Tuesday, July 29, 2014

I haven’t read most of the great books, or, Doing the Diligence


Nope.
A fun game at conventions is to dance around what you haven’t read. There are so many nerds who get so little face-time validation elsewhere that they’re quick to condescend and lecture on behalf of the Great Roberts Heinlein and Jordan. This leads many con-goers faking having read books and participating in empty conversations. I’m not sure who it’s fun for, but it must be fun given how frequently it happens.

A game I play at conventions is confession. Bring up an old Jack Vance? I’ll admit to never having read it and ask what spoke to you about it. I’ll confess to never having read Theodore Sturgeon or Octavia Butler, or only having read Samuel Delany’s non-fiction, or only the first book of Wheel of Time and Ender’s Game. The fun of this exercise is watching people around me relax, because by going first (and going at all), I’ve let them give up pretense. Tension leaves their shoulders as they realize it’s okay.

My excuses are legion. I didn’t grow up with LeGuin and Zelazny, and only ever heard of G.K. Chesterton after I graduated college. I’ve gone out of my way to collect books by canonical authors in order to catch up – what I call “doing the diligence” – which yields a mixed bag of results. LeGuin and Zelazny amaze me, but if I never read another Asimov short story that’s a thin fictional veil over a science lesson, I’ll be fine.

Nope.
My troubles are compounded by interests in literary fiction, which has its own far broader canons around the world. The many years I spent reading Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and various translations of The Divine Comedy seem to be the same time others were getting familiar with The Sword of Shannara (only read the first one and can’t remember it, sorry). And then there are all those superhero comics that ate up my adolescence, though they seem to be more useful now that Marvel films are dominating the earth. Don’t get me started on Beta Ray Bill.

Nor have I have I given up my other loves. I’ll get to A Canticle for Liebowitz, but I’m probably going to read Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth and G. Willow Wilson’s Ms. Marvel first. So maybe I’ll always be behind, but that’s not always bad.

I own it, but...
As frustrating as it can be to listen to geniuses dissect apparently great works I’ve never heard of, this slower pace has also yielded great pleasures. I’m not sure I would have appreciated the works of Shirley Jackson as a teenager, though having started reading her a few years ago with We Have Always Lived in the Castle, she is now one of the most inspiring authors in my life. So there’s the frustration of finding two more important books for every one I knock down, this hydra of literacy, but there is also the wonder of finding true masterpieces vetted by decades of readership.

It may just be the way I look at things, but I am far happier to have read Lord of Light late than never at all. No one I know of writes this way today, and as far as I’ve read, no one else used to, not even Zelazny.

If you’re curious, the next authors I intend to do the diligence on are Lois McMaster Bujold and Samuel Delany. I’m told I’ll love Nova. The two keep getting postponed because I’ve taken such a long detour through Jo Walton, even though she so strongly recommends both of them.

12 comments:

  1. Love your honesty. Refreshing, liberating and empowering. And also love Leguin, A Canticle For Leibowitz (but didn't relish it near as much on a reread) and Shirley Jackson. The Good Earth is lurking in my unread tower.

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    1. Maybe you and I can explore The Good Earth together. That one I intend to knock off later this year - I'm very curious about Buck's writing.

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  2. I'm well-educated and I've read a lot of books. However, there are many, many classics of sci-fi and fantasy which I've never read, just as there are many lit fic classics I've not read. I used to be bothered by this, as it made me feel uncultured.

    Then I realized that it wasn't the unread books which made me feel that way. It was the people I was discussing books with.

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    1. The wrong people can make even the finest literature awful. No surprise that they can also make literature you haven't read unbearable as well.

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  3. Shirley Jackson.

    Utterly brilliant.

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  4. I read LeGuin in junior high school (at least Earthsea). I'm most familiar with Sturgeon's short stories, thanks to the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies I read in high school. I guess I honestly don't care much if I'm *supposed* to have read something.or not. I suspect I won't read a lot of the stuff on your list, mostly because I've kind of browned out on SF as I've gotten older, for whatever reason. I'll read a good book because I want to, regardless of genre. That's as far as I go.

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    1. Fave Sturgeons - Shottle Bop and Yesterday was Monday.

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  5. I never knew people faked reading those books. I feel such a fool.

    I have never read most of the books you mentioned, though 'Stranger in a Strange Land' is one of my all time favorite reads. :)

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  6. This reminds me of two of my favourite English Lit jokes:

    1) Two profs are sitting in the faculty lounge, and one casually enquires if his colleague has read the new book by [insert popular lit fic author name here] yet. "Read it?" says the other. "I haven't even taught it yet."

    2) Definition of a successful English Lit grad: someone who can discuss a book, in depth, for hours without ever having read it.

    I have actually done (2), and mostly gotten away with it by asking what you ask -- what spoke to you? what made you think to bring it up in this discussion? Just yesterday I was at a bookshop, and a woman recommended Louise Penny to me, totally out of the blue. I love it when that happens.

    +1 to Tony's comment. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday is now on my list of "cod liver oil" books, because I was told not that I would love it, but that I must read it and bow down to its general awesomeness. Um. I liked the part where they all meet at the restaurant to loudly discuss anarchy. That was about it.

    I've met too many people who love all the books you mentioned and more because they think if they "collect the set" it unlocks the next level of geek nirvana, or increases their virility, or something. They're remarkably hard-pressed to explain what they actually love about the stories, besides that they're both cool and somewhat obscure. I think it freaks them out even more if you *have* read the books and liked them because they were, you know, good stories.

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  7. I didn't realize there was a single list. I mean, everyone says Book X is a classic, but wth is a classic anyway? No one can even agree. I just pick books I want to read and if I don't like it after so many pages, I stop. The only exception is if I've promised to read it for some reason, like I'm writing a review. Otherwise, why waste time reading something that's terrible and/or boring? Life's too short.

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  8. Since you're into inspiring confessions I'll add one: I never finished Stranger in a Strange Land. I started reading it 5 years ago and got about 2 or 3 chapters in before I put it down and got lost in other activities. It wasn't that it wasn't interesting and I don't really have a good excuse for never picking it back up. It is on my list of things to read someday... Just not not today.

    Also, I love the idea of the "hydra of literacy"- so accurate.

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