Books 2009: Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot

Perhaps the real question is not why you read, but how you read. This observation was brought to you from me having finished Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot just an hour ago. I was certain I had read the book before - but I'm not sure. I recognised the opening chapter. It is entirely possible I had read the opening chapter and then put the book aside. This is one of the ways I read: I flirt with books. So, the much-fabled, oft-taught and already-classic Flaubert's Parrot which I may or may not have read previously but which I have definitely read now?

How did I read it?

Well. I felt tempted to make a check-list of post-modern fiction trademarks, so I could check them all: fragmented self (constructed out of texts); history understood and recast as fiction (as the past is inaccessible to us except through texts which by their very nature are linguistic constructs and thus unreliable); the text as bricolage (assembled by quotations and various types of texts); no such thing as Truth but only truthS; &c.

In short: it read like a lesser Pale Fire (true to his metier, Barnes does keep name-dropping Nabokov) but without Pale Fire's mania and fevour. My head placed Flaubert's Parrot next to Graham Swift's Waterland. Barnes' novel is a textbook case of post-modern fiction, just like Swift. I did not particularly care for the book - to me, it reads old in way that much older books do not. Because it is such a full-blooded second-generation English post-modern book, it feels very dated to me.

That's how I read. My head assigns books their place in the literary canon based upon their kinship with other books/authors. I measure them against similar books I have read (and often against unrelated books). How does the writing hold up? Does it surprise me anyway? Does it make me work hard or does it lead me gently through the pages? Will it make me reassess books I have already read? Does it point me towards books I need to read in order to fully appreciate the book I hold in my hands?

Next: a post on things I find in secondhand books. It was my intention to post this today, but someone has not charged the camera batteries. Boo.

Monday Linkage

• Bow down to the master: How to Read 462 Books in One Year. I feel like such an underachiever.
• The Book Cover Archive. Exactly what it says on the tin.
• Reason #1 why I'm happy being a crafter: "An evening gown that has champagne taste on a beer budget. Cheap champagne, but champagne nonetheless."
• Reason #2 why I'm happy being a crafter: Steal This Sweater - "stop making scarves; start making trouble."
• Reason #3 why I'm happy being a crafter. I only have the collar to go on my grey jumper and I'm taking the easy option.
• The Axis of Awesome: 4 Chords (youtube link). "The song that proves that all you need to be a pop star is four simple chords." Yes, The Crowdies' "Fall At Your Feet", A-ha's "Take On Me" and, er, Banjo Patterson's "Waltzing Matilda" are all the same song.
• Inauguration Day from Space. "The world’s highest-res Earth-imaging satellite zooms in on President Obama "
• "Cooking doesn't get TAFFA than this!" Yes, it's the Gregg Garbbler (also known as the MasterChef Automated Quote Generator). Will only make sense if you watch BBC's MasterChef (Other Half is a devotee). "God, you've got some big flavours, boy!"
• I recently got invited to Spotify and since I'm on the wrong side of thirty, I immediately began catching up with New Music That Kids Today Like (gosh!). Fleet Foxes are really lovely, Vampire Weekend don't do it for me and Lady Gaga leaves me absolutely cold. I'm so old. Spotify also has a vast collection of 80s Swedish boybands and Russian folk songs. Ask me how I know. Anyhow, I have seven Spotify invites for anybody in the UK, Estonia or Sweden wanting one. Leave a comment (your mail addy won't be published as per usual and I'll mail it to you).

Have a lovely Monday, everybody!

No Sense of Direction

Having recently looked through one of those "book you must read" lists, I have chartered my own reading throughout the years. I am particularly well-versed in contemporary British fiction, can find my way around the contemporary American literary landscape but generally opt out (bar one or two novelists whom I admire) and I know my early twentieth century poetry/fiction very well.  I know my nineteenth-century British novelists and poets, can muddle my way through Enlightenment literature but really do prefer sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English poetry. Some would say that I'm well-read, whilst others would point out that, for a Dane, I'm unusually Anglophone in my reading preferences.

