Eating your literary vegetables
You're not better than other people because you like tricky books
While I’ve been taking a break from writing, I’ve been reading a lot. What’s new, right? I’m always reading a lot. A lot of writers don’t read while they’re working on a project, and although I understand the thought process, I prefer to keep reading when I’m writing because I can’t imagine not reading for any meaningful chunk of time. The longest time I’ve gone without it in the last decade or so was probably like, a week, and that was when I was very unwell.
I do have shifting tastes and trends, however. When I’m writing, I’m usually drawn to the compulsively readable; crime thrillers, rom-coms, the occasional romantasy. I like reading things that are very different to the sort of stuff I write, to avoid comparisons with my own work or any danger of stealing things from other writers. I don’t feel guilty about reading less challenging stuff, because, honestly, why the fuck would I? At the moment, I’m seeing endless discourse online about the difference between ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ literature1, with titles like: Is ACOTAR rotting your brain? Are the classics actually good or are they just written by dead white guys etc. etc, and it’s honestly so small-minded and repetitive. Someone says that ACOTAR is crap and then someone replies that actually ACOTAR is amazing and Charles Dickens is crap. Backlash, discourse, snoozefest (and here I am adding to the shitheap). Although it’s unsurprising that we’ve managed to turn reading for pleasure into another intellectual olympics with winners and losers, it’s still disappointing.2 What if we stopped making other people feel guilty about their hobbies and passions? What if reading was a gorgeous, rare safe space where we prioritised pleasure and engagement over goals and showing off?
The way I see it is this; different writers have different aims and intentions when they’re writing their novels. Some prioritise the writing itself, some the characters, some the plot or the readability of their work. They want to make their readers think, or cry, or laugh, or feel horny or whatever. We all have different ways of judging the things we like to read, and all of the criteria we use is broadly subjective. I might think something is the best book ever written and my friend might think it was a pile of shit. This is the wonder of art! And the reason why it’s impossible to judge it objectively; we bring ourselves to the work. Despite this, I’m sure you’ll agree that some books are written with readability in mind, and some are more concerned with subversion or artistry. One sort of book isn’t better or worse than the other; it’s different strokes for different folks.
My overly simplistic metaphor is this: some books are cakes; deliciously sugary and moreish, the kind of things we crave. Not nutritionally dense, but good for the soul. Some books are vegetables: kale or spinach. Full of nutrients, good for your brain. Not always the kind of things we want to be consuming. Popular fiction - the delicious, sweet treat kind - tends to sell better than the niche, literary stuff; more people read it and the authors who write it make more money than the authors who don’t. Because of this, there are a lot of book snobs (I used to be like this), who think that their taste is superior to other peoples because they’re reading challenging fiction. I love to read the tricky stuff; the classics and the Russians, the McCarthy and the Proust.3 It’s definitely rewarding to read books like this, I find it really intellectually stimulating (puke) and it’s always important to challenge yourself. But what do you fancy at the end of a long and tiring day? When you want to relax and unwind? Cake, right? Not spinach.
Every now and then, something comes along that’s nutritionally dense and also delicious. Think strawberries, or peanut butter (have I lost you on the food metaphor yet?). The kind of food (novel) that tastes so great that you forget that it’s good for you. Think Zadie Smith or Jonathan Franzen or Sally Rooney. The kind of novelist that is able to write books that are fun, readable and challenging at the same time. I love finding an author like that, and I would love to be an author like that one day. Making money by selling millions of books AND getting acclaim from the literary sections of newspapers that nobody reads anymore? Yes please. Some writers are only able to do one of these things and most of us aren’t able to do either. So a little respect for the popular novelists please. I think it’s just as hard to write a book that appeals to millions of people than it is to write a book that sets the highbrow literary world (all 14 of them, lol) aflame. Maybe even harder. I wish we could stop infighting and acknowledge that everyone has different tastes and preferences. All reading is good reading. What if we had a conversation about books that was actually interesting, instead of weird and shamey and over-concerned with intellectual superiority? What if we prioritised novelistic pleasure over meaningless Goodreads-style quantity goals? Would we burst into flames, or just be happier?
It’s so hard to decide how to refer to these things. Highbrow or lowbrow, literary fiction or genre fiction etc. etc. etc. I hope you’ll give me a little bit of grace here and understand what I’m trying to say. When I was in uni studying english lit, everyone was always trying to define literary fiction, and nobody ever quite managed it. More often than not, they just said lit fic when they meant ‘good’ and genre fic or popular fic when they meant ‘bad’. I do not agree with this!!!!!!!!
I’m honestly convinced that a lot of these people don’t even like reading, but that’s a conversation for another time.
Although I’m still working on this last one. Hot girls love Proust, I get it, I’m 200 pages into Swann’s Way and it’s very good. Stop telling me about it.