When we were idling in Saudi in 1990-91, D suggested I read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I had nothing better to do. Like riding a bike for the first time, I needed a hand, though. Names do not sit well in my brain, and no one in this book has just one. The plot is complicated. The language is circuitous, even deceptive. If D had not coaxed me through the first time, I'd have walked away from it. And missed an immense sense of accomplishment, and a rich and rewarding story I would return to innumerable times over the years. I was soaring.
I always read well, I could read at first grade level before I started kindergarten. But I was often an utter coward about it. Took me much longer than reasonable to pick up anything but a picture book. My first novel was called Gone Away Lake, only a few drawings every few pages. Hadn't realized the images would appear inside my own head. Oh, wow, was I ever hooked. Even then, the "classics" scared me. Until I worked in the library, I didn't even try. But they kept passing through my hands, flirting with me, and... well, it just sorta happened.
Hated books I was forced to read, Wrinkle in Time and Johnny Tremain aren't awful, but the mandatory nature of the class assignment ruined them for me. I think that was why I read through my school anthologies as soon as possible, so I could actually enjoy the stories, before being made to hear them slowly tortured aloud.
Great books can be very rich, full of references and clever knots. Sometimes, they are so out of time, there is no way for anything but a scholar to enjoy them, D describes Umberto Eco this way. Although he adds he is vastly tickled by the implied compliment. This is a man who read Vineland - Thomas Pynchon, out of sheer bloodymindedness. I read a paragraph and decided I'd gone past my limitations. One should be proud of reading difficult material just out of reach, occasionally.
Can't read any of the Bronte sisters, who were amazingly popular in their time, and long after. To me, they seem very dated, old fashioned. Whereas Austin still feels fresh and relevant. Much matters when in my life a book came to me. I doubt I'd have read The Hobbit if I'd been 17 when I found it, but I was a bit younger, when it was just right. I hated the absurdity of the Alice books, until I was about 17, when the humor and silliness resonated. When I was still in a very churchy world, I could enjoy C.S. Lewis, a decade later, and it would have cloyed.
Charles Dickens (any of 'em) is a bubble & squeak, or haggis. Maybe kimchi. Don't mind that they exist, don't think I could actually swallow any of it. But it seems a cultural problem, not the author's fault. And I love the stories, told through other means.
Glad I read Colour of Magic right after coming off a jag of way, way, way too many fantasy books. Struck just the right note. It's not one of his better novels, a straight parody, jokes littered all over, Zotz.
3 comments:
Zhoen: I read your post with great interest and had to address my own experience. I read very little fiction. In part this may be because as a child I was force-fed Christian novels that were all about mawkish suffering, Victorian style. Everything else was banned at home. I am so glad you 'stuck with it' and had someone to encourage you.
I've read a couple of John Irving books that were heavily written and immensely rich.
My memory isn't so good to be able to compare how reading a book now differs from having read that same book one or two decades ago.
Tom,
I had a library card. And I knew how to use it. And I found novels on my own. Mom would probably have preferred I'd stayed with the kinds of novels you were force-fed. My father sneered at my reading.
Phil,
Oh, I have enjoyed Irving. I'm also a fan of Vonnegut, potent writing.
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