To-Read Tyranny

Sam Jordison wrote about the tyranny of the to-read pile on his Guardian blog earlier this week, reminding me that I have been neglecting mine. (Although, there is a lot of blog-neglect about – even Sam has been neglecting his, so that makes me feel better. And no-one reads blogs anyway.)

Sam’s lament is a familiar one to us all, I suspect. “Already,” he says, in a sentence which bears the whiff of a man who has read more Jane Austen than is wise, “I have intentions to read more books than I can hope to manage in a normal lifetime.”

He had been by roused another blogger (bookninja) who, echoing an article by Cynthia Crossen, the Wall Street Journal’s resident booklover, suggested that “instead of going out and buying more books you fully-intend-to but are-not-going-to read, why not examine your shelves for ones that slipped through the cracks and feel lonely and neglected.”

Coincidentally, I have recently been thoroughly examining my own shelves, in order to enter all mybooks into the database at goodreads.com (Although I do feel a tad guilty at not paying the pittance asked by the wonderful librarything to enter them all there.)

I have managed to select from the hundreds of books on the to-read shelf, a few dozen must-reads – those that I really, really want to read, but haven’t…yet.

So I’m in no position to give advice on tackling the tyranny of to-read pile, but I can confirm that the one thing you Must. Not. Do. is go to the library – all those free books! – not least in case you find yourself face-to-face with a shiny new book-about-books – which is the mistake I made today. Thus, not only do I have another book to read, but it’s a book full of other books to-read – 229 of them in total, courtesy:

The Rough Guide to Classic Novels from Don Quixote to American Pastoral

Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses

Thank you very much Simon Mason. Although, since you are also the author of a book called Lives of the Dog-Stranglers, I will forgive you.  Sadly I can’t say the same about wordpress – I am finding this new interface almost totally unbearable.

The Name of the Rose

In chapter three of How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, Bayard discusses the plot of another of the hundreds of books on my shelves that I haven’t read yet:
 
The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco

Apparently the dénouement involves two characters discussing the dangerousness of a book, unhindered by the fact that neither of them have actually read it. (Although I’m sure it’s a lot more thrilling than I’ve just made it sound.)

I had been wary of Eco, not having understood much of Foucault’s Pendulum, but learning that the abbey in The Name of the Rose contains a labyrinthine library, and that a book lies at the heart of the mystery, makes it sound irresistable. So maybe I should read this one soon. I must think it over. Perhaps I’ll have to read other books first though…

Orange Prize Shortlist 2006

The shortlist for The Orange Prize was announced yesterday. Inevitably it includes the usual suspects: Ali & Zadie Smith – which reminded me that I still haven’t read On Beauty.

One of Richard & Judy’s Book Club 2006 choices – The History of Love by Nicole Krauss – is also on the list, although the winner – Labyrinth – was not entered as its author Kate Mosse is one of the co-founders of the Orange Prize. The other three contenders are the best-selling novelist Hilary Mantel for Beyond Black, first-timer Carrie Tiffany for Everyman’s Rules For Scientific Living, and Sarah Waters with Night Watch – which is currently being serialised on BBC Radio 4’s Book At Bedtime.

Newsnight’s Martha Kearney is chairing the judging panel, which includes the comedienne and novelist Jenny Éclair, Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas, columnist and novelist India Knight and children’s laureate Jacqueline Wilson. The winner will be announced on June 6th.

The six books on the shortlist for the £30,000 Orange Prize are:

Memento Mori

I was listening to the radio this afternoon while taking one last thorough browse round my favourite but, sadly, soon-to-be-closed bargain bookstore (amazingly I did manage to resist the temptation to buy anything) when I heard on the news that Dame Muriel Spark had passed away. I moaned quietly. Well, I hope it was quiet. I knew she was getting on a bit (she was 88) but it’s still sad to hear that one of my favourite living authors is no more.

The bookshop had one of her books in stock – two together in fact: Aiding and Abetting / The Go-Away Bird. I loved Aiding and Abetting – a deliciously witty story (aren’t they all though?) about a psychiatrist who suddenly finds herself consulted by two different patients both claiming to be Lord Lucan. It’s a pity the miseryguts Booker Prize judges didn’t see fit to shortlist it that year (as they had in 1969 and 1981). The Go-Away Bird on the other hand is yet another one of those books-I-haven’t-read. I didn’t buy it though – the bright red cover design would look garish next to my other Muriel Spark books which are orange Penguin paperbacks. I picked most of them up as a job lot in a sale at West Bridgford library a few years ago, and I’ve been looking forward – ok: meaning – to read them ever since.

