from my sister's high school class. He was extremely smart, graduated at the top of his class, and ended up going to MIT. He never read a book in high school. In his case- and in the case of a lot of people I know who profess pride in not reading- I think the pride stems in part from 'beating the system' as it were: "I never read a book for that class and I still got an A in it." This is obviously very context-specific, but most of the proud-of-not-reading people I can think of I know from high school and before.

Speaking as a male, I think there's a bit of a tension between bookishness and gender expectations, especially among younger kids. Most of the people who thought I was weird for reading back in middle school and elementary school were people heavily involved in manly sporting activities such as youth (American) football which for the most part I was not.

All Acting Regiment

22:22 / 27.02.06

I certainly don't see all books as inherently superior to all television or all films, and I think there's a valid point to be made about the fact that perceived value of books vs "low" culture is more a perception than anything else.

On the other hand, while I think they are both valuable I don't think they're valuable in the same way. I think a lot of the important ideas doing the rounds today, and making the world work as it does, are stored primarily in books. I've yet to see a method of understanding Freud or Marx, say, that works better than actually reading their books, and so I have trouble beleiving that someone who's never read these books won't have a handicap when it comes to understanding the world when these ideas are acting on it.

Equally, it's a fact that a lot of television and movies are profit-driven, and this has an effect on the kind of things they cover, and the kind of ideas they're allowed to explore.

Snobbish? Do we really need books to understand the world?

09:23 / 28.02.06

books vs "low" culture

You're doing a bang-up job of dispelling this myth about people assuming the superiority of books, Legba, scare-quotes or no scare-quotes.

We might have to agree to disagree about this, but I just don’t believe that the best way of understanding the world is by reading Das Kapital or Die Traumdeutung. I honestly believe you’re probably better off reading newspapers.

Equally, it's a fact that a lot of television and movies are profit-driven, and this has an effect on the kind of things they cover, and the kind of ideas they're allowed to explore.

You’re kidding, right? And publishing is a not-for-profit collective run by knowledge fairies?

18:57 / 28.02.06

If there's one discussion I truly hate to have outside of the internet, it's this one. I read a fair bit, because I have time to do so (in fact, I have quite a bit of time where it's the only thing I can do to avoid boredom) but I don't think that reflects particularly well on me, because I know I'd spend more time on pointless rubbish than on reading if that were an option. And in fact even when I'm asked about how I read (is this a common office conversation anywhere else, by the way? I feel like it is, for me, ever looming round the corner) I tend to obfuscate and play it down in case people think I'm a snob, and then am made to feel bad about it in some other way ("oh. mostly fiction then").

Anyway, it frequently seems that, in an extension of Mick-Travis' some people just like to define themselves through opposition to other groups, reading is one of those activities which allow people to feel somewhat superior to anyone who doesn't have exactly the same reading patterns as they do. With films, television, and to a lesser extent music, there is much more of a common cultural ground -release dates are more important, whilst new books are being published all the time it generally takes a while for something to become popular to the Curious Incident / Da Vinci Code level so what one reads is much more of a personal choice (I'd go to the cinema to 'see what's on' but wouldn't walk into a bookshop thinking 'I'll read what's published'). So maybe the fact that the choice is so vast means some people feel that their way of reading must be best, because they spent so long choosing it; and in the process they had to reject other options, some of which you did choose.

20:48 / 28.02.06

I'm not sure how valid the comparison is between never having read a book and not watching tv. Almost all people who profess not to watch tv have seen a fair bit of it already, and probably still watch it occasionally, or see the odd film. Whereas someone saying they've never read a book isn't in the same position.

21:37 / 28.02.06

I always feel a bit sorry for people who don't read. It's an inappropriate, annoying and patronising response but I always almost ask them if they are completely sure as to what it is they're actually saying. Sometimes I fail to stop myself grabbing something of the shelf and recommending it -"I know you don't really like books but....".
It isn't a feeling that stems from a sense of superiority more that I think they might be missing out on something they could really benefit from. And like Loomis said for those who have never read a book they don't completely know what they're missing. And there's a book for everyone, surely?

Mysterious Transfer Student

22:55 / 28.02.06

The last person I met who claimed never to have read a book was an extremely cocky 18-year-old on a training course for my current job. The matter came up only because I happened to be reading a novel in my lunch hour, and someone asked what it was. This led to a mini-discussion of current books being read and the above revelation.

