October 28, 2011
In praise of readability
by Melville House
In John Self‘s latest missive in the Guardian, he discusses the idea of “an easy read,” which is defined as a book that is “not too hard going.” But what does “readability” mean, exactly? And is it necessarily a bad thing for a book to not be considered A Serious Read? What is the point of reading anyway? Do we read for pleasure or only for edification?
Last week, Jeanette Winterson weighed in on the side of self-improvement when she wrote wrote:”There is a simple test: Does this writer’s capacity for language expand my capacity to think and to feel?” Which is a fair assessment when talking about the importance of craft, but sometimes we just want to be taken for a ride when we delve into a book. Sometimes we want to read an action-packed crime story set in Kenya or even (gasp!) Stieg Larsson‘s Millennium trilogy.
And we shouldn’t feel guilty for our crimes, readers. John Self quotes Beryl Bainbridge in the column, saying, “One hundred years ago, only 10% of the population ever devoured what is alluded to as serious literature. It is my belief that things haven’t changed; nor should we wish it otherwise.”
In the comments section of the Guardian, one reader suggested Utz by Bruce Chatwin (whose “restless genius” was just discussed in Harper’s this month).
Another suggested short stories by Etgar Keret (who is soon-to-be the owner of the thinnest house in the world).
And another comment noted the lack of women on John’s list, since The Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith was the only one included.
Other readers suggested:
– The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
– “Anything by Lydia Davis“
– Election by Tom Perrotta (we would chime in and also suggest his new novel, The Leftovers)
– Out by Natsuo Kirino, the Japanese crime writer (who we keep meaning to read but haven’t yet).
– The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
And, last but certainly not least: Kurt Vonnegut. We were reminded of a 1977 Paris Review interview where the author was asked about the vitriol he’s received from critics after writing Slapstick. Vonnegut, being the good sport that he was, said, “It was dishonorable enough that I perverted art for money. I then topped that felony by becoming, as I say, fabulously well-to-do. Well, that’s just too damn bad for me and for everybody. I’m completely in print, so we’re all stuck with me and stuck with my books.”
So what are your favorite “readable” books? And do you ever feel sheepish for reading them in public (say, on the train, in a park, or in a highbrow cafe)?
6 Manchester libraries set to close 
Madwoman in PW: Claire Messud responds to sexist questions 
50 annotated first editions—going to the highest bidder 
Wikipedia: male novelists are “novelists,” female novelists are “women novelists” 
3 Comments
It’s hard sticking up for literary fiction– so elitist, so isn’t it all beyond definition, so right wing, so not where it’s happening. And then there’s the whole “we’re busy and important people and we deserve a break” rationalization used by so many as they wing first class from Singapore to Seattle. Who would deny these movers and shakers their guilty, airport bookstore, pleasure?
So OK, read genre fiction when you’re not really kicking back and watching NFL game highlights. But try Googling/reviewing Gresham’s law and applying it to today’s literary marketplace and see if all that hard earned, well deserved pleasure and entertainment isn’t taking you/us down Neil Postman’s path of “Entertaining Ourselves to Death.” Tell me the 10% I hear so much about will hold out against the tide of sameness that sweeps in on eBooks and self-publishing lottery hype.
Jeanette Winterson was not pontificating on what should be the makeup of the average person’s literary diet but specifically on what certain book prizes should promote. She did, in fact, support your point that there is nothing wrong in reading books “for the ride”. I am so tired of people deliberately misconstruing this so they can position themselves as plucky defender of the reading masses. It’s *boring* and not something I’d expect to see on MobyLives. Next.
I posed a similar, but not entirely parallel, argument a few months ago on my blog while reading Proust. In Search of Lost Time is an ongoing struggle for me to get through. It winds itself in and out of reality, between dreams and memories and the living present, in such a labyrinth that I often lose myself and have to start over entire sections. However, I wouldn’t say that Proust has a difficult “readability factor” because it is definitely readable, and one definitely gets more out of it the more one reads it, which can almost be looked at as a benefit of having to reread entire sections of the work. Proust definitely acts on me and alters me, if you will, as all “good” literature should…but that isn’t to say that Salinger doesn’t because I don’t have to struggle through the text. Salinger (just an example) is enjoyable in a different way that Proust is enjoyable but neither is less “readable” than the next. It’s a different kind of reading that one has to do. Just because a work is complex doesn’t make it any more credible, in my opinion, than a work that one can breeze through. In regards to the last statement, no one should ever feel sheepish for reading anything. Heck, I read Twilight on the train! Just a thought – no one is ever paying nearly as much attention to you as you think they are.