Ever since I learned to read I have rarely been without a
book on the go. At an early age I was an avid reader of Enid Blyton’s Famous
Five stories; in my early teens I consumed a large proportion of Agatha
Christie’s work before moving on to Alistair MacLean and then the somewhat
racier James Bond novels of Ian Fleming; well they seemed racy at the time!
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| The sight of this cover takes me back to when I was a teenager. |
On occasions I veer into the weird; Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy for instance, which
I really must revisit soon, and books like The
Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, which was probably the
first steampunk novel that I read. Steampunk is an interesting genre that seems
to have grown hugely in popularity in recent years, although there is a wide
divergence in quality and a certain amount of bandwagon jumping on the part of
some writers.
At present I am reading (and enjoying immensely), A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon, who is probably
better known for The Curious Incident of
the Dog in the Night-Time. Unusually, I am reading the paperback version (which
my younger daughter bought some time ago, but has not yet read). I say
unusually because nowadays I, like so many other people, read books on the
Kindle. When e-readers first came along I was sorely tempted to buy one but
prevaricated because although the combination of a new gadget and books was
enormously appealing, I felt that the comfort of a physical book and the
satisfaction of visiting a bookshop, of choosing a book, buying it and bringing
it home, the sense of anticipation and the actually reading of it would
outweigh the novelty of the e-reader.
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| Kindle, probably the most well known and popular of the e-readers. |
Then in 2010 when we went on holiday, I dragged half a dozen
paperbacks along, which took up a large proportion of my luggage space and took
me perilously close to going over the airline’s weight allowance. Val offered
to buy me a Kindle for Christmas or my birthday, yet still I vacillated. On the
one hand I desired the new technology, but on the other I would miss the visits
to bookshops and the joy of holding and reading an actual book. Eventually I
succumbed and the next time I went on holiday I took the Kindle, read nine
books and did not need to worry about the weight or space that they took up.
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| As e-readers increase in popularity, this sort of sight will become rarer, |
There is a view that the e-reader signals the death knell of
the bookshop, but frankly the number of bookshops on the High Street seemed to be
contracting anyway and perversely the growth in popularity of the e-reader has
in some ways invigorated readership and, by extension, the bookshop; it
certainly seems to have energised the public into reading more. Book sellers
like Waterstone’s have embraced the e-reader and of necessity changed their
business model and sales tactics accordingly, although however much the e-book
market grows there will always be demand for physical books for cookbooks,
textbooks and the coffee table book.
The e-readers on the market have benefited readers and
writers in many ways. A lot of the classics can be had for nothing or for a few
pennies on your e-reader while you would pay the full price for the paperback. A Tale of Two Cities costs £5.75 in
paperback on Amazon, yet is free on the Kindle. There are vast numbers of books
for less than a pound for the Kindle, many of which are self-published through
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing facility. This has enabled many an aspiring
writer to enter the market when, in the era before the e-book, they would have
struggled to find a publisher. There may be a lot of dross out there but there
are also some gems.
Mind you, the dross extends beyond the self-published stuff
available, even though it is true that in fiction one man’s meat is another
man’s poison. I would suggest that in no other area is this truer than in the
classics. There is a lot of snobbery about the classics, and what constitutes a
classic anyway? Arbitrarily, having Googled “classic fiction” I ticked off the
books that I have read from The
Observer’s list of the best 100
novels of all time[1]
and find that I have read only twenty-six of them and some of those I have
enjoyed not at all.
For instance The Trial
by Franz Kafka is widely regarded as a classic and is highly praised but
divides opinion. There are those who regard it as a work of genius; having
eventually got round to reading it recently I have some sympathy with the
reviewer who said that it is “a tome of existentialist tripe... bleak and
pointless.” There are other classics that I sometimes think it is fashionable
to like, even though the reader may not have actually enjoyed them, a sort of
emperor’s new clothes syndrome[2].
Jack Kerouac’s On The Road for
example is very highly respected, but I couldn’t see what all the fuss was
about. Anything by Ernest Hemingway falls into a similar category in my view,
leaving me completely cold[3].
There again Crotchet Castle by Thomas
Love Peacock, published in 1831 and in which a group of disparate, eccentric characters
assemble and basically do no more than have lengthy conversations, is a novel
that I thoroughly enjoyed although I’m sure that many people would hate it.
When I studied literature at school I suppose that like many
a teenager doing their English “A” level, I became a bit precious and
pretentious about books and at one time I considered it almost a sin to leave one
unfinished. Another of my foibles was that I was loath to lend (or borrow) a
book. Frankly I would rather give a book away (and if necessary, buy another
copy) than lend it to someone; borrowing a book was similarly anathema to me[4].
Over the years there have been few books
that fall into the unfinished category, but Something
Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury and Smallcreep’s Day by Peter Currell Brown I simply could not bring
myself to read to the end. I waded through The
Lord of The Rings and wished I hadn’t bothered; now, despite a nagging
sense of guilt, I am much more likely to give up on a book I am not enjoying.
There are many ways in which a book can be enjoyable; it can
be for the style and wit of the writing, the thrill of the story or the
enrichment it can bring to the reader but life is too short to read bad books,
although my idea of what constitutes a bad book may not be yours and vice versa; each to their own, vive la difference.
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| Next up on my reading list. |
Nonetheless, whether it is George Orwell, or Philip K Dick;
Charles Dickens or Jeffrey Archer, whatever you may favour, there is nothing
quite as enjoyable as getting lost in a good book.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction
Other lists are available!
[2]
How many unfinished copies of Salman Rushie’s The Satanic Verses are there do you suppose?
[3]
For which, please read pretentious, over-rated twaddle.
[4]
Yes, weird I know. If everyone was like me, lending libraries would do no trade
at all.
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