Why Do We Force Ourselves Through Books?

For the past few weeks, I have been trying to read On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. I do not like it. It’s racist, misogynist and… really boring. And yet every time I finish another book, I shame myself into picking it up again.

This book is one of the great examples of American literature. Smart people have said that it’s good. It’s one of those books that people turn to when they are looking for The Answers. It’s the kind of thing the popular kids on my literature degree (that I never got along with) thought was amazing.

So if I don’t like it, what does that say about me?

Please tell me that I’m not the only one to have found herself embroiled in the midst of a book-related shame spiral?

It’s not my first time – it’s not even my first time with this particular book. I tried to read it back when I was in high school and couldn’t get through it then, either.

It comes down to having been taught by society (and specifically, university education) that there is a difference between high and low art. High art is all about ideas and intellectualism whereas low art is pure entertainment. These distinctions – in addition to being pointless, because surely any decent book is a blend of both elements? – so far as I can tell anyway, don’t have much to do with the work itself so much as its readership.

It’s an unmistakably gendered thing. A man can write a book about a relationship and have it considered literary, but if a woman does the same thing, her work is reduced to ‘chick-lit’, shoved in the low stakes section of the shop for women readers only.

From when we’re first learning to read, we’re taught that while girls can certainly read books typically aimed toward boys, boys will never read ‘girl books’. In fact, as Caroline Paul, author of Gutsy Girls: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure pointed out in her brilliant article for TED, we teach young boys that if books aren’t specifically about them, they are excluded from them altogether. Obviously, this is incredibly problematic.

This is so relevant to YA, of course, a grouping of books disproportionately written and read by women. As we all know, YA is subjected to an endless series of attacks, accused of mindlessness, pandering and irrelevance by people who think that its readers should instead be investing their money in a much more traditional ‘literary’ library.

It’s an attitude backed up by popular culture, where some of our favourite TV bookworms only read the classics. It happened, but it was rare to see Rory Gilmore reading anything that wasn’t written by a twentieth century white man.

This is where my need to read Jack Kerouac – and give myself severe book burnout trying – comes from. Sometimes (and I kind of hate myself for it) I feel like I can only be considered a ‘legitimate’ bookworm when I’ve got through the (essentially endless) list of books that the (probably imaginary) Smart People read. Despite the fact that I read ten times the amount of books the average person did last year (though, I have realised since I started this, WAY less than the average book blogger (I like TV OKAY?!)), I still feel somewhat inadequate because not enough of them were this thing that I have already decided (so called ‘high art’) is meaningless.

Sigh.

My feminist, YA loving brain is telling me to throw the damn book out the window, but my academically programmed brain (which is dealing with, let’s face it, a good deal of internalised misogyny – what else would make my want to read a book – a ‘respected’ piece of literature – in which women are totally reviled) is protesting.

It’s so stupid.

I believe in the importance of reading widely – from all genres, from authors all over the world, of all genders, sexualities, abilities, languages… I could do on.

But what I no longer believe in is reading racist misogynist assholes just because someone said they were high culture.

I think it’s time to strike On The Road from the TBR. I’d much rather read about brave women saving the world that ‘smart’ men abandoning them alone in the desert.

Some questions

What was the last book you had to force yourself through, and why did you do it?

What do you consider to be a ‘legitimate bookworm’?

Have you read and HATED any critically acclaimed, classic and respected books? I’d love to hear about them (I also couldn’t stand Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Unbearable Lightness of Being #sorrynotsorry).

And finally, have you experienced any of the feelings I just talked about? Or am I just a crazy insecure bookworm all by myself?