On the Partial Reading of Books

When I lived in Morgantown as graduate student, back when the Internet was young and Amazon.com was just a twinkle in Jeff Bezos' eye, I used to make regular trips to Border's Books and Music in Pittsburgh. This was the first large bookstore I had ever seen. A professor of mine had directed me there to purchase a copy of Ellington: The Early Years by Mark Tucker. I asked if I should call ahead to make sure they had a copy and he responded, "Of course they'll have it."

Growing up in Beckley, WV, it was difficult to imagine a book store that would have a copy of something I wanted to read when I wanted to read it. I was certain that if I had asked someone at Waldenbooks at the Crossroads Mall if they had a copy of Ellington: The Early Years, I would be met with a blank stare.

I still remember first walking through the front door. It was like a wonderland. Shelf after shelf of books on philosophy, religion, music, art, poetry . . . everything. There was a music store inside, too. Their world music section was about as large as my record store at home.

I spent a lot of money at that place in two years. A lot of money. (In retrospect, it seems unethical in the extreme to issue credit cards to college students, but it seemed like free money at the time.)

I bought everything you can imagine. I bought new releases with quirky titles and brushed-paper covers. I bought glossy travel guides to places I had no plans to visit. I also bought "classics."

One of the first books I bought at Border's was Ulysses by James Joyce. At the time, I knew nothing about Joyce except that he was Irish and that Ulysses was considered a classic, a major achievement in Western literature. It was massive. I bought the paperback copy, but I still think it weighed about 8 pounds.

I took home Ulysses along with a sack of other purchases and settled in to read. I picked the Joyce up first. I got about ten pages. I put in a bookmark then picked up another book.

I tried again about six months later. I think I may have gotten 20 pages that time.

Over the years, I believe I've tried to read Ulysses five times, each time inching forward a few more pages. The last time I got to about page 75 before giving up. The problem is that the damn thing is about 800 pages long.

For those of you who have not set out on the odyssey to conquer Joyce's epic novel, I will simply say that it is daunting. There is a long bit at the front about a tower. And a key, I think. And some young men arguing, but not in any sort of violent way. At one point the main character goes to use the toilet.

I feel like a true failure and a bit of a fraud, pretending to be an educated person when I am largely unfamiliar with this important literary work.

I feel like a failure until I read Nick Hornby.

Hornby, the author of High Fidelity and several other lovely works of fiction also wrote non-fiction books about books, The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping Versus The Dirt. If you are a bibliophile to any degree, I would highly recommend them. In each, Hornby chronicles his own love of books, each chapter a monthly entry in a diary recounting books he has purchased, books he has read and books he has started to read. One quickly learns that this successful author, who is widely read and British, for crying out loud, has trouble making it to the last page quite frequently.

I suffer from this disease in the worst way. At any given moment, there are four or five books I am "reading," though some have gathered dust on a shelf for months.

Here's what I'm "reading" right now.

Touched with Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Refield Jamison. Okay, I really am reading this one right now. I'm about three-quarters through and it is sitting on the table next to me, waiting for me to quit blogging. It's excellent, by the way, and compelling for anyone in the arts and/or anyone who is familiar with manic depression.

I think I could still argue that I am reading the second volume of Peter Guralnick's Elvis biography, Careless Love. I plowed through the first volume, Last Train to Memphis and expected the number two to be just as exciting. The problem is that volume one feels like "That's Alright Mama" and volume two feels like Having Fun with Elvis on Stage. I'm sure I'll finish it: I'm about 50 pages from the finish line. Actually, the last 50 pages may be good companion reading with the Jamison book.

By the way, Guralnick's other books, especially Sweet Soul Music and Lost Highway are excellent. He is my favorite music writer and has a deep understanding of American music.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to begin reading Creativity by Mihaly Csikzentmihaly. I have given away about six copies of his seminal work Flow, which is about the science of motivation and why we should do the thing we love. I read Flow in college (I bought it at Border's) and will talk about it to anyone who will stand still for five minutes. Imagine my excitement when I learned that one of my favorite authors had written on the subject of creativity - a topic I never tire of discussing! I made it about half-way through.

The problem was that I disagree with Czikzentmihaly's framework for understanding creativity, which he introduces early on, as well as his very flawed method of studying the issue. I'll spare you the details here, but the experience left me jaded. I suppose I may finish it someday soon, since I think the issue of creativity is so very important. But I'm not going to enjoy it.

This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession is a pretty good read by Daniel Levitin, in spite of its truly horrific title. I could even say that I loved the first part of it. Somewhere about two-thirds of the way through I set it down and just haven't wanted to pick it up again. For the first several chapters, it was very affirming to me. I read page after page about why we love music - not some voodoo, but hard science. It's in our genetic code! Hurray! Science validates my love of music! That's all well and good, I suppose, but after a while I felt like Whitman listening to the learned astronomers, wanting to go outside and gaze at the silent stars.

We were assigned Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do about It by Kelly Gallagher as a work assignment. The premise of the the book is excellent and important, and that is that we have taken the joy of reading from students, largely by forcing them to read things they don't want to. Here's the thing: I hate being told I have to read something. So I haven't finished it. (I'll give you a moment for the irony of this anecdote to fully settle in.) I've got a single chapter left in this slim paperback, but it may never get read. Keep in mind, I went through junior and senior high school English reading every novel assigned after we had the final test on each. It's just some weird compulsion.

That leaves one final unfinished read.

Ulysses.

Maybe I'll start that one tomorrow.