Coincidentally I’d seen one of them in my local library earlier this morning, it was her first novel:

The Comforters

Although her first break had come six years earlier, in 1951, when she won a short story competition in The Observer. I’d pleased to see that The Observer have republished that story: The Seraph and the Zambesi.

In all there are ten of her books sitting on my shelves, most of them still waiting to be read:

The Comforters (1957)
Robinson (1958)
The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960)
The Bachelors (1960)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
The Mandelbaum Gate (1965)
*The Public Image (1968)
The Abbess of Crewe (1974)
The Takeover (1976)
*Loitering With Intent (1981)

*shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

I will treat myself to one of them tomorrow; and, I suppose in the circumstances, I really must get hold of her 1959 book: Memento Mori…

Island

The next book-I-haven’t-read-yet was chosen by chance. I just opened The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction at random and the first name I saw was: Gary Indiana. Nope, never heard of him; but on the opposite page was a picture of a book I did know, one I was very keen to get hold of a few years ago, and eventually did…and yet I still haven’t read it. This is the picture…

Island

by Aldous Huxley

I found my copy of Island in the pile next to my printer rather than in its place on the shelf, which means it is probably within twenty or thirty places of the front of my to-be-read queue. Coincidentally, I came across a perceptive reference to Huxley’s Brave New World while I was reading Dubravka Ugresic’s Thank You For Not Reading last week (I went back to the library and got it out after all) and she quotes this passage from Neil Postman’s Foreword to his book Amusing Ourselves to Death:

“Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”

When I read I Brave New World I was astounded at how it seemed to be getting more and more relevant every day. I’ve always felt that Orwell was too pessimistic in his view of humanity: oppressive regimes are always overthrown eventually. It’s not the boot stamping on the face forever that we have to fear, it’s the laziness in the face of an information overload, the shhh-Corrie’s-on I-don’t-want-to-think-about-it attitude, the lure of blissful ignorance and of soma.

But going back to Island, or “Huxley’s Utopia” as the blurb describes it, the quote on the cover describes it thus:

“Huxley’s last novel in which the horrors of Brave New World melt into the vision of an eastern state governed by reason and love.”

Fascinating. I really must read it…someday.

There’s an Island Foundation devoted to “creating a more sensible society as inspired by the ideas of Aldous Huxley.” Good luck to them. Their website is here.

Roadside Picnic

Hearing of the death of Stanislaw Lem reminded me of another book-I-haven’t-read-yet, although it’s not one of his. Lem was most famous for writing Solaris which was made into a classic Russian science-fiction film in 1971, and a not-so classic American science-fiction film, starring George Clooney, in 2002. I haven’t seen the Clooney version, and the only thing I remember about the Russian film was a sleep-inducing sequence in which someone was driving along a motorway at night for ages and ages. However, another film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky made a haunting impression on me, and that film – Stalker – was based on a book I haven’t read yet because it’s so rare that I’ve never come across a copy:

Roadside Picnic

by

Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

Ragged Trousered Pessimist

I made the mistake of browsing round another charity shop today, but it was an Oxfam shop so there was no danger of me buying anything: the prices they charge you would have thought poverty was history already! One book that caught my eye was The Perpetual Pessimist (An Everlasting Calendar of Gloom and Almanac of Woe) by Sagittarius? and Daniel George. Just my kind of thing – a book full of miserable, fatalistic, quotations. Anyway I decided to try and find out more about The Perpetual Pessimist tonight, and a bit of googling led me to the fascinating alphaDictionary.com. Nothing to do with the book though – it just so happens that in their list of the 100 Funniest Words in English, at number 87, is the fabulous word smellfungus which they define as “a perpetual pessimist”. Apparently Smellfungus was a character created by Tristram Shandy author Laurence Sterne in A Sentimental Journey (another book I haven’t read) as a satirical parody of Tobias Smollett.

alphaDictionary’s list also includes abibliophobia: the fear of running out of reading material – something I certainly don’t suffer from, and never will: my shelves already have more than enough books to see me out.

