There’s No Accounting for Taste: Literature

 

Light Reading

There really is no accounting for taste, is there? Preference migrates, culturally, individually, personally.

Indeed, consider what once dominated the shelves of bookstores, compared with now. Long ago, in a decade, far, far, away, I recall rows of slim Harlequin Romances striking provocative poses; Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey governing a now long banished Westerns section; World War 2 setting the stage for adventure thrillers; and classic literature retaining shelf space.

How things have changed. All the above are things of the past. Westerns appear to have disappeared. The last great spymaster would appear to have been John le Carre. I rarely see Dickens on the shelves, anymore. Signet Classics of Shakespeare, to say nothing of Coles Notes, have all but disappeared (Coles Notes, certainly). Science Fiction has taken a back seat to Fantasy; or shall I say Romantasy.

Not that these genres have completely disappeared. All the above are available, and perhaps even alive and well, on eBay and Amazon. And in superstores, I imagine. Superstores have very large selection; but that does not change a simple fact: stores stock what sells. And what sold then does not necessarily sell now. Thus, begun ye bestsellers of old!

Browsing online is not quite the same as haunting bookshelves, though. One must, usually, know what one is looking for to find it. So too, sometimes, in superstores. My memory always seems paralysed in superstores. I find myself pacing about, glancing at spines and covers of authors I've never heard of, overwhelmed, finally pursuing only those tried and true I do.

This is all neither here nor there, here. This is about reading taste: mine, particularly. Mine migrates, as you might have surmised from the first paragraph. All power to those who’ve found their true love decades and stuck with it; were that my experience. But mine is far from theirs. Honestly, I can’t account for how my taste in books has evolved. Maybe I can. More on that later.

I was not a reader when young. I struggled. I lagged behind my classmates; until I was held back in Grade 2. This is not to say that I read, even as my reading skills improved. I was an active kid. Perhaps overactive. Even when I did read, what I read was not what one might call enlightened: I recall books with badgers, and the like. Books with pictures.

It was not until I borrowed Arthur C. Clarke’s Islands in the Sky, in middle school, from my school library, that I caught the bug. I did not dive directly into SF, however. The next two books I read, that summer, were two novelizations of films I was too young, then, to be allowed entrance to: Alien, and Nightwing, both horror stories. The first was better than the second.

Those two books led me to Stephen King. I read a lot of King. I did not abandon SF. I read Clarke’s 2001, A Space Odyssey, then more of his ouvre. Then Asimov. And John Wyndham. I thank Mr. Scully, an English teacher, for keeping me in touch with SF. He was a rare breed of teacher, insofar as he chose to assign stories he thought his students would like, and thus read, and not just those school boards might prefer. Maybe he just liked SF, and loathed classics and contemporary “literary” literature. I don't know. I never asked him. It's not like a lot of teens like to talk to their teachers.

In latter high school I found my way to Fantasy literature because I was introduced to D&D. I read far too much of it. Some of it was good. Some of it was extraordinary: Le Guin, Moorcock, Tolkien. Most of it was bad. Some of it was bloody awful. Gory. Hypersexualised. Infantile. The Gor series, for instance. I suffered through six of them, if I remember correctly; and only because a friend loved them. Like I said, there's no accounting for taste.

My mother disliked my momentary Fantasy fixation (rightly so, I'd say now), and insisted I read other things. She offered to buy me a novel one day, but only if I chose one that was not Fantasy. I chose a Clive Cussler title: Raise the Titanic. I was a lifeguard, then, and the thought of reading a story about the sea and submersibles appealed to me. It was alright, good enough that I opted to read other books Cussler wrote. I began to read adventure thrillers alongside Fantasy titles (I expect that disappointed my mother - the continued consumption of Fantasy), books by Tom Clancy and Wilbur Smith, Jack Higgins, Robert Ludlum. You know the type.

I read a lot more classic SF as my interest in Fantasy waned. It was the glut of TSR/Wizards of the Coast titles that largely turned me away from the genre. The more of them I read, the less I liked them. So too ever bloated, cliched, trilogies, like those of Tad Williams. To say nothing of series that never seemed to end, The Black Company, for instance.

