“I’m embarrassed to admit it,” said a friend recently. “But I love reading trash. It’s just plain relaxing!”
As I pointed out to her, there’s nothing embarrassing in that admission. People have a lot of reasons for reading, and relaxation is as valid a reason as any other. My own “relaxed” reading happens mostly at night: I go to bed an hour before I need to go to sleep, and I treasure that time, the lamplight spilling onto my comforter, the curtains around my bed keeping me snug, the ceiling fan moving lazily above, the mug of hot milk on my nightstand. And my books … my own choice for relaxation: mysteries.
I’m under some pressure right now to finish reading two “serious” books, books about playwriting that I need to have under my belt when I leave later this month for a playwriting retreat in the Catskill Mountains. And I’m a little behind … so last night I took one of them to bed with me and tried to concentrate on it. I really did. What happened, however, was that I found myself resenting it, angry with the author for intruding on “my” time. Paul came in and when he heard me remark something to that effect, offered an alternative: “What about that book about the constellations you bought at the library sale?”
“No,” I said firmly. “That’s nonfiction. What I need is … Morse.”
That would be Colin Dexter’s wonderful Chief Inspector Morse of the Thames Valley police, of course. And I happily put the playwriting away and scrambled for The Way Through The Woods instead.
Did I feel guilty? Not a bit of it. Books do wonderful things: they instruct, inspire, enlighten … and entertain. And the latter is as valid a function as any of the others.
Indulge your own “guilty” pleasures today, or tonight. It’s the most joy you’ll get for the least amount of calories … and time decidedly well-spent!
Jeannette Cézanne
Open Your Heart with Reading
Posted by: reading, reading books, Words, Opening the heart — jcezanne
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Yes, “it’s a mystery” — a mystery to me why some people find reading fiction, especially light fiction, something to feel guilty about, or to call “trash.”
One man’s trash is another man’s gold. Put another way, writing is one of the art forms, and all art is subjective. What I like is no better than what you like, only different.
Yes, there are standards of craft that divide writing along a continuum ranging from incoherent to sublime. Most novels fall in between. So the other creative arts — music, drama, painting, dance…
No wonder these are struggling in our culture, if there’s enough psychic programming to teach us to feel guilty about enjoying them!
Comment by Carolyn Haley — August 12, 2008 @ 11:47 am