Meanwhile, Oxfam also had a copy of another book I haven’t read yet but really should have…

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

by Robert Tressell

…a realistic depiction of working class life a hundred years ago, an indictment of capitalism, a socialist classic, and a book that has changed lives. But not mine because I still haven’t read it yet.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Unread books creep up and bite me whatever I do and wherever I look. It’s not even safe to watch dumb TV. I caught some of Through The Keyhole on BBC2 this afternoon, and there in Lisa I’Anson’s pad was a copy of a book-I-haven’t-read-yet which has been waiting patiently on my shelf for so many years that I’d forgotten all about it.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Sogyal Rinpoche

It came recommended by the John Cleese, who called it one of the most helpful books he’d ever read, and The Observer, who said it was for “readers of all religions and readers of none” – but is that a reader of no religion, or a reader of no books? I suppose I qualify either way. Just my luck if I get reincarnated as a bookworm. Instant karma’s gonna get ya…

Thank You For Not Reading

I was in the library today – looking for 1001 Books – and one title caught my eye, it said:

Thank You for Not Reading

Essays on literary trivia

by Dubravka Ugresic

I picked it up, had a quick shufty, and then put it back on the shelf, unread.

You’re welcome, Dubravka.

Julian Evans in The Guardian calls it a book to be treasured, and it is “enjoyable, biting and funny” according to Mark Thwaite on readysteadybook.com, who also recommends The Uses of Slime Mould by Nicholas Mosley. Tch, so that’s two more books to feel guilty about not-reading…

The Voyage That Never Ends

Charity shops are a major source of books I haven’t read yet and while I was out wandering this afternoon (avoiding some upheavals at home in my usual cowardly way) I found a book I had never heard of, but whose title pierced my heart and had to be borne home…Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laidby Malcolm Lowry

Lowry was already familiar to me as the author of Under The Volcano – another book I haven’t read yet. I almost started it a few years ago, then decided it wasn’t my kind of thing: I don’t identify with drunks. Lowry, whose characters were largely based on himself, suffered from alcoholism and depression, but wasn’t without humour. For his own epitaph he wrote:

Malcolm Lowry
Late of the Bowery
His prose was flowery
And often glowery
He lived, nightly, and drank, daily,
And died playing the ukelele.

Of course Lowry didn’t die playing the ukelele: according to The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction – another depository of books-I-haven’t-read-yet, he died of an overdose of sleeping pills on June 27th, 1957 – the birthday of his friend Paul Fitte, who committed suicide while they were both students at Cambridge – possibly with Lowry’s assistance. There’s a sad novel in there somewhere. Suddenly I can empathise with Lowry, because my closest friend killed himself in 1990.

So, the Aged – amongst whose number my friend Graham will never be – are 50p better off, and my shelves creak under the weight of another book I haven’t read…yet. Lowry died leaving ‘Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid’ unfinished. The title is taken from this poem:

On The Death of Mr. William Hervey
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)

It was a dismal, and a fearful night,
Scarce could the morn drive on th’unwilling Light,
When sleep, death’s image, left my troubled breast,
By something liker death possest.
My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow,
And on my soul hung the dull weight
Of some intolerable fate.
What bell was that? ah me! too much I know.
My sweet companion, and my gentle peer,
Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here,

Thy end for ever, and my life, to moan?
O, thou hast left me all alone!
Thy soul and body when death’s agony
Besieg’d around thy noble heart,
Did not with more reluctance part
Than I, my dearest friend, do part from thee.
My dearest friend, would I had dy’d for thee!
Life and this world henceforth will tedious be.
Nor shall I know hereafter what to do
If once my griefs prove tedious too.