In fairness to everyone, the guy was neither proud nor ashamed of his bookless status, and no one present took the trouble to mock him about it: the unspoken belief appeared to be that someone who doesn't read is no odder than someone who doesn't eat foreign food - oddly parochial, but hardly a war criminal. Nowadays I'm over my worst phase of adolescent intellectual snobbery; as with Shrub, it's more a matter of feeling sorry for people who are missing out on one of life's great pleasures. We all have such blind spots; you could spend a lifetime trying to convince me to watch and follow football and it would have no effect. Leading us back to the questions, who is prepared to argue that reading is an activity that has or should have a more exalted status than others; or that wilful non-readers of the kind Legba talked about really are missing an extra dimension as modern human beings?

(That was a bloody awful last sentence, for which I apologise. Just couldn't compose a better one.)

00:58 / 01.03.06

I'm not sure how valid the comparison is between never having read a book and not watching tv. Almost all people who profess not to watch tv have seen a fair bit of it already, and probably still watch it occasionally, or see the odd film. Whereas someone saying they've never read a book isn't in the same position.

I dunno, Loomis. I'd have thought that most people who claim not to read books have read some kind of book at some point. At school at least.
Although, I'm not really sure what people mean by 'books' here. I'm surprised that so many posters know people who 'don't read'. Never read what? Novels, non-fiction, comic books, magazines...? Also wonder where 'audio books' fit into this. Do they count as reading?

But to get back to the original question, I've never heard it, and I'm not sure what interviews Legba has read this in, but if there are 'non-readers' who get defensive about it and complain that people who read books think they're better than people who don't, then on the evidence of this thread, you could hardly blame them.

What I find interesting here is that although we've heard that non-readers are often 'proud' of it, there's also some assumption that non-readers will assume that readers consider themselves superior. eg. I tend to obfuscate and play it down in case people think I'm a snob. If non-readers are so proud of it, why the need to play down the fact that you read?

Of course people who don't read books are missing out on something; they're missing out on books. I can't really feel sorry for these people since this is a decision they've made. I don't believe that they don't know what books are like or where they can get them. If someone capable of reading chooses not to, I can only assume that that's because they don't like to. Or at least like doing other things more.

All Acting Regiment

03:09 / 01.03.06

Yep, Smoothly, all good points- in fact I'm sure there was supposed to be something in my post about publishing being just as much of a profit-driven industry as any other, but either way, it was missing, and thanks for pointing it out.

But there's one thing I still want to argue, and that's this idea that to get a full understanding of important ideas it's neccesary to read the books they came from (Marx and Feud were arbitrary examples). What would you say to someone who was criticising "the feminists" or "the feminist ideology" but had never actually read a feminist's book?

09:53 / 01.03.06

But there's one thing I still want to argue, and that's this idea that to get a full understanding of important ideas it's neccesary to read the books they came from (Marx and Feud were arbitrary examples).

Yes, to get a *full* understanding of an idea which is primarily expounded in a book, it would be hard to argue that you needn’t read the book. But a full understanding is a tricky thing. It certainly doesn’t come automatically when you turn the final page of a key text.
(And, if you’re honest, Marx and Freud weren’t really arbitrary examples, were they? Or if they were, could we substitute them for Matrix Warrior and Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus?)

What would you say to someone who was criticising "the feminists" or "the feminist ideology" but had never actually read a feminist's book?

Well that depends on exactly what they were saying about “the feminists” or “the feminist ideology”. But I’d probably just engage with the content of their argument.

So tell me, which book by which feminist do you have to have read before you can criticise feminism? Or do you need to read all of them?
And by the same token, which book(s) do you have to read before you can defend feminism? I guess it follows that you can’t defend it if you’ve never actually read the books by the critics of feminism.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it’s pointless reading books. Books are a good way of transmitting information and ideas, but they’re not the only way and not necessarily even the best way. What’s so special about text typed on paper and bound between cardboard covers?

14:55 / 01.03.06

Just wanted to share a couple of quotes (or probably paraphrases) on this theme:

Mark Steel (I think): “If you only read one book this year… keep your ignorant mouth shut.”

American woman, overheard by me whilst on holiday in 1997: “Oh, I love to read. I love it. But not books.”

