50 years a reader |
An exploration of half a century of reading. |
By the skin of my teeth and reader interrupted… BOOK 11: I’ve got a confession to make. I honestly didn’t think I’d make my quota of books this month. It was busy, busy, busy (but that’s usual) and then, I confess, I went off piste and read a couple of books (for pleasure) that were not on my ‘list’. The first I can’t even remember now – something about a teacher and a crime and… it was compelling but in the kind of way that I imagine gaming is addictive. It made me realise why people read these kind of books and confirmed that I wouldn’t be reading any more of them. It’s perfectly good, but not what I want out of fiction. I was reading it as fast as I could to get to the end to find out what happened, knowing that the ‘red herring’ was taunting me all along. It didn’t have the appeal of ‘The Secret Knowledge.’ Or of another book – the one that saved my bacon this month – more of that later. I then remained off piste and not purely for pleasure (and there was no pleasure in it at all) read a non fiction book about refugees. This is really for research and so I shouldn’t be putting it in here at all, except to explain my distractions. It’s not that I’m not reading (I’m up at 5.30am each day doing so to get some extra time!) it’s just that I’m not getting time to read for pleasure to the tune of a book a week. May went by really quickly and I have a feeling I may have read a book at the beginning of the month that I have totally forgotten about – that uneasy feeling that the pace of life is just too fast. So we’ll ignore that and say that I was ‘tag team’ reading a couple of books. The first was ‘The Lost Glen’ by Neill Gunn – following on from last month’s Highland River –and at the same time I was embarking upon the first of Nan Shepherd’s ‘Grampian Quartet.’ BOOK 12: I got the ebook out of the library. It’s a beast of a book and pretty cheap to buy as an ebook, but I prefer paperback –I ordered that from the library but there’s a queue so I got the ebook while I was waiting. But what with life, and reading it in tandem with ‘The Lost Glen’ all too quickly I found that my 3 week download had GONE and I wasn’t even fully through the first book. Which is annoying. Now I’ll probably have to go back to the beginning and start again when I finally get a hard copy of the book. It’s an interesting thing comparative (or tag team) reading and these two books lent themselves to it quite well. The central characters might well have been right for each other which in itself was entertaining enough. But by the time I had my Nan Shepherd privileges withdrawn I have to say I was kind of overloaded on the sort of modernist Scottish fiction I tend to shy away from. I like the natural description and I liked the sort of Lawrencian aspect to Nan’s heroine (whose name now eludes me!) but I am getting increasingly more resistant to symbolic use of language and natural description – I like my nature to be described just as real nature not as something symbolic. When I was younger, so much younger than today, I really got something out of the ‘levels’ on which symbolism worked but these days I just like to ‘see’ the nature not to have to wonder what it all means. It just reminds me that re-reading books is a valuable thing to do every decade or so, because it shows you how much you have changed if nothing else. Well, with Nan Shepherd only scratched I can’t claim that as a full book read – but the interruption wasn’t really my fault so I won’t feel too bad. But it meant that I had some catching up to do. BOOK 13: My saviour was the Great Gisby. Brendan Gisby finally brought out his new novel (one might say novella actually- I’m not sure how many words you need to call something a novel these days, but it’s Great Gatsby length so it may more accurately be a novella if you want to split hairs) I’m lucky, I’ve been reading drafts of this along the way and it was with great pleasure that I sat down to read the whole thing a couple of days before it was finally published. Not just because it helped me approach my self imposed target, but because I really, really wanted to read it in its entirety. And I was not disappointed. I fully intended to sit and read it in one mammoth session BUT as I got half way through I stopped – I was enjoying it so much I didn’t want it to end and I decided to pace myself and consume it over two sittings. Which I did. Now when I say enjoy I don’t want you to think it’s an ‘enjoyable’ sort of book. It isn’t. What it is, is a book that tells it like it is. Brutal honesty about a bunch of very unpleasant people. And I’ll say people not characters because the lines are clearly blurred. This is fiction but it’s based on fact – and put both together and you are left with a very queasy feeling in your stomach about the way the world is. Brendan Gisby is one of my favourite modern Scots writers – and has become a close virtual friend (because of that) – there’s a directness in with a subtlety and an overall honesty which appeals to me. I can connect to his writing in a way that I can’t to the intellectual symbolic stuff of modernist Scots literature. The Percentages Men is a really cracking story – a car crash of a story – and puts me in mind of The Great Gatsby on more than one level. It’s a story of ‘careless’ people and the devastating effect they have on the lives of others. You know, you could take up the tag team challenge and read The Percentages Men alongside The Great Gatsby and see if you can work out what I mean. This is my version of