In her article, Dyson observes Noah, a Godzilla fan and Ron, a Star Wars fan, two young boys discussing the amount of movies they’ve seen and why. Ron displays a sense of superiority in having seen only one movie to Noah’s “whole bunch” and asserts that he’s “fussy about movies cause [he likes] to be smart”.
Some time later, I was doing some housekeeping on my Goodreads account: updating books I’ve read this year (nine!), clunking around the “find friends” feature (because currently I only have two), and adding books to my “Want to Read” shelf. The last task is the most exciting for me–I’m in a two-person book club with someone who has vastly different tastes so it can be a challenge to find selections we both passionately agree on–and I fervently search for books to add, often referencing outside lists for classics AKA books I should have read by now.
The short dialogue between the boys popped into my head while I was updating my Goodreads list. I’m careful with what I add, despite the fact that as far as I can tell, there’s no limit to the amount of books I can add to the list. There’s an unwritten but ever-present criteria in my overly-judicious head, making the “Want to Read” shelf more of a curated list than a dumping ground for any passing interests (which is how at least one of my two friends treats the category). It appeared that I’m pretty fussy in my own right–why?
Many signs point to an unspoken understanding of how high-brow vs. low-brow culture and media permeates so many of our choices and “visceral” reactions. Graphic novels have been trending for years now, especially with so many movie adaptations, so I felt cool as a cucumber putting a few of those on the list. Immediately after adding Persepolis, I added Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, feeling pleased with how diverse my list was shaping up to be. Meanwhile, I balked at adding Agatha Christie’s; she’s third only to Shakespeare and the Bible in publication figures and highly regarded as the best crime fiction writer of all-time, originating many plot devices still used in detective literature today. I felt that her books might look too common on my list, despite the fact that I finally read and loved Murder on the Orient Express. “But how many soccer moms felt the same?” I wondered with panic.
Exactly. How many people would look at my list–rhetorical question; actual answer would be “two”–and judge me for wanting to read literary fare that could best be described as “basic”? Rather than letting my list really stretch its legs, I considered that I’ve chosen to tamp down my enthusiasm for reading certain titles because of the fear of judgment. And that’s sad.
Because you know what?
My damn Reading Challenge goal for the year is 20 books, and I’m sure as hell not going to reach that by only reading War & Peace or Infinite Jest.
