Moby Dick vs. Locker Room Lust
Many people don’t read, period. I mean books, as opposed to the crawl strip across the bottom of the tv news. They can read and they read signs and recipes and emails. There is nothing wrong with that, especially in these days of alternative media such as audible podcasts and YouTube videos. Twice in the last month, I have heard about people using YouTube to learn specific skills such as playing a given position on a soccer team and playing the guitar.
But books, at least so far, are the most organized form of print, the longest lasting, the most widely accessible. The actual language may be the most carefully constructed, as opposed to the language, for instance, in these posts of mine, which nearly always contain bothersome little errors that I can only spot after sending them out. The wealth and possibility of a good public library or bookstore mostly resides in the books.
Yet people who do read books are often apologetic about their reading choices. Many students expressed chagrin when admitting they don’t read great literature such as Moby Dick but do read “Locker Room Lust”. That was a title suggested by a student and I always assumed it wasn’t real. (However, I just put it in Google and found 90,000 hits.) Analysis and discussion of books is a civilized pastime and can lead to more ideas and understanding than reading alone. But I guess schools, parents, and librarians have pushed great literature so hard that it is difficult for many to recognize and develop their own choices.
Just a few weeks ago, a mature woman said to me, “Oh, ordinarily I never read a book with an embossed cover” as she covered her book with her hand and explained that her current book was way below her usual reading standard. I was an elementary education major in college, not an English major. I wanted the range and freedom that comes with being open to all subjects and not a steady diet of “deeper” reading. I find that academically admired writing really is rich in ideas and language but in general, I get more of a lift from lower-level fiction and from a variety of non-fiction. The only required classic I ever got a charge from was “Silas Marner” in the 10th grade. Yet, “Out Stealing Horses” by Per Petterson and “I Shall Not Want” by Julia Spencer-Fleming were genuine fun and compelling.
