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Me, Reading, Shame.
Jul. 20th, 2012 07:32 pmSo I have this dictionary of humorous quotations. It was a prize when I was a kid, which means I've read the whole thing cover to cover a few times.
There's a quote in it attributed to G. K. Chesterton that runs "There is a great deal of difference between the eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read."
And y'know, in fiction, I'm very often the tired man. In nonfiction, by all means, bring on the hard stuff. I find case law hilarious. I can laugh myself silly over the way clauses in a loan document line up. I'm perfectly willing, on a good day, to read a plain text version of the whole WTO treaty, or The Golden Bough, or what have you. Look at me, marching out my intellectual credit because I do feel a bit of pressure about it. Like I have to justify it.
I would like to live in a world where no one, not booksellers, not book reviewers, and not librarians, ever made people feel that they should be, in their own pleasure reading, the eager guy who wants to read a book. It's pointlessly shaming.
(This is related to the strange belief some librarians have that a person who only reads nonfiction, or only reads adult fiction, or whatever it is, has to be coaxed to See the Merits of novels / great children's picture books / what have you. No, they really don't. Just find them some nice new car manuals and let it be. Unless they ask otherwise.)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being the eager guy who wants to read a book. Go you, eager dude. Sometimes, go me. But honest to goodness, there's nothing wrong with being the guy who wants a book to read.
There's a quote in it attributed to G. K. Chesterton that runs "There is a great deal of difference between the eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read."
And y'know, in fiction, I'm very often the tired man. In nonfiction, by all means, bring on the hard stuff. I find case law hilarious. I can laugh myself silly over the way clauses in a loan document line up. I'm perfectly willing, on a good day, to read a plain text version of the whole WTO treaty, or The Golden Bough, or what have you. Look at me, marching out my intellectual credit because I do feel a bit of pressure about it. Like I have to justify it.
I would like to live in a world where no one, not booksellers, not book reviewers, and not librarians, ever made people feel that they should be, in their own pleasure reading, the eager guy who wants to read a book. It's pointlessly shaming.
(This is related to the strange belief some librarians have that a person who only reads nonfiction, or only reads adult fiction, or whatever it is, has to be coaxed to See the Merits of novels / great children's picture books / what have you. No, they really don't. Just find them some nice new car manuals and let it be. Unless they ask otherwise.)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being the eager guy who wants to read a book. Go you, eager dude. Sometimes, go me. But honest to goodness, there's nothing wrong with being the guy who wants a book to read.