comparative analysis of text. BOOK 14: With Gisby out of the way I took a quick trip down memory lane to make my total 3 ½ (or is it 4 ½) Scots books in May – I re-read ‘One Man’s Meat’ by Mark Frankland. I first read Mark’s Foot and Mouth book ‘The Cull’ in 2002 and met Mark first that same year. I read ‘One Man’s Meat’ straight after ‘The Cull’ and enjoyed it. Sitting down this month and re-reading it, I felt like I was reading a different book – not that I didn’t enjoy it, I really did, but I didn’t remember it at all like that. Another reason to re-read books – one’s memory can play tricks. Add to this that I’ve read so many of Mark’s other books now over the years (I won’t say all, but definitely most) and it was interesting to see this, his first novel and think about how his style has changed (developed?) over the years. ‘One Man’s Meat’ definitely stands up against all his other work. For me, this time through, I opened it and it seemed like I was reading Ian Fleming mixed up with John Le Carre (now it’s a long time since I read any John Le Carre so I may be off kilter here a bit). I’m still trying to work out what I think has changed in Mark’s writing over the years - I shall need to re-read some more- I want to say maybe he’s gained in confidence in his own voice – certainly the Great Dumfries Food Bank Seige (which is well worth a read) stands out as a man who is no longer giving a damn about ‘how’ he should write a book and it absolutely rocks. I suppose I applaud the fact that as the years have gone on Mark has just kept writing and in the process stopped worrying about whether his books are ‘good enough’ – they are more than good enough – and just got the stories out. And maybe it shows. Or maybe I’m just analysing something that isn’t there. The point of all of the above is to show that when I read there is so much more to it that just enjoying (or not) a story with (or without) a decent plot and some nice imagery and compelling characters. I’m sure some people just plough through books (like the off piste one I read which I can’t even remember the name of – I saw it recommended on ‘Meet the Author’ by the way ) and that’s enough for them. For me there is so much more. Books and reading are a form of communication and a form of inspiration for thought about deep issues and questions about life and our place in our world. I love to see into another person’s mind and heart and think about how they connect to the world. I like to compare people and times and styles and what writers think they are doing (or what I think they think they are doing) as well as just enjoying – or being moved by – the stories. I don’t know if that makes me unusual, but it seems to me there’s so much more to fiction than simple stuffing your face with a story, or cramming plots galore into your brain. There’s a much more active involvement. Maybe that’s why I’m not so keen on the symbolism novels any more – I can make my own connections. In my twenties I was still trying to understand how the world was, now I pretty much know what I think about a lot of things and what I like is to see how other people see them. So. I can make some recommendations of books I’ve read this month. But the above doesn’t constitute any kind of ‘review’ because that’s another animal entirely. And my jury is out on exactly what the nature and purpose of reviewing is these days. That’s my own personal journey though… for the moment I’m just happy to be preparing for another month of Scots books in my 50 Years a Reader project. And still amazed how significant books are to my life. BOOK 8: In what I suspect is going to become a frequent excuse, this month I was really pushed for time to read – apart from the masses of reading I have to do for ‘work.’ No complaints. When work involves reading one doesn’t even care that work is unpaid. It’s all about the reading, after all. I’ve decided once and for all that reading is a) my drug of choice and b) the panacea for the world’s ills. And I have it confirmed by one of the books I did manage to read this month. But I’ll leave you in suspense on that one. The first book I (tried) to read this month I abandoned. It shall remain nameless as I don’t like to spread negative vibes about books simply because they aren’t to my taste. My reason for abandonment (among other things) was that a character in the book got gored in the ribs by a bull. And I read that just after I had bruised my ribs falling (or some would have it attempting to jump) from a low scaffolding platform. Low being a relative term when you hit the ground with a thump. So you see, reality does hit the world of fiction almost literally at times and as escapism the nameless book didn’t cut it. But I did read Neil Gunn’s ‘The Highland River’ right to the end. I’ve read it before, many many years ago, something I didn’t remember till a while in. Then I wasn’t so interested in fishing and the prolonged exploration (as analogy as well as literally) of catching a salmon left me a bit cold. This time I really enjoyed its pace. I was reading it primarily in order to try and contrast it with some S.R.Crockett. I got diverted (among other things) this month on a stooshie regarding ‘Kailyard’ novels. I tried, and failed to ‘out’ anyone to actually come and debate in a textual manner what exactly ‘is’ a kailyard novel. The offer is still open. All that’s required is that you’ve read a Barrie or Crockett novel which you consider to be Kailyard and we can debate how (or not) they fit the criteria. Reading ‘Highland River’ only confirmed to me that Crockett