Arts Vanity: Reflections From a Lifelong Bookworm

I am not ashamed to say I was the young girl who perfectly fit the stereotype: Her friends are books. I rarely went anywhere without a book tucked under my arm — the doctor’s office, the dinner table (much to my parents’ chagrin), and even recess at school. While the other kids played four square and soccer, I would — with my best friend (no, not a book in this case, but a real person, who was also a bookworm) — read “The Mysterious Benedict Society,” “And Then There Were None,” and many other titles on our schoolhouse stairs. We even convinced the teacher supervising us to read the latter and theorized with him about the identity of the murderer for a few recess periods in fourth grade. Books, and fellow bookworms, have brought me tremendous joy since childhood. If I had free time, reading was one of my first choices for how I would spend it.

Now, as an English major studying literature and its form rigorously, books continue to bring me joy — and maybe occasionally a little frustration, as I parse, for example, Chaucer’s Middle English that I feel only vaguely resembles our own. But, inevitably, as I’ve gained a more refined appetite for literature, I’ve lost the taste for the pulp fiction I eagerly devoured with my best friend on the schoolhouse stairs. I’ve become a little more snobbish since then — I can’t help scrutinizing the technique or the style of the language of the books I read. I’m much more satiated by a careful attention to form and message than the build and release of suspense.

So is it less fun being a snob? Maybe it makes it less easy to find a book at the airport, for sure, but it’s allowed me to realize where the true value in literature lies — not in how engrossing a book is, but in how much thought it demands of the reader.

I’ve discovered that how many times a book can be reread and deliver new value to the reader is a good test of its quality. Take any of your average, “trashy” series as an example (not naming names, but a certain novel about a human girl falling in love with a vampire might fit into this category). You read them once, eager to discover who murdered Samuel Ratchett, who Harry Potter’s father is, whether Katniss survives the arena or not. The only literary element drawing the reader is suspense — which is not an effect to be sneezed at. After all, it’s what makes reading a joy for many – it’s what leads kids to plead with their parents for five more minutes to finish a chapter before bedtime or read next to their nightlight once their exhausted parents turn the lights out (both offenses I was guilty of as child).

But suspense is a largely ephemeral effect. Once you discover who the murderer is or whether the protagonist is victorious over the villain, the book loses all its power over the reader. Certainly, many who reread these pulp fiction books do take joy in each rereading, but the book, because its value is derived from a transient effect, can never captivate the reader like it did the first time. It’s like having a relationship solely based on passion — once the butterflies and jitters are gone, it inevitably loses its luster.

Some books diminish in value every time they’re read — that’s a useful test for determining how much value a book holds, or maybe even any work of art, because it says something about its ability to compel the reader or viewer to think and to unlock new insights.

Books like Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” or any number of Shakespeare’s plays are all examples of literary works that for me, have not only not lost value every time I reread them, but gained in value. Because they are so complex in literary form and in the messages they deliver, every reread is even more rewarding and exciting than the last, as it uncovers a new message or reveals something new about how the work’s form is beautifully, artistically conveying that message.

My journey in appreciating literature can be captured by my experiences reading Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” The first time I read it as a fourth grader, when I was still drawn to books for their engrossing suspense, I devoured the novel, eager to know if Elizabeth did indeed marry Darcy. But when I returned to the novel, in high school, with a more refined taste in literature, I began to appreciate the book even more for the commentary it offered about the subjugation of women in Regency era England. When I read it a third time, in Hum 10 in my freshman year, I gained further appreciation for the book, as I studied not only its message, but its form. As I studied its narrative technique, I realized that Austen bolsters her anti-patriarchal message by subtly transferring ironic power from the male characters to the females to ridicule the system, which prompts such unreasonable behavior from women, rather than the women themselves.

“Pride and Prejudice” — and other books of similar caliber — will continually compel readers across centuries to think and will be of greater service to those readers the more time is devoted to them — unlike pulp fiction, which loses its value with each successive read. Rather than a short-term passionate relationship, reading higher works of literature feels like ascending to the uppermost rung of Plato’s ladder of love, exchanging more base passions for love of higher forms of beauty. Even if I’ve lost my childhood appetite for pulp fiction, I still feel like that’s a gain.

—Incoming Books Executive Alexandra M. Kluzak can be reached at [email protected].