And wasn’t it Twain who said that the person who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the person who can’t ? I’m inclined to agree with that, though of course the definition of ‘good’ is so very subjective…

I think Smoothly’s onto something in suggesting that books are only valuable as a means of transmitting ideas and information. Many people get quite fetishistic about books as material items, which I can understand more when it comes to art or photography books, where the visual element is key, but with books which are purely text it could just as well be a pile of printouts or whatever as far as I’m concerned.

Mind you, Smoothly, I would say I think you load the argument a bit if you want to use ‘Men Are From Mars’ etc as an example of whether you need to read the whole book in order to get a full understanding of the ideas it contains, as that particular book struck me as one whose idea(s?) was pretty much all said and done within about a dozen pages, if not the front cover… but maybe I’m being mean to Mr Gray there.

15:51 / 01.03.06

Mind you, Smoothly, I would say I think you load the argument a bit if you want to use ‘Men Are From Mars’ etc as an example

You’re quite right of course, and that was kinda my point – I was *re*loading the argument Legba advanced using Marx and Freud to typify books generally. He's a cheeky one, that Legba. You gotta watch him.

But this comes back to something quite important that I’m still not clear about. Does reading any kind of books qualify you as ‘bookish’? I’d have thought that whether or not you’re justified in feeling superior for reading books depends largely, if not entirely, on what books you’re reading.

16:59 / 01.03.06

Smoothly: I tend to obfuscate and play it down in case people think I'm a snob. If non-readers are so proud of it, why the need to play down the fact that you read?

I've actually never met anyone who's been proud of not having read a book, so I play it down, genuinely, so that people won't think I'm engaging in oneupmanship. I think that probably says more about my desire to be liked than it does about readers or otherwise, but that's not for this thread.

On a different note, would anyone actually apply the adjective 'bookish' to themselves, or is this just an adjective we're using to describe a group of people who might be snobbish about what they read? I'm with Smoothly in being interested in what people think that means.

23:29 / 01.03.06

Many people get quite fetishistic about books as material items, which I can understand more when it comes to art or photography books,

i know what you mean, but there are some volumes that have a history with you - my copy of kerouac's 'on the road' and my copy of kafka's 'metamorphosis' each have this resonance as 'objects'. but the crux of the resonance is from the contents as much as from the circumstances and memories evoked. the two are intimately intertwined...

and of course first editions, especially signed, are objects, too. so while i see your point about visual-based books, i think there is much in the fact that books *are* objects that may be lost as we move to an age of digital information. that, and the fact that you can't hold a computer comfortably in an armchair and leaf through a tome...

be interested in some thoughts on this [but maybe this is threadrot?]

23:31 / 01.03.06

I've actually never met anyone who's been proud of not having read a book, so I play it down, genuinely, so that people won't think I'm engaging in oneupmanship

You think that people who don't read books are ashamed of it? So much so that, to them, to talk about reading books would be boasting?

I'm really not having a go, I just think it's interesting to see how people perceive other people's attitude to book reading.

06:02 / 02.03.06

this is a rather interesting thread. i've had to read it through a couple of times to ensure that i've absorbed everything.
I'm working under the assumption that the kind of books being discussed here are books with big words in them, designed to provoke thought and broaden the horizons.
i wonder, if the people who say they don't read books, do so because they're not comfortable with reading? I mean, they don't understand 'how' to read and understand the text. i also wonder then, if this is the case, can 'reading' be learned? or is it an instincive/personality attribute?

11:14 / 02.03.06

Not sure I’m with you, slinky. You’re asking if people can learn to read? (Yes). Or if people can learn to enjoy reading books with big words in them? (Not sure).

If you mean the latter, then I think you raise an interesting point regarding whether an interest in reading comes naturally (as an instinct or component of one's personality) or whether it is willed. Because I think this related to the pride/shame issue.

It seems to me that we only take pride or shame in things we feel responsible for, and the degree of pride/shame we feel is proportional to the effort/resistance required. For example, I might take pride in not eating chocolate for lent, but someone who naturally hated chocolate probably wouldn’t. So I wonder if people’s pride/feelings of superiority about reading, requires them to find the reading an effort.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:15 / 02.03.06

I know it's wrong, but I tend to feel a little snobbish about reading (even though I have a deep abiding love of trashy horror novels)- when I used to work in the book department at F*rb*dd*n Pl*n*t it used to put me into a killing rage every time I heard someone come halfway down the stairs, then say "nah, it's just books down there. That's boring".

(By the same token it always feels really nice to see a bookshop crowded with kids excited about the latest Harry Potter, even though I wouldn't go in a bookshop crowded with kids if you paid me!)

