Thursday, August 25, 2005
Junk? trash? literature?
Update: I'm told there's a study that shows that reading a lot is a good predictor of success in college. Better than SAT scores or even high school grades. The kicker is that the quality of the reading doesn't matter, only the quantity! The act of reading, the stoking of the imagination . . . that's what's important. Cheers.
When I was little, my father forbade me to read the Nancy Drew books because, he said, they were junk. I obeyed him for a while but eventually did the under-the-blanket-with-a-flashlight thing and loved Nancy all the more because I had to suffer for her. As the daughter of a professor/writer father and a editor/writer mother, I read a lot of the classics and enjoyed most of them thoroughly especially Jane Austen (what's not to like?), Shakespeare, the Dumas brothers, the Brontes (all), Costain, etc. After being stopped in my tracks by my father's disgust with Nancy and Ned, however, I refused to read for pleasure. (That sure showed him since I was the one who lost out of years of delight.) Except for school work I didn't read again for over ten years. One day, in an airport bookstore and knowing it bothered me that I felt unable to read for fun, my husband suggested I try something that looked appealing. I saw a bright-covered copy of Peyton Place and haven't looked back. I enjoyed PP a lot, so much so that I became one of the probably few people to read all five Grace Metalious novels. And enjoyed them so much that I returned to reading with gusto. By the way, what's the real difference between her and John Updike, other than the literati seal of approval? Anyway, I continue to read as many as one or two books a week, many officially well written but many in a nether category if my father were doing the labeling. So here's the thing: does it matter what kind of writing one reads as long as one reads and therefore stokes one's interior imagination? will I be sent to a mid-level circle of hell for sometimes eschewing literary finesse in favor of easier and cheerier reads?
When I was little, my father forbade me to read the Nancy Drew books because, he said, they were junk. I obeyed him for a while but eventually did the under-the-blanket-with-a-flashlight thing and loved Nancy all the more because I had to suffer for her. As the daughter of a professor/writer father and a editor/writer mother, I read a lot of the classics and enjoyed most of them thoroughly especially Jane Austen (what's not to like?), Shakespeare, the Dumas brothers, the Brontes (all), Costain, etc. After being stopped in my tracks by my father's disgust with Nancy and Ned, however, I refused to read for pleasure. (That sure showed him since I was the one who lost out of years of delight.) Except for school work I didn't read again for over ten years. One day, in an airport bookstore and knowing it bothered me that I felt unable to read for fun, my husband suggested I try something that looked appealing. I saw a bright-covered copy of Peyton Place and haven't looked back. I enjoyed PP a lot, so much so that I became one of the probably few people to read all five Grace Metalious novels. And enjoyed them so much that I returned to reading with gusto. By the way, what's the real difference between her and John Updike, other than the literati seal of approval? Anyway, I continue to read as many as one or two books a week, many officially well written but many in a nether category if my father were doing the labeling. So here's the thing: does it matter what kind of writing one reads as long as one reads and therefore stokes one's interior imagination? will I be sent to a mid-level circle of hell for sometimes eschewing literary finesse in favor of easier and cheerier reads?
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