Why I Don’t Entirely Agree With Nick Hornby
Like most—all?—writers, I’m also a reader; in my case, an avid one. 😉
So I read The Telegraph’s recent article on author Nick Hornby’s views on reading with considerable interest. In particular, Nick Hornby was reported as arguing that:
“readers should put down difficult books immediately if they are not enjoying them.”
His reasoning, apparently, is that: “Battling through them, he said, would only condition people to believe reading is a chore, leaving a ‘sense of duty’ about something you ‘should do’ “
I am not entirely unsympathetic to his viewpoint, since I can recall several novels I’ve “battled through”, only to wonder at the end why I bothered.
However, I cannot entirely agree with him either, because a book I regard as one of the best I’ve ever read, Aldous Huxley’s Eyeless In Gaza, is one where I had to struggle to get through the the first half of the book—but I did persevere and when I got to the end I felt so rewarded for the effort and so glad I had stuck with it.
And writing, as I have said recently, in a Supernatural Underground post “The Secret I Didn’t Share…” can be “a long distance endurance event.” So it may be that some reading experiences will also more closely resemble marathons than the 100 metre dash. Both can deliver rewards, but they may be different rewards depending on time and mood.
Sometimes, too, the best course when a book is not “gel-ing”, may not be to give up on it altogether, but to come back to it later, when time and energy levels are more conducive to the style of tale you’re reading. This worked for me with Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand Of Darkness. When I first tried to read it I was working very intensely and so was always very tired. I also only ever had a short period late at night for reading and the read wasn’t gel-ing for me. So I did put the book aside until conditions were more conducive—and with both more time and higher energy levels, I not only got into the story straight away, I again thought it was one of the most interesting and thought provoking novels I had read for some time.
But perhaps that is where Nick Hornby and I diverge in our approach—because for me reading is rarely “just” about entertainment. I read for pleasure, so I do want to be entertained, but part of that pleasure comes from encountering ideas and points of view that illuminate and challenge. I certainly don’t think a book has to be “difficult” to be “good”, but sometimes good or very good books aren’t immediately accessible—so that can mean a long distance read rather than just a quick 100 m dash. And in the case of both Eyeless In Gaza and The Left Hand Of Darkness, although I enjoyed both books very much, neither was a book I “raced through”: there was far too much going on for that.
Sometimes age or life-stage has a lot to do with enjoyment of books too. I tried to read The Left Hand of Darkness in my teens and couldn’t get through it. So boring! But when I read it in my twenties I thought it was one of the best books ever written.
You may be right, because the converse is also true: there are books I adored as a teenager where I now think “why?”
“readers should put down difficult books immediately if they are not enjoying them.”
This is a tough one. There is *so* much to read, so much to enjoy, so much out there that time spent on a book not working for you, even a Great Book, then its time to tackle another.
This is the “dim sum” theory of reading Great Books. I do see the point, although had I followed it, I never would have finished a number of (what turned out to be) wonderful books.
The “rub” though, is that you may not know it’s going to be a great book for you until you get a certain way along.
I think a differentiation needs to be made in regards books that are good (or not), that you like (or not), and are easy to read (or not). I never race through any leisure book I read, so I end up noticing rather a lot as I go. As an experienced reader you can sometimes tell if it will be worth your while or not to finish it, but that sense has to be learnt from reading a range of books.
It is entirely possible to have good books that you like and that are easy to read. I do agree that some books need to be read with a fresh mind, and not tired from a busy day at work. I’ve also read less than serious works that have had a very good finish applied to them – spelling, punctuation, grammar and sentence structure that do teach a reader about good use of language.
I suspect the bottom line is would you read another book by the same author again?
Apologies, June, somehow I missed replying to this. I have noticed that you “notice a lot”—more than many, in fact. 😉 The only problemo with the “would you read another book by the same author again” test is that you have to get through the first book—and if one took Nick Hornby’s approach to its loiccal conclusion, one might not do that for those books that would otherwise end up repaying the perseverance ten (or even one hundred) fold.