It was about this time, now largely disgusted with Fantasy, that I turned to Hemingway. I believe I read The Sun Also Rises, first. Then For Whom the Bell Tolls. Then A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway led to F. Scott Fitzgerald: Gatsby. Fitzgerald led to The New Canadian Library, from Canadian publisher McClelland and Stewart. It was the 90s and the growing I Am Canadian era. I wanted to read our own stories, our own history. And do to this day.

It’s been a merry ride since then. Ever more "high brow" literary lit. Victorian stuff. Turn of the century Modern. Histories. A few memoirs, and biographies. These days I’ve dipped my toe into philosophy. And the Greeks and the Romans. Also postmodern and ergodic lit.

How’d I come to choose the things I did? Taste. I was attracted to what I knew and liked. I grew up watching Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, The Night Gallery and Kolchak, The Night Stalker. The Outer Limits. The Hulk. Doctor Who. The Six Million Dollar Man. Epic miniseries, like Shogun, Roots, The Winds of War. Films like The Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Wars, CE3K, and 2001. But also, more westerns and war films than one might imagine. So, it comes as no surprise that I was drawn to the fantastic and the supernatural fare, at first. But I also grew up watching “classic” film with my parents on Saturday nights; it also comes as no surprise then, that I was drawn to 1920s expat writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, to Steinbeck, Dickens and Twain, to Harper Lee, to Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy. Salinger. And also, to Ray Bradbury and Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace.

It has become impossible to pin down what I like. I like good prose. Poetic language. Even poetry, now; something that I’d hitherto neglected. I suppose what I’m drawn to story, tales that explore the human condition, narratives that, however long or short, have insight into the human soul.

As you might expect, I do not read Fantasy, anymore.

 

Jane Austen July

 

Jane Austen, by her sister Cassandra, c. 1810

Most anyone reading this might wonder what the hell Jane Austen July is. It’s rather self-explanatory, I imagine. It’s simply a celebration of Jane Austen’s works in the month of July. It’s nothing official, just something that some Booktubers dreamed up some years ago.

It’s also something I began “participating” in some years ago (four years ago, to be exact, at time of writing), if participating is proper usage here, considering my depth of participation, or lack thereof, as it were: it’s not like I’m actively engaged in some group activity, aside from reading something by Jane Austen during said month. There are those who do participate in the Booktube community, in “group readings” and discussions, over on certain Booktubers’ Patreans, and the like. I do not. I just like that I might make the personal dedication to finally consuming the body of work of one of the most celebrated authors of English Lit canon.

Why? Why not. It’s about time I’d set my mind to finally read them, given my age. I’ve no excuse as to why I waited so long to do so, other than the usual male prejudice against what certain males might label “chick lit.” Is it? Chick lit? Her books were most certainly written by a woman, obviously, and originally published as such, as well, under the anonymous pseudonym “By a Lady.”  But I would now (now that I’ve read her) never consider her oeuvre an example of that now somewhat maligned category of modern marketing. It is serious literature and should be considered such. It’s riven with social commentary, to say nothing of complex characters, and biting wit. It matters not a whit that its subject matter focuses on women’s lives (Jane was a women, after all, and wrote what was within her experience), and their deathly serious pursuit of the best matrimonial match they can gain (woe to those, in her time, who did not). Are they sentimental fiction? They are indeed novels of sensibility, but they are also excellent examples of 19^th Century literary realism. If you are still of a mind that works about women are only about women, and should only be read by women, it’s high time you divorced yourself of the notion. Henry James wrote novels about women. So did Thomas Hardy. I’d neglected classical works by women for far to long. Better late than never, I say. 

Back to the subject at hand. What must one do to participate in Jane Austen July? It’s simple, really:

1.      Read one of Jane Austen’s six novels

2.      Read something by Jane Austen that is not one of her main six novels

3.      Read a non-fiction work about Jane Austen or her time

4.      Read a retelling of a Jane Austen book OR a work of historical fiction set in Jane Austen’s time

5.      Read a book by a contemporary of Jane Austen

6.      Watch a direct screen adaptation of a Jane Austen book

7.      Watch a modern screen adaptation of a Jane Austen book

In truth, no one need read anything other than a single one of her novels to have participated; anything more is a bonus.

What do I intend? I’m reading Emma this year. In prior years I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park. I’ve also read “Lady Susan,” and “The Watsons” in years past. I’ve also read Death Comes to Pemberly, by P.D. James. Longbourn, by Jo Baker, was a wonderful discovery, well worth your time. It illuminates the lives of the servants of Pride and Prejudice.