12:32 / 02.03.06

it used to put me into a killing rage every time I heard someone come halfway down the stairs, then say "nah, it's just books down there. That's boring".

Stoatie, I’m interested. On the scale of killing rage, how would this situation compare with someone coming into the Comics section and saying the same? What about the DVD section ("Films, they’re boring.") etc?

13:47 / 02.03.06

(Answering a question posed to Stoatie I hope no one minds)

Is this fierce protectiveness of books somehow tied to their physical presence?
(Well thumbed, distinctively handled, tattered/reverenced books.)

In a way that films never really achieve, books often become favoured in a very tangible sense as individual specific items (which gets back to the fetishization of books as previously mentioned). There's a tactile, sometimes olfactory memory attatched to the object, gained from the actual time you've spent with reading it/ re-reading it/carrying it around etc. which is, perhaps, what engenders the rage/protectiveness response.

Along with this, I've never encountered that kind of response to film. (It being widely accepted as a popular entertainment medium.) But if I did ever hear a similar blanket generalization it definitely would leave me reasonably/similarly alarmed.

14:08 / 02.03.06

Is this fierce protectiveness of books somehow tied to their physical presence?
(Well thumbed, distinctively handled, tattered/reverenced books.)

I don’t think this could have been a factor in the situation Stoat described, where I assume the books were all brand new and mint. But I do think this is an interesting area – particularly the appeal of well-thumbed, tattered, handled books vs. many people’s almost phobic aversion to dog-earing pages, breaking spines etc.

Mistreat a book and people will visibly wince. (Try it. Chuck a book against a wall or kick it across the floor and people flinch). Tear a book up to get a fire going and it positively disturbs people. On the other hand, trash some CDs, VHSs, records or newspapers and that’s just house-keeping.
There does seem to be a strange respect, ingrained very deeply in a lot of people, for books as physical artefacts. I wonder if this bleeds into the idea of reading books, or if it’s something about the idea of books that bleeds into the paper bundles.

17:58 / 02.03.06

Smoothly: You think that people who don't read books are ashamed of it? So much so that, to them, to talk about reading books would be boasting?

No, sorry -my powers of self-expression here have been so sloppy since I stopped being able to visit in the daytime (on the plus side I have all day to think this). When I said 'I've never met anyone who's proud of not having read a book' I meant I've never met someone who's claimed to be a non-reader. I have, by contrast, met many people who have claimed to be enthusiastic readers, and have quite frequently found them to be very happy to rub the faces of others in the fact. What I was trying to say was, I don't want to be that guy.

I think my response to this thread has been very much coloured by the conversations on books, TV, films and such that we have where I work -there is quite a lot of oneupmanship, people seem more than usually happy to tear down the tastes of others to the extent that I have been asked, I believe perfectly seriously, 'do you ever fancy reading something clever?'. I suppose when I say 'I don't want to be thought of as a snob' what I actually mean is 'I don't want to be thought of as a snob like they are', which is, conversely, a far more snobbish thing to do. Urgh. That would probably explain why my response to 'I don't watch much TV' is 'I do. Love it. Wouldn't be without one.'

So, sorry. Actually too personal a response to be of much use to the discussion... although my answer to Legba's almost asked question 'how snobbish can people be about the books they read?' my answer is very, very much indeed.

00:55 / 03.03.06

What would you say to someone who was criticising "the feminists" or "the feminist ideology" but had never actually read a feminist's book?

"Like many people who are ignorant of religious matters, she attributed absurd beliefs to those who were concerned with them." -Robertson Davies

This may be slightly off topic, but as a Christian I am often deeply offended by the absurd beliefs others have attributed to me. I often find myself biting my tongue, thinking "If you would actually read the gospel of John for yourself, you would never have implied something so horrible..."

Back to the main topic: I haven't met many 'bookish' people who looked down on their 'non-bookish' cousins. But I do find that I enjoy spending my time with people who are interested in doing something, be it reading or sports or whatever. I've met some really nice people whose social lives consisted entirely of watching TV and getting drunk. I found them boring. Video gamers think of some really ingenious ways to achieve their goals in game, sports types are always striving for the perfect technique or a better race time, and fellow readers can always share some new way of looking at this same-old, same-old world of ours. I guess I don't mind people who don't read, I don't like people who don't do. It's just another form of the same eliticism, isn't it?

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