What a relief. Over the weekend I managed to finish Wendy Lesser’s Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books. I borrowed this book from the library and since there is a waiting list there are no renewals. I have to return it Wednesday. I also finished the book I was assigned for review by Library Journal, The Critic in the Modern World: Public Criticism from Samuel Johnson to James Wood. And I wrote and submitted my tiny review; 190 words, I was not to go over 200. I am not sure what the etiquette of writing about that book here is. I’ll have to figure that out.
I started reading both of these books about the same time. I did not get off to a good start with theThe Critic and was very angry that in nearly 300 years of public literary criticism none of the essays focused on a female critic. But I had Lesser’s book going and she was making me happy, so very easy going and chatty, I had a hard time being interested in The Critic. But as irony would have it, I ended up liking The Critic quite a lot and Lesser’s book, meh.
There is nothing especially wrong with Why I Read. As I said, Lesser has an easy going, chatty style and she loves books and reading. She says in the prologue that she decided to write the book in order to figure out not why she reads so much as what she gets from it. But really the book is about various aspects of books that she finds interesting, that motivate her to read and give her pleasure.
Lesser works her way through the various elements, discussing her favorite books and how they are examples of the chapter topic. She gives us a chapter on plot and character, novelty, authority, grandeur and intimacy, things like that. And it is all very well and good and I now have a short list of books she mentions that sound really interesting some of which I have never heard of.
In the end, however, I found myself wondering why I should even care about why Lesser reads. While I added some books to my TBR list, her discussions were nine parts enthusiasm to one part useful and interesting. Judging from the lack of pages I marked, I might actually need to downgrade that to only 1/2 of one part useful and interesting. She doesn’t bring anything new to the table, nothing fresh, and definitely nothing that would aid a reader in her own reading of any given book.
The final chapter is an “afterword” in which Lessor retreads the digital versus print debate. She owns an ereader and buys and reads digital books but firmly believes in the superiority of print. Which is fine, but I found it hard to care by this point and became really disturbed by her lack of understanding in the realm of copyright and why so many mid-twentieth century books are not available in a digital format.
I feel like I am being a bit too hard on Why I Read because it suffered from being read alongside The Critic. Lesser wasn’t aiming for insightful commentary or an intellectual history. She just wanted to spend some time conversing about all the things that make reading books so enjoyable. In that she succeeds. It just turned out that I wanted thought-provoking instead of easy going.
I had to return this book because of the wait list, but from what I was able to read I agree with your assessment completely. I did enjoy the part I was able to read, but didn’t expect as much from it to begin…since I didn’t know what to expect. But it was an easy read written by someone who I suspected just wanted to write about reading. Nothing spectacular…no big “Ah-Ha!” moments.
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Grad, those darn wait lists! Do you think you will try to borrow the book again so you can finish it or did you have enough from the small taste you got?
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That’s interesting to compare them side by side like that. I’m not sure I like the idea of dissecting a book to see what makes it work and that’s why we should read it – it sounds like a lit criticism class, which always leaves me feeling like the creative aspect is left out. Anyway, I will see if I can find this book here and take a look at it. The Critic in the Modern World sounds heavyweight, and yet interesting! lol Sooner or later I”m going to have to decide what the role of a critic really is for. And try to get over how few female critics there are, you are right, and how little publicity/attention to their work they do get. Do women review work differently? I’m not being sexist here, I’m wondering if women approach artistic work or evaluate artistic work differently in some way.
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Susan, Lesser doesn’t really dissect anything, she just talks about character and plot and why she likes books that are heavy on the character development rather than plot like this Henry James novel for instance. It’s all very lightweight. The Critic in the Modern World is much more heavyweight, intended for a nonacademic audience but not especially a general one. You really have to be interested in the topic or the book will be one big boring drag. Viriginia Woolf gets one mention and Elizabeth Hardwick gets two brief mentions but they are just that, mentions. I don’t think women review books any differently than men do or are any less authoritative. I think women have done much better for themselves in academic criticism. If you follow the annual VIDA counts, part of the problem of there being so few public female critics most likely has something to do with them not being published in the pages of the New York Review of Books or London Review of Books or magazines of that sort.
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How nice for you to do a review for LJ. One of my former coworkers was asked to do a review and we made a big to-do about it at the office.