I’ve cheated some, truth be told: I’ve read “contemporaries” published outside Jane’s lifespan (1775 to 1817) during Jane Austen July. But, seeing that I’m not involved in JAJ in any official capacity, I tend to do what I choose. Those supposed contemporaries were Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847), and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (also1847). The year I read Jane Eyre I also read Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jean Rhys, a reimagining of Charlotte’s classic novel.

Personally, I believe participation in this “event” is an excellent use of your leisure time, whether you’ve read Jane Austen or not. If you’re a fast reader you could, conceivably, read most, if not all, of her novels in the course of the month; if not, as I said, one will do. I believe delayed gratification is a good thing. One per year gives one something to look forward to. It also gives one time and licence to become acquainted with other Regency writers: Sir Walter Scott, for instance; or Robbie Burns. Playwrights and poets are as admissible as novelists, so indulge in a whole host of Romantics, if you’ve a mind to.

As to contemporaries, there’s a whole host to choose from: Bridget Jones Diary, Where the Rhythm Take You, Unequal Affections, The Other Bennet Sister, etc. o nuts, if you will, with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, if the mood takes you.

Whatever. There are not hard and fast rules. Unless you wish to follow those noted above; so, I suppose there are hard and fast rules. I just choose to ignore them and colour outside the lines.

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! – When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Reading Update, the latter 1800s

 

Portrait of John Keats, Joseph Severn, 1821-1823

What’s my reading plan, as it stands? It’s evolving, but it will be somewhat chronological: 

Notes From the Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1864).

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866). In progress.

Demons, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1872).

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain (1876). A Reread.

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (1884).

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1880).

The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James (1881). In progress.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (1884). A reread.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche (1885).

She, H. Rider Haggard (1886). Completed.

Tay John, Howard O’Hagan (1939, Canadian – set in Alberta from 1880 to 1911). Completed.

Selected Stories, Anton Chekhov, (Stories published between 1883 and 1898).

The Temptations of Big Bear, Rudy Wiebe (1973 – set during the Louis Riel 2nd North-West Rebellion of 1885)

The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain (1957).

A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle (1887). A reread.

The Five, The Untold Stories of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, Hallie Rubenhold (events leading up to 1888). In progress.

From Hell, Alan Moore & Eddie Campell (a graphic novel about the Ripper case, set in 1888).

Maiwa’s Revenge, H. Rider Haggard (1888).

The Nether World, George Gissing (1889).

By Gaslight, Steven Price (set in 1890).

The Call of the Wild, Jack London (1902, set in the 1890s). A reread.

The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde (1890). A reread. 3rd time's a charm.

White Fang, Jack London (1906, set in the 1890s). A reread.

The Final Problem, Arthur Conan Doyle (1893). Another reread.

Murdoch Mysteries novels, by Maureen Jennings; beginning with “Except the Dying” (there are eight titles, I believe – I have the first seven – all set in the 1890s).

Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908, set in late 1890s).

The Island of Doctor Moreau, H.G. Wells (1898). Yet another reread.

The River War, Winston Churchill (1899).

20th Century:

Stalin, Passage to Revolution, Ronald Suny (spanning birth 1874 to 1917). In progress.

Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak (1957 – events from 1902 to sometime during WW2). In progress.

Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed (1919 – set in 1917). Completed. 

Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer. Completed.

Montreal Stories, Mavis Gallant (set during WW2). In progress.

Paris Stories, Mavis Gallant (set post WW2). Completed.

Behind the Bar, John Henry Henshall, 1882

It’s an eclectic mix, to be sure. But one ought to tackle what’s on one’s shelves. There are plenty of videos on YouTube where contributors are challenged to “read what you own.” As I should. This will take quite a while, I imagine. As I’ve noted: I own a lot of books. Most of these early books are quite long, too. That’s to be expected. Novels of the 1800s tended to be long, for the most part – there was no radio or tv to distract one from the reading experience, then, and books tended to be rather introspective. Some might find that dull, certainly slow-going; but it allows one to truly empathise with the characters; and more to the point, it allows one to immerse oneself in the minds, and heart and soul of those who lived in times of yore. At any time, really. It’s been said that reading fosters empathy: One can never truly know what goes on in another’s mind – reading gives us insight into another “person” as is not possible in the real world. It also allows one to time travel. Authors contemporary to their times can give insight into the times they lived in, as no modern “historical” writer could ever hope to they not having experienced the era firsthand.

