07-13-09

Current Word Count: Roller Disco Saturday Night, 169, 382 words

What I’m Reading Now: An Edible History of Humanity, by Tom Standage

To call my recent reading history a disaster would, of course, be overstating things a smidge. Disasters are, by and large, rare and catastrophic things involving multitudes, and generally have little to do with the fact that I struggled mightily with a book by an author I usually devour. Still, looking over my reading chart for the year so far, disastrous is really the only word I could dredge up, and here’s why:

Last year, by this point in mid-July, I was at thirty-two books, having just finished my favorite Vonnegut ever, Bluebeard. In 2007, full of literary beans, I had actually passed my lofty goal of Fifty Books in a Year with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (which I read in three days!) and was rewarding myself with a spin inside my favorite novel (It, of course by Stephen King). Full of hubris as I was, I crossed out Fifty Books and decided to attempt a hundred – a hilarious goal I fell short of by twenty-eight books. And I managed to feel bad about only getting to seventy-two books!

At this point I am not only competing with an idealized version of myself (as well as my speed-reading friend Tracey, who has begun counting her books again and thus put herself back in active competition), I am competing with my own dubious legacy as a reader. See, in 2006, I managed only to claw through only forty-five books, most of which were graphic novels. Not that I have anything against graphic novels; quite the contrary, you’d think that the abundance of generally faster-reading graphic fiction would have bolstered my numbers. But alas and alack, and so on.

Of course, the easy excuses come to the fore: I’m a slow reader (which is, admittedly, only intermittently true). I’ve been preoccupied with extant real-life problems. I’ve been focused on my own writing. All of which are indubitably (or at least situationally) true, but that’s never slowed me down in the past. What’s sticking in my gob the most are March and June: in March, I managed to finish only two books, Ruth Reichl’s Garlic & Sapphires and a re-read of King’s Duma Key. I loves both books (Duma Key even more on the second read), and yet I meandered through them like a bored cowboy out for a mosey. And then June, oh June. The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell, a punchy history of the Puritans which I remember speeding through managed, somehow, to be the only book I finished last month. Yes, I agree, the mind does boggle.

A lot of this was me getting snagged on the slow-moving Player Piano, which is stunningly not my least-favorite Vonnegut (that would be Palm Sunday; if we’re stuck on fiction, I could make a case for Slapstick), but it is certainly his most sluggish. I think my main issue with Vonnegut is the same one I have with John Irving, and I will be glad to take the blame for this because I’m not quite sure that it’s their fault.

These things go in stages. Both are quirky authors with sizable backlogs who have managed a degree of mainstream success. When I discovered them, Stage One, I hit the Big Stuff all at once. For Irving, it was The Cider House Rules, followed by The World According To Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, and A Prayer for Owen Meany. For Vonnegut, it was Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night, and Breakfast of Champions. Stage Two comes when you, as a reader, unearth a single book in the author’s oeuvre that no one else pays much attention to but that grips you in such a way that you feel compelled to rave incessantly about it. It’s almost like discovering a solitary book by a writer who wrote only one brilliant novel before dying or fading into obscurity. For Irving, it was Until I Find You. For Vonnegut, it was Bluebeard. I’m in Stage Three with both right now: gathering up the reeds, and hoping (but not counting on) finding jewels amongst the chaff. (I am also hoping to avoid clichés by mixing metaphors in a way that hopefully seems dazzling and brave rather than lazy. Is it working?)

All of which gets beyond my point, which is that so far, 2009 has been a literary disappointment, and I can only blame Kurt Vonnegut so much. I’ve had a lazy reading year, is the thing, and when this happens, I have panic that I’ve somehow grown out of reading and it doesn’t hold the same lustre for me any longer. I’m not sure if this is a trend, but I think I’ve clawed my way out of this hole by indulging myself in swift, clever nonfiction … which then causes anxiety that I’ve lost the taste and/or intelligence for fiction. Normally this is followed by a Stephen King re-read, but I’d hate to be predictable.

My initiative to get myself out of this slump is to read ten books in July, which is (1) insane, (2) possible. Since starting the initiative, I have finished four books already this month: the aforementioned Player Piano, the Circles graphic novel, A History of the World in Six Glasses, and Shakespeare Wrote For Money, the latter a book about books that has made me want to succeed at this even more. For example, a long time ago, I removed Tom Perrotta’s The Abstinence Teacher from my Amazon List, because even thought I loved Little Children, the subject matter of this new novel stopped appealing to me. Hornby has reinvigorated my interest, to the degree that I am about to head on over to the library to see if they have a copy. Reading begets reading, which is further why I’m pleased that Tom Standage has a new book about niche history out, and frustrated that his other books all seem to be out of print.

Now, the question I usually get when I write on this subject is: Jeez, Kev, isn’t reading supposed to be about quality, not quantity? You are absolutely right, but with a caveat: readers, no matter how voracious they are, will never be able to read everything they want to read. Ever. That’s a glum thought to ruminate on, made less dire by goal-based initiatives. (All right, the term “goal-based initiatives” is even glummer than the problem it is meant to cure. Let’s never speak of this again.) Essentially, I want to read more, and faster, because there are always more good books, and I want to get to them.

Later this year, a whole clutch of my favorite writers are releasing books: King’s got Under the Dome, Irving has Last Night in Twisted River, there’s the new Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur, and that weird fellow A.J. Jacobs is releasing The Guinea Pig Diaries. We’ve got some good stuff coming up, not to mention (and yet strangely aforementioned) Perotta, as well as two books Tracey recommended that I am firmly dedicated to getting to. Things seems to be progressing instead of falling into the dank realm of diminishing returns, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

I think, in celebration of my new dedication (as well as my upcoming natal anniversary), it’s time to do another Best 100 Books list. That’s always a fun gift from me to me. Let’s see what the week brings, huh? Until then, wish me luck on my endeavors, and read some awesome stuff. I’m about to do the same.

Kev