If I come across Lesser’s book, I’ll keep in mind to expect a light and chatty tone.
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Vanessa, I applied a year ago to be a reviewer and didn’t hear anything from them until now. Was I ever surprised! But it was fun in spite of the short time frame. Yes, if you don;t expect much from Lesser’s book it will be much easier to enjoy.
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Will reviewing for LJ be a regular thing and do they just randomly send you books? And are you obligated to write something up? Even though it sounds like less than 200 words would be a piece of cake–I think it is even harder to write a really short review like that! Isn’t it a relief, though, to have it all behind you? The Lesser book sounds interesting, but sometimes with books like that you almost feel like they could have accomplished the same thing in a series of blog posts perhaps?
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Danielle, it’s my understanding that LJ has a whole bunch of reviewers and they rotate reviews through the group. They have me listed as being willing to review books in the arts & humanities, fiction and poetry. When my next turn to do a review will come up is anybody’s guess. Yes, if I accept a book for review from them I am obligated to review it. You actually get a few less than 200 words because there are certain things you have to include in the review like the author’s previous books or other qualifications. You have to say what the book is about and assess it at the same time which turned out to mean action verbs and a few key nouns and adjectives. It was fun. Lesser’s book would make a great series of blog posts most definitely and would have been better if presented that way.
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Have to admit to an unanticipated chuckle when I got to the line: “In the end, however, I found myself wondering why I should even care about why Lesser reads.”
I’m still pondering that. I always find myself drawn to books about reading and readers, but often feel the same way, although picking up new titles to consider is always fun. And, of course, finding that the author loves the same books I do creates a kind of kinship.
The Critic, however, sounds more interesting–especially since you changed your mind about it as you read.
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jenclair, it is fun to find the author likes the same books as you do and knows about books you have never heard of before and talks about them in such a way that makes you want to read them. I think I would have been more satisfied with Lesser’s book if it had been called “A Bunch of Books I Like and Why I Like Them.” She is kind enough to provide a list of 100 books at the end of hers that includes all the books she talks about and a few others. The Critic was much more interesting in that it showed how the public critical conversation about literature has changed through the years and how that conversation about literature both affects and is affected by cultural and historical attitudes and events.
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I like lit crit books but the Lesser book doesn’t really appeal to me–I guess it’s because I know why I read and it’s fun to have a conversation about the topic but not to be lectured about it.
So, The Critic in the Modern World didn’t cover Maryann Evans (aka George Eliot) as a critic. That’s pretty surprising considering the amount of work she did and her place in the literary canon.
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JaneGS, Lesser’s book is litcrit extra light. She doesn’t lecture, but her discussion is flimsy and not so very interesting as I had hoped.
The Critic in the Modern World did not even mention George Eliot/Evans once. Ley focuses on six critics, Johnson, Hazlitt, Arnold, T.S. Eliot, Trilling, and Wood. They each get their own essay/chapter and other critics are brought in to the discussion only as they relate to or contradict each critic under discussion. So Woolf is mentioned because she wrote and essay on Hazlitt and Hardwick is mentioned because she was part of the same New York intellectual crowd as Trilling. Otherwise women are left out completely.
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Maybe Lesser’s book is for someone who hasn’t read as much as you have about reading? It might be a good start for someone who hasn’t read much in the field?
But oh, how did you manage a 190 word review of a book about critics? Sounds a huge challenge. I hope you can publish it here one day, once they’ve published it?
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whisperinggums, maybe, but it doesn’t seem like she wrote it to help people learn how to be better readers, though it could certainly be read that way in some respects. It was hard to manage that 190 word review! I had my book all marked up and really it didn’t matter because I couldn’t get into any details. The review is for their print magazine but I will keep and eye out to see if it gets put online too.
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Yes, do …I’d love to see it. Or, maybe after it’s been printed they’ll let you reproduce it on your blog.
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This sounds a bit like the conversation you were having on your site the other day about criticism as memoir. Well, any piece of writing has to have a real and interesting point to it, and navel-gazing isn’t a point. Even a piece of lit crit needs to be about something more than the simple interaction of reader and book, towards a more general point about the world beyond.
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Litlove, yes indeed, funny how things kind of clump together sometimes! I think Lesser wanted the book to be more outward directed but for me it ended up being to much navel-gazing.
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