The Rules of Reading

          I am only creative for the length it takes to smoke two cigarettes. During this time I’m tossing ideas out left and right, up and down, and lack clichés if I’m lucky. This essay was started at 2 in the afternoon and I’m already seventeen cigarettes past my creative limit. This is the part of the film when the author played by a B-list actor states to some poor schmuck to “write what you know” and that it only gets “hard” after the first novel. But what about people like me who only have a creative burst of two cigarettes? Will it take months to just finish the first chapter? Should we, as a collective handicap, just keep writing, even if lacking creativity, hoping to get paid by the word as Herman Melville did? In an age with every child is being diagnosed with ADD and most adults are being prescribed either a variation of Xanax or Adderall with their anti-depressant, why should we, as writers and especially readers, have to suffer through another Moby Dick or War and Peace?

           We, as the generations being born in the 70s and beyond, smoke cigarettes because they’re quick; we eat fast food and TV dinners because they’re convenient; we watch short films because their compact, yet we still idealize novels. Short stories, short shorts, and essays rarely read outside of academia and their authors make no money. Yet at the same time, we, as the internet generation, read blogs and follow Tweets of worthless, famous people who contribute little to society. How is it that in this fast food culture short reads are only read by English majors, while novels of vampires and Jesus’ lineage are read by the millions? At parties and coffee shops I’ve realized that people love talking about the volume of their reading in page numbers, not quality. People, as a general statement, love saying the phrase, “Oh, it was such an easy read” in comment to modern (but not modernist in anyway), popular novels. It is as if adults are still in an elementary book club where if your class reads 5,000 pages you get a pizza party and ice cream. People seem to want a fictional stress of knowledge found through literacy without having to analyze anything past the words on the page. “How to” and “idiots’ guide” books also seem to be on the rise which reiterates the masses’ desire of fictional, transparent knowledge. One could read the “spark” or “cliff” notes of Ulysses, but the reader would never grasp the true feelings Bloom has when he masturbates on the beach or Stephen proving his theory on Shakespeare being Hamlet’s dead father’s ghost by mathematics. It might be a social reflection of the industrial revolution and capitalism’s numbers game, but I may be looking too deep into this miniscule detail.

             This is not to imply that readers of short stories and essays do not have an air of impression, but it is a more elite conversation from students, either university or self taught, studying the arts. “Oh, I don’t really enjoy Orwell’s novels, but I love his essays” is a common phrase to gain elite points. Stating that you enjoy reading essays and short stories over novels possibly shows to others that you actually know what close reading means and that you analyze daily and mundane events. Better yet stating something equivalent to “I’m a huge fan of Chininski’s poems.” This is a double point score since it shows that the reader knows Bukowski’s work quite well. This also could be done in the example of Orwell (i.e. “I’ve always been quite seduced by Eric Blair’s frankness”). I’ve also found that bringing a book of essays, personally Drinking, Smoking, and Screwing is one of my favourites, to a pub always looks good. Something about reading pretentious essays about promiscuous sex, smoking, and being wasted, while chain smoking and getting buzzed is always an attractive quality. Another thing to do in public while getting piss drunk is having a Bic pen and a Mead notebook. Must confess, I have met a few beautiful people using these simple techniques. This elitism is something I partake and thus find less fault in it through my own hypocrisy.

              I’ve had this conversation a few times; over drinks I belittle and bash common, popular writing and reading as if I have some weight on the subject. The only argument against my stance is “at least they’re reading.” This concept of “at least” is what has pushed blockbuster movies over creative and provocative films, fast food over family (a loose term, implied as you desire) dining, and ‘super’ stores over locally owned shops. Yes, it is better than nothing, but if one were void or limited in its popularity it would not leave a vacuum of empty space. Since I recently started seeing cinematic commercials for a ridiculous novel that states that President Lincoln was actually Buffy the Vampire with a beard, it seems that Wal-Mart syndrome is imbedded in the modern novel. Even the concept of having a cinematic commercial for a novel seems ridiculous; it would be like having a commercial “jingle” to represent a painting.

            I first started becoming obsessive about Frans Kafka and Margaret Atwood about the same time I started reading David Sedaris and James Frye. Kafka and Atwood would be my contemplative readings. Kafka’s surreal worlds would leave me confused, belittled, and lost and Atwood’s short stories gave light to the complexities of cognitive thought and relationships. Sedaris and Frye were my desserts, something to be read to wind down. I quickly began to realize that I could discuss Sedaris and Frye with ease to anyone I could hold long enough to discuss the weather, but English majors would stare at me with confusion or disgust if I mentioned Bukowski or Kafka. English majors tended to stick to the ‘greats’ who always used no fewer than 500 pages to express their concept. Faulkner, Twain, and Tolstoy are always in heavy rotation, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I just personally have the attention span of a three year old and can’t stand to sit through another fifteen-page description of how the setting sun reflects the autumn leafs. What interested me in English majors’ readings was although they were reading Tolstoy for class, the students were either reading pop novels or nothing at all in their free time. Maybe it’s the fictional stress of being an English major without the full realization.

            Since it is long past my creative time limit and the IPAs have already started to be devoured, I suppose I should just start writing what I know and what I know is that I don’t like convenient things for convenience sake. I like taking the time to cook a meal. I enjoy being known by name at the local food co-op. I like reading an essay about someone’s first cigarette or that time they hired a hooker. I will continue to protest child wizards while I sit in my seat of judgment with a glass of scotch and a cigarette.