Do You Need to Read?

I'm reading this 2020 novel that bears on the cover a very positive blurb by Kate Atkinson, who's now one of my favorite writers. (The book’s a gift from some long-time friends here in town.)

Anyway, it's about a retirement home in England where a group of the residents have formed what they call "The Thursday Murder Club"--because that's what they do on Thursdays: meet and talk about murder cases--open cases.

But then a killing happens involving someone whom they know (a crass developer), and so they dive in. Very clever so far (I'm about 1/3 of the way through).

This morning I chortled at this exchange between a young woman cop (whom the TMC has coaxed into helping with the case) and an odd man she's about to sleep with--yes, "sleep with" in that way.

Part of their pre-coital conversation at a restaurant:

"At one point Donna had asked him who his favorite author was. For her an acceptable answer would be Harlan Coben, Kurt Vonnegut, or any woman. Gregor had sagely replied that he 'didn't believe in books' and that 'you only learn in this life through having experiences, and keeping your mind open'" (124).

Of course, our author, Richard Osman, is just having some fun here--and showing that this couple is, well, doomed. One's a reader; the other one, not.

But the exchange provoked in me a little bit of thinking (about all I'm capable of these days).

The dichotomy--to read or not to read?--is silly (as the author well knows). In my life, the mentors and colleagues and students and friends and other folks whom I admire are those who do both; one activity supplements and complements the other.

As I'm now (sadly) learning, you do what you can physically--until you can't. You go places, you do things--you try to do as much as you can until Time says, "You’re done."

But you can't do everything, experience everything, go everywhere, and so you read about the things you don't know, visit on the page the places you didn't visit, read about the lives of people whose lives have been very different from your own: culture, race, religion, and so many other categories.

And you try like hell not to be offended and "cancel" those people, etc. who aren't like you or yours.

That's what bothers me about teachers now often having to give "trigger warnings"--warnings to students that they could encounter in a novel you've assigned something that they might find "offensive." Lord, I'm glad I did not have to endure that as a student. For one of the wonderful things about reading is that it's virtually certain that you will read things that will make you uncomfortable.

Good. That's the way it's supposed to be. That’s the way I want it to be. That’s how you learn.

Otherwise, you'll find your reading confined to Dr. Seuss.

Ooops, bad example!