Silent and sad I walk about all day,
As sullen Ghosts stalk speechless by
Where their hid treasures lie;
Alas, my treasure’s gone! why do I stay?
He was my friend, the truest friend on earth;
A strong and mighty influence join’d our birth;
Nor did we envy the most sounding name
By friendship giv’n of old to fame.
None but his brethren he and sisters knew,
Whom the kind youth preferr’d to me;

And ev’n in that we did agree,
For much above my self I lov’d them too.
Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights,
How oft unweari’d have we spent the nights,
Till the Ledoean stars so fam’d for love,
Wondred at us from above!
We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine;
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, Eloquence, and Poetry,
Arts which I lov’d, for they, my friend, were thine.
Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say,

Have ye not seen us walking every day?
Was there a tree about which did not know
The love betwixt us two?
Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade;
Or your sad branches thicker join,
And into darksome shades combine,
Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid!
Henceforth no learned Youths beneath you sing,
Till all the tuneful birds to’your boughs they bring;
No tuneful birds play with their wonted chear,

And call the learned youths to hear,
No whistling winds through the glad branches fly,
But all with sad solemnity,
Mute and unmoved be,
Mute as the grave wherein my friend does lie.
To him my Muse made haste with every strain
Whilst it was new and warm yet from the brain:
He lov’d my worthless rhymes and, like, a friend,
Would find out something to commend.
Hence now, my Muse! thou canst not me delight;

Be this my latest verse,
With which I now adorn his hearse,
And this my grief, without thy help, shall write.
Had I a wreath of bays about my brow,
I should contemn that flourishing honor now:
Condemn it to the Fire, and joy to hear
It rage and crackle there.
Instead of bays, crown with sad cypress me;
Cypress which tombs does beautify:
Not Phoebus griev’d so much as I

For him, who first was made that mournful tree.
Large was his soul; as large a soul as ere
Submitted to inform a body here.
High as the place ’twas shortly’in heaven to have,
But low, and humble as his grave.
So high that all the Virtues there did come
As to their chiefest seat
Conspicuous, and great;
So low, that for me too it made a room.
He scorn’d this busy world below, and all
That we, mistaken mortals, pleasure call;

Was fill’d with inn’ocent gallantry and truth,
Triumphant ore the sins of youth.
He like the Stars, to which he now is gone,
That shine with beams like flame,
Yet burn not with the same,
Had all the light of youth, of the fire none.
Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught,
As if for him Knowledge had rather sought.
Nor did more Learning ever crowded lie
In such a short mortality.

When ere the skilful youth discours’d or writ,
Still did the notions throng
About his eloquent tongue,
Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit.
So strong a wit did Nature to him frame,
As all things but his judgement overcame;
His judgement like the heav’nly moon did show,
Temp’ring that mighty sea below.
Oh had he liv’d in Learning’s world, what bound
Would have been able to control

His over-powering soul?
We’ave lost in him arts that not yet are found.
His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit,
Yet never did his God or friends forget.
And when deep talk and wisdom came in view,
Retir’d, and gave to them their due:
For the rich help of books he always took,
Though his own searching mind before
Was so with notions written ore
As if wise Nature had made that her book.

So many Virtues join’d in him, as we
Can scarce pick here and there in History.
More then old writer’s practice ere could reach,
As much as they could ever teach.
These did Religion, Queen of Virtues’ sway,
And all their sacred motions steer,
Just like the first and highest sphere
Which wheels about, and turns all Heaven one way.
With as much zeal, devotion, piety,
He always liv’d, as other Saints do die.

Still with his soul severe account he kept,
Weeping all debts out ere he slept;
Then down in peace and innocence he lay,
Like the sun’s laborious light,
Which still in water sets at night,
Unsullied with his journey of the day.
Wondrous young man! why wert thou made so good,
To be snatch’d hence ere better understood?
Snatch’d before half of thee enough was seen!
Thou ripe, and yet thy life but green!

Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell,
But danger and infectious death
Malitiously seiz’d on that breath
Where life, spirit, pleasure always us’d to dwell.
But happy thou, ta’ne from this frantick age,
Where igno’rance and hypocrisy does rage!
A fitter time for heaven no soul ere chose,
The place now only free from those.
There ‘mong the blest thou dost for ever shine,
And wheresoe’re thou casts thy view

Upon that white and radiant crew,
See’st not a soul cloath’d with more light than thine.
And if the glorious saints cease not to know
Their wretched friends who fight with life below;
Thy flame to me does still the same abide,
Only more pure and rarifi’d.
There whilst immortal hymns thou dost reherse,
Thou dost with holy pity see
Our dull and earthly Poesy,
Where grief and misery can be join’d with verse.