Bookish thought du jour

I've been thinking, as I so frequently do, about books, having just today finished this one. It was recommended by one of my colleagues: we're thinking of doing a novel study based on a book that was recently made into a movie, and this was one I hadn't read. (The others, if you're interested, are "The Golden Compass", "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe", and "Inkheart".)

The book itself was one of those amazingly good ones... about a nine year old boy who finds himself on the opposite side of a fence from a boy who wears striped pajamas and shares a birthday with him. It was painful to read in parts because the main character, Bruno, is so incredibly naive - he brings food to his friend Shmuel but sometimes he gets hungry on the walk and eats most of it - so blind to the evil around him.

But this is what I wanted to write about today, the interview with the author in the back of the book. John Boyle says this:

"Is it a children's book? no. Is it an adults' book? No. It's a book. It's a story. And the more I grow as a writer, and the more I have conversations about writing with people..., the more I learn about writing and realize that these distinctions - who are these distinctions for? You know who these distinctions are for? They're for bookshops. "Do we put it in this... over on the left-hand side of the shelf, which we call crime? Or over on the right, which we call literary fiction?""

I think he's right. Sometimes, standing in line at the library, or on Amazon with my credit card clutched in my hand, I wonder what I'm doing with all these kids books. I am a sophisticated and intelligent person. I am very well educated. Why am I reading books for children?

I'm reading them because they're not books for children, they're just really really good books.

I am Reading Trash, and I Don't Care.

I think that title says it all, don't you?

The other day I got an email from my cousin (hi Court!) who said that sometimes she reads lousy books just to have something to do that doesn't require a lot of thought. Well, I'm here to tell you that I do exactly the same thing. I'm a little self conscious about it, being that I'm keeping track of everything I read and all that, but it is the truth.

Sometimes I read trash.

There are limits, of course. Not too long ago I tried to read a book by this Debbie Macomber character -- a book about knitting, no less! -- but I just could not choke it down. The writing was so bad, the plot was predictable, and the characters were wooden. How do people get away with this stuff? When I think of all the great writers I've read over the years who never had a thing published, it makes me a little crazy.

For example, the guy I went to university with who wrote that if there was one hour left until the end of the world, he would spend that hour waiting for a bus. Why? Because the time passes very slowly, and you're always glad when the bus arrives.

Life is not fair, and that's a fact.

The Library as Fashion Statement

I remember the moment I figured it out.

It was one of those typical “ah-ha” moments so beloved of Oprah, as if the skies had opened and Enlightenment (or at least Awareness) descended.

It was junior high, a time I do not recall very fondly. The person who delivered this epiphany to my listening ears was called Nancy (I cannot for the life of me remember her last name) and she was fabulous. She was tall, she was pretty, she had curly red hair and adorable freckles; she was popular; she had boyfriends; she made the sports teams I was regularly cut from; she was everything I was not.

So of course I studied her. How did she know these things? Where did she get this ease, this instinctive knowledge of style and fashion? How did she know the exact moment when stirrup pants went OUT and something else came IN? (It was the eighties, people, cut me some slack.) How did she gauge shoes and skirt lengths and colours and the way to do one’s hair and how to apply makeup? Why was it that when I tried these things they just looked weird?

And then one day I overheard her talking to one of her friends (ever-so-slightly LESS cool, according to the junior high measurement of these essential things) and Nancy said the words that rocked me, a lament about the vagaries of fashion and how quickly styles change:

“You used to walk by Le Chateau and see nothing but black. Now all you see is white, white, white!”

It came to me then. THAT’s how they know! That’s how these girls know what’s in fashion and what isn’t! They look in the stores! It’s not a secret code, it’s not some weird genetic twist that I lack, it’s just that they go over to Market Mall and window shop and try things on and…look, I guess.

Sadly, this epiphany did not help my social life or my fashion sense. I never did care for Le Chateau, I never did crack the accessories code, and will always prefer flat and comfortable shoes to any other kind. Also, shopping is boring.

But that memory came to me the other day (my friend C. is getting married and my closet mysteriously shrunk the dress I was going to wear) in Market Mall, of all places, right about where Le Chateau used to be.

You don’t have to worry about getting things wrong in a library. Even if you don’t have the information you need, it’s not hard to find a book that will help you. The books are right there, where they are supposed to be. They don’t move around, changing black into white without any warning. The Dewey Decimal System, even if it is a little too much like math for my liking, is a wonder of exactitude and organization. A few years ago my own book collection got to the point where I needed to implement what one of my old professors used to call “An Organizational Principle.” It’s a quirky system and depends on an in-depth knowledge of an author’s nationality and the year in which the book was acquired, as well as when it was last read and the genre into which it fits, but I can still find the books I need.

I learned from Nancy that if you want to know what’s in style you should look in the stores where the young people shop. I now know that styles change and that the people you idolize in grade 8 are long gone from your consciousness a few years later on. I also know that I will never care for fashion or uncomfortable shoes, and that I will never understand the Secret of Accessories, nor will I ever be in possession of Good Hair.

But I do know where the libraries are, and how to find what I need inside a book.

Vindication at Last

People are suspicious of readers. What, they wonder, could be so enthralling about the inside of a book? Especially with the delights of daily existence all around?

I’ve lost track of the times I’ve been accused of anti-social behaviour, of being out of touch with reality, of preferring books to people. (A soon-to-be-ex boyfriend nailed me with that one: “You don’t even want to be with me, you’d rather read a book.” If you had known the fellow in question you would have fled to fiction, too, believe me.)

Well, vindication arrived today, in the form of the Globe and Mail. “A group of Toronto researchers have compiled a body of evidence showing that bookworms have exceptionally strong people skills,” the article says. (I love it when science confirms something that I’ve experienced: it just lets me know that the world does, indeed, revolve around me.) “Readers of narrative fiction scored higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than those who read non-fiction texts.”

I love books not because they are an escape from reality, but because they give me a different way of experiencing that reality. Instead of enduring the discomfort and inconvenience of a ride on Calgary’s public transit system (what non-readers call “real life”), I can have an adventure, meet new people, enjoy a completely different kind of existence, all without risking grease stains or a broken heart. Fiction is a way to understand the world.

Besides, in my experience reality is no great shakes. I’d rather be reading.