Toronto, 1880s

Which is kind of the point in this little exercise I’ve embarked on, not only to dive into the backlog of books I own, to thin the ranks of titles cluttering up my shelves, but to gain deep insight into the span of my Lost Generation ancestors’ lives (my great-grandparents Robert Patterson Murray, born 1878, and Susan, in 1880; and my grandparents Joseph MecLea Gauthier, in 1897; and Jules and Blanche, and Hilda, all born in the first decade of the “new” century), beginning with those culturally significant influences that might have had impact on their lives.

Regardless how successful I may be in that regard, this archeological dig into my bookshelves gives me an opportunity to finally tackle the Russians, something I’ve hitherto neglected.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

Reading Goals

 

I have an insane number of unread books. I suspect there are a great number of other people who suffer that same ailment: they who perhaps have too many books to read in the time remaining them; yet who, perplexingly, buy ever more books, despite the sobering fact that they will likely never complete all those they already own. I wonder why that is? That’s a silly question; they – we – have hope that they will have the time to fully peruse their entire library.

One thing is for sure; most readers will read those titles most recently purchased and leave those bought ages ago mouldering on the shelves, hidden behind ever deepening stacks and rows of titles arrayed in front of them, having sometimes completely forgotten what is hidden behind them.

So, what’s to be done? The easiest solution would be to never visit a bookstore or bookselling website again. Fat chance there.

Another solution is to develop a reading strategy. (That may not prevent the person in question from purchasing new, but it will at least pull some of those woefully neglected orphans down from the back ranks of the bookshelves.) I’ve done such a thing.

How so? Not randomly. By developing a narrative.

I’d recently been watching some WW2 documentaries and decided that I might read some of the nonfiction titles I owned. Then I thought I might add period fictions into the mix, read chronologically (not by publication date, but by narrative calendar year). The nonfictions would add context to the fictions. Ground them, so to speak.

But, as I was just then reading John Reed’s “Ten Days That Shook the World,” I decided that I might expand my reading plan back to that day. That would give me an opportunity to read (or reread, as the case may be) F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “This Side of Paradise” and Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.” I began to pull other titles down from my back shelves, fictions and memoirs by Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Isherwood, etc. I was onto something, I thought. Before I knew it, I had decided, given how many other books I owned but had not read, I might consider adding other titles like, “To Kill a Mockingbird” to the mix, set during the Depression but written years later. You can imagine how many other books might be added to that steadily gather pile.

Long story short, I realised that the scope of my reading plan would be epic indeed; it would, by and large, span the lifespan of my long past Lost Generation ancestors (plus a little more): from the latter 1880s to the 1970s, read more or less chronologically. As this was an ever-evolving list, at that time, given those prior mentioned WW2 documentaries, I was already deep into William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” something that I’d been picking at for years. I’ve since completed it and “Ten Days…” which inspired me to finally read Boris Pasternak’s “Dr Zhivago.”

One wonders then what those earliest titles might be, those reaching back into the 1880s: Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and Henry James’ “The Portrait of a Lady.” Yes, “Crime and Punishment” is earlier (1866), but it does present the Human Experience of the latter Victorian Age (or in this case pre-Russian Revolution) that then provoked the sweeping changes experienced during the Edwardian, as James’ work spans both the Victorian and Modern literature movements. I’ve even decided to finally pull down Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” (1878 – close enough to the 1880s) from its lonely perch, seeing that both it and “C and P” help to illuminate the Russian world before the socialist revolutionary movement took root (the first failed Revolution being 1905). That has inspired me to read not only “Stalin – Passage to Revolution” (leading up to the October 1917 revolution); but also “The Five, the Untold Tale of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper,” deconstructing the lives of those poor women, leading up to their tragic end in 1888 (not prostitutes at all, it would seem).

The list I’ve curated it too long to list here, but it is epic indeed in span. It also gives me the opportunity to tackle the Russians, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, and a host of other authors I’d hitherto neglected. Scattered throughout will be selections from McClelland and Stewart’s New Canadian Library.

All these works, fictional and nonfiction, will give me a greater appreciation of all that influenced and later unfolded throughout the long history of the Lost Generation and the 20^th Century.

One thing is for certain: it will take years to complete, given my relatively slow reading rate. No matter. It’s the journey that matters, not the end result.