isn’t Kailyard. What I found interesting is that Gunn (like Grassic Gibbon) is writing later – post-war but still looks back at rural life as it was pre-war. Now to Gunn (and his character, which is his father) this rural past is seen perhaps nostalgically, but not really so – what he does show is the watershed (both literally and through analogy) of the First World War. He very much views the pre-war world in the same eyes as Crockett – from the perspective of people who lived in rural environments. There is a rural realism and of course the brutality of the War shocks and changes both life and fiction. However, Gunn never retro-fits rural life Pre-War into the ‘nostalgic, sentimental’ package that Crockett has been accused of. But take a moment to pause. The two men show recognisably similar worlds and viewpoints. Crockett’s only crime was that he died before the First World War and therefore couldn’t contextualise backwards like Gunn (and Grassic Gibbon did). But the quality and content of his description of rural life before the War stands up beside either of these. There is the obvious difference between Highland and Lowland but rural Scotland still shines through BOOK 9: I then read (and really didn’t enjoy) ‘Greenvoe’ by George Mackay Brown. Again it’s years since I read his work and I remember really enjoying Magnus, but I have to say ‘Greenvoe’ didn’t engage me. This is not really GMB’s fault, more reflective of my distraction into Crockett – at present work but also always a pleasure - which I was enjoying so much more. I find Crockett’s ‘communities’ much more appealing and engaging than GMB’s. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never been to Orkney that I didn’t find a way to engage with the Orcadian community. Perhaps it was that I was all Islanded out, having just read (for work) another two books with an Islands link (albeit Shetland). Maybe as I age I’m becoming less tolerant of ‘cleverness’ in books, and I have to say I completely didn’t understand the whole thing about the Horsemen. I remember when reading ‘Magnus’, Brown’s ability to segue between past and present impressed me so much that I utilised both his sparse style and his ‘way’ of doing this in my own first novel ‘The Threads of Time.’ So I’m not dissing Brown in any way. I’m just not in ‘that place’ to appreciate it at present I suppose. I’ll give more Brown a go in the months to come. The people were credible, just not hugely interesting to me. BOOK 10: Things went from bad to worse – in one respect – in another respect I learned something (as I am every month) about the spectrum of reasons for reading. A small step on the path to enlightenment I think. The last book of the month (and yes, it was a light month for ‘leisure’ reading) was Alan Campbell McLean’s ‘The Glasshouse.’ The book I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. I’ve owned it for a couple of years and been promising myself to read it all that time. It was an horrific book. I could have put it down time and again. I hated it. And this was the reason to read on. It is a fictional account of time spent in a military prison towards the end of the Second World War. It is completely unlike anything else I’ve read by him. It makes me want to rush back and read ‘The Islander’ (despite my overdosing on islands recently) to cleanse myself. Don’t get me wrong, because I didn’t enjoy it doesn’t make it a good book. Anyone who said they ‘liked’ this book has spent too much time on social media and lost the capacity to understand what ‘like’ means. You are not supposed to like it. If you are not offended, shocked and horrified by it, you are probably not fit to read it. But it’s long been out of print so you’ll likely never get the chance. And that’s not surprising. It lifts the lid on all sorts of things we’d rather brush under the carpet. If you have a strong stomach and a sense of what is right (and wrong) in the world, I would recommend that you try and find a copy. There is no happy ending BUT there is, at the end, a paragraph that made it all worth while. Having met Alan Campbell McLean (albeit briefly) as a youngster, I was all the more shocked about his experiences and how, some 30 years on he had obviously transcended them. ‘The Glasshouse’ was written on reflection of some 20 years and he’d published ‘The Hill of the Red Fox’ and ‘The Islander’ before he attempted it. It was first published in 1969 and my edition is a Pan Book from 1972. The ending is as follows: ‘The old man used to say if you can read you are free, boy: all you have to do is get your nose stuck into a book and there’s no place you can’t go. Only the ignorant stay shut in, the old man said, and no man need be ignorant as long as there is a book to read.’ And that confirms to me the importance of reading, not just for escapism, not just books one ‘likes’ but for the very purpose of keeping ignorance at bay. Read for pleasure, read for profit, but also read to be shocked, to be challenged and yes, dare I say it, to learn. Books may sometimes take you to places you don’t want to be, tell you things you don’t want to know, but sometimes it’s important to get out of one’s comfort zone. With books there are always safe places to return to as well. April has been a challenging month for me, and who knows what May will bring. As long as it brings more time to read I’ll be happy. |
AuthorIn 2016 I will have been reading for 50 years. I'm going to celebrate this by reading even more and sharing what I'm reading. Archives
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