Kimfobo of Reading Matters ponders her reading choices for the year ahead. Looking at my bookshelves, I can see Books I Really Ought to Read (Djuna Barnes, William Faulkner and James Joyce) because they fit so well into what I have already read and would fill up curious gaps on my literary map. I can see Books Waiting to Be Read (Alasdair Gray (signed first edition!), Jonathan Coe and Margaret Atwood). Curious books, whimsical books, flirty books and serious books. Hardbacks, paperbacks, graphic novels and proof copies. Books in Danish, Swedish, German, English and even one in Russian.

How do I choose? Sadly I'm not very good at keeping to To-Read lists. I would quite like to read more pre-1950 novels this year. I have a vague notion about reading some Ivy Compton-Burnett but it is hardly a radical idea. I fear I'm a literary flaneur, really. So I will continue to read without any real sense of direction. Perhaps I will detect a pattern when I look back some eleven months from now.

A vaguely topical link: Can you name the 100 most common words in English? A rudimentary grasp of syntax might come in useful here, actually. I got 61/100 and I'm sure you can do much better.

"We encounter each other in words.."

Unsurprisingly the poetry reading was one of my favourite parts of the Obama inauguration ceremony (another being Aretha Franklin's awesome hat). You can read the entire poem by Elizabeth Alexander on the New York Times website right here.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

A Reply Among Many

Rhiannon replied to my question why she reads. I really like her reply and she was very gracious in allowing me to reproduce it here:

I read because I can. (And let's be honest, it's one of the only things I'm good at. I'm a really good reader. I read at least 600 words per minute, and have impressive retention skills for what I have read. It seldom takes me more than a day to finish a novel.)

I read because I enjoy it. (I do. I like books. I like holding them, touching them, ogling their covers, learning about the characters, solving the mysteries, falling in love when the characters do, being devastated when they are, laughing at the good bits, crying at the sad bits. I like what reading tells me about myself and about other arounds me. I like that I can read serious academic works and the most trivial mysteries and comic books and enjoy all of them.)

I read because it's compulsive. (It really is. I'll read the ingredients on a cereal box if nothing else is around. I have to be careful when I read comics because it's very easy for me to forget about the pictures and focus just on the text.)

I read because I get paid to. (I love my job I love my job I love my job.)

I read because I makes me happy. (When I was a child, one of the most effective punishments was for my parents to take away my books.)

I read because I get lost in what I'm doing. (There are numerous stories about me getting lost on the way home from school because I was too busy reading to watch where I was going. I never actually got lost--we lived too close--but I did tend to dawdle.)

Thank you to all who took the opportunity to answer my question (particularly as I was in a curmudgeonly mood).

Why Do You Read?

Why do you read? It is such a fundamental question. I ran into it the other day when I was discussing the Western canon in an internet setting (I know, I should avoid those). As always the answers intrigued me more than the actual question. One answer will invariably emerge: "The point of reading is enjoyment". And this answer never fails to baffle me for a number of reasons - mostly because the idea of "enjoyment" is so problematic. What does "enjoyment" mean? Does it correspond to Roland Barthes's plaisir/readerly texts where the reader (passively) consumes a product and derives pleasure from the act of consumption? Let us look at the sentence "the point of reading is enjoyment". Looking at it objectively, it follows that the act of reading is not about the actual act of reading itself but rather about the degree of enjoyment derived from the act. The focal point is not the book being read but the reader him/herself sitting in a chair. Should the act of reading actually be described as an exercise in narcissism?

This is my main problem: every time I read or hear about how "the point of reading is enjoyment", I end up thinking of a narcissistic little twerp who only likes books where you can identify with the protagonist, consumes them like they'd consume shoes, music or any other product and who would never read anything published before they were born (except if there's a connected TV series or a film out gathering a fair amount of publicity). I have issues, clearly.

So, why do you read?