One for the Books

When it comes to books, I’ve only experienced two of Goldilocks’ famous descriptions: I’m used to the length of literature being either too much, or just right. The former usually applies to assigned reading at 3 a.m. The latter is infinitely preferable and applies to the greatest books out there, books with authors who knew how to deliver with neither unnecessary extravagance nor unnecessary brevity.

In short, I’ve read books that seem just long enough, and I’ve read books that seemed too lengthy. Rarely have I come across a book that fits Goldilocks’ last statement: “not enough.” But “not enough” has become a recent trend in literature, as books are trimmed and summarized into almost unrecognizable forms.

I began to realize this when I was reading an article called “The Corrections” in the New Yorker’s “Arts Issue,” in which Adam Gopnik discussed two artistic trends: one of addition, as in the directors’ cut on DVDs, and one of subtraction, as in the recent and popular “compact additions” by British publisher Orion. Gopnik concludes, “Books can be snipped at, and made less melodically muddled, but they lose their overtones, their bass notes, their chesty resonance—the same thing that happens, come to think of it, to human castrati.”

Gopnik’s exposé on literary subtraction only begins to tap the surface of a trend disturbing to any bookworm. He focuses on the physically condensed book, but outside of Orion, a far more sinister and wide-reaching trend is developing: the socially and philosophically condensed book.

The worst part is, this trend is our fault. We’re all guilty of it. Let’s say you’ve never read a book, but you know you should have read it. Probably you’ve even read the first page or so, although you never got further. Probably you’ve picked it up and leafed through it in a bookstore. Over time, and over many overheard conversations, you’ve picked up a few important ideas: a one-sentence plot summary, a witty remark made in a self-congratulatory tone of one in the know, a few themes, an anecdote about the author, maybe even a brief (or somewhat rewritten) quotation. As your secondhand knowledge accumulates, there comes a time when someone brings it up at a party. You jump in. You know this! You can show off! Those glittering literati of the undergraduate scene will think you’re cool now! At a school suffering from a collective undergraduate Kerouac complex, it’s a fairly common scene.

So what’s wrong with being able to SparkNote books on command? If a partygoer has learned what philosophies to bring up when speaking of Crime and Punishment—even if those philosophies weren’t learned through actually turning pages—isn’t that a step in the right direction? After all, isn’t the whole point of literature to communicate great ideas?

It’s a fair question, and yes, that is part of the point, so much as there can be said to be a point at all. Here’s the problem: if you’ve successfully given yourself a personal aura of Knowing That Book, you are far less likely to sit down and read it. Hey, you’re busy. Plus, you’ve already convinced everyone you’ve read it. And, most importantly, on some level you’ve convinced yourself that you’ve read it, or at least forced yourself to forget that you haven’t.

It’s a sad admission of defeat to go into that bookstore and buy the book you’ve discussed so eloquently. What will you say if somebody sees you? “Oh, hi! This? Oh, no. Just, um, spilled coffee on my last copy. Really. I totally already own it.” Not convincing. And not satisfying.
But putting the shame-factor aside, we need to start buying and reading. If we miss the actual experience of literature, we’re missing out on the most important part. Books aren’t just ideas: they are the venue through which those ideas are communicated, and most of what is really enjoyable about a book is what’s going on when the Big Ideas aren’t the sole focus. Consider, once more, Gopnik’s New Yorker article. He references those passages in Melville where the plot and the theme are not being addressed. Orion, he reports, would say: cast them out! If they aren’t on the narrative highway, get them off the road. Kill those darlings and unify!

Yet something vital is in those passages. We can’t forget the secret that’s often trampled over when we take literature, and ourselves, too seriously: writers write for fun. Do they want to address social problems, provide incisive insight, and get to the end of the story? Sure. At least some of them do, some of the time. But you can’t push all the ideas all the time.

The end result is that this thoughtless, banal censorship of books is taking the fun out of our own experiences as readers. We learn to absorb without experience, to skim and summarize, because we’re paranoid that our not being well read will label us as literary pariahs. But why read if you’re only doing it to memorize a predetermined set of comments that are ready to be regurgitated at any moment?

Such an attitude is acceptable, if not enjoyable, in an academic environment, where you are generally reading to absorb information and to be able to use it intellectually. This is not the case for recreational reading. As people turn to books that bastardize the author’s intents, quirks, and personal styles, we as readers are turning our favorite activity into preparation for a pop-quiz by our peers, where multiple choice is preferred and two-line short answers are as deep as it gets.

Enough with the condensation of knowledge. I, like Goldilocks, am not satisfied with “not enough” in my bookshelf porridge-bowl. It’s time to declare a moratorium on readers that read for show, and on the half-ass, part-skimming reading methods that let them do so.