Chaotic consumer
I’m the kind of gal who has about 5 very different books on the go. I’m wildly underestimating the number, to be completely honest, but I’ve noticed that 5 gets the appropriate reaction for the point I’m making. Saying 25 makes people think I’m lying and the conversation veers away into establishing authenticity. Saying “a few” doesn’t quite communicate my chaotic tendencies.
I might not get a lot of time to read them (which is why I’ve mostly switched to audiobooks nowadays), but as I need for my book to match my general vibe or scratch a very specific kind of itch, I tend to start a lot of different books.
How do you judge a book?
Having a variety of books on the go is not a problem for me, apart from when I don’t get into a certain kind of mood very often and leave a book unfinished for a long time. I usually finish the book eventually. I’m the kind of eater who hates leaving food behind and the kind of reader and film watcher who struggles – morally – to leave something unfinished, as I do like passing a judgment on films and books I consume, and without devouring the whole thing I don’t believe I can really form a true opinion, as I haven’t submitted to the full vision of the author. So you’ll find me watching a 9-season show and admitting that only the last two seasons were good. That said, as I’ve been a very, very occasional book reader in the most part of the last decade, I’ve lost touch with what fiction and (what I in my head call) literary non-fiction I like to read. As a result of just the general girly “I’m not good enough” narrative that I’m sure most of us struggle with in our 20s, I have consumed an actual ton of self-help and personal development literature, as well as a good chunk of educational non-fiction, but it was accidentally stumbling upon the first chapter of Lessons in Chemistry in a magazine that brought me back to the joys of fiction again. After devouring the full book with incredible speed and JOY, I figured out that I’ve not got a clue how to pick fiction to read – the cover of Lessons in Chemistry I would’ve avoided like the plague. And I’m sorry but how else do you pick books? I don’t know if utilitarian non-fiction (which might again just be what I call it) has better covers or if my radar is still operational as I read so many, but I don’t remember the last time that I found that the cover and the contents of a personal development book were wildly out of sync. That said, of course I wouldn’t know if I’m missing a ton of great utilitarian non-fiction just because the covers haven’t tickled my fancy. It might also be that non-fiction is a much narrower category than fiction? Hence easier to navigate visually. Anyway, all this to say that I’ve become an even more chaotic reader than previously, as some of the books I’ve been picking are just a complete oddball choice in my usual selection of appealing covers. And the prime example of this is the book that I finished today – Freya North’s The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne.
The challenge of continuing to be challenged
It’s not like I never read the trope-filled cheesy books where pretty much nothing unexpected happens. We all need a little bit of predictability and the delicious build-up of the grumpy-sunshine dynamic (my personal favourite). I whole-heartedly adore romcoms on the nights when my brain just needs some rest and comfort, and there absolutely are periods when a perfectly predictable story about a city girl moving to a village after a bad breakup is my book of choice. But… I strongly believe that if you can handle even a little bit of a challenge, you should always go for literature that may move and shock you, make you feel deeply and think about your inner conflicts, and bring you a new or a refreshed perspective. It’s such a joy to be eased into all of this lushness gently and unexpectedly, just like Eadie Browne did to me. Because I did not know what I was signing up for when I started the book. In fact, I got it because the name of the heroine reminded me of someone I know. As I looked at the cover, I kept thinking “I’ll never ever be finishing that, looks naff”. And it ended up being just the loveliest story about a girl whom I totally got and who just took me on a rollercoaster of emotions, thoughts and opinions. The oddest thing is, I don’t still quite have the words to completely express what exactly Eadie charmed me with. I think it’s the subject matter, which, to leave specifics aside not to spoil it for you, is very much what I’m drawn to. The psychological undercurrents of just about everything that happened in the book were so familiar and yet so captivating, it was incredible to get so many facets of the human condition put into words so effortlessly and without any pretense. And still, I look at the cover, and am not quite sure who approved that terrible cover. It might be that the author has a loyal following and is mostly catering to people that already know her? Or that the publisher has misunderstood what the book is and has decided to market it as something quite surface-level because the author has mastered the art of hiding such profound truths into such simple words? This question has kept me up at night. And it does make me sad that there’s a chance this book won’t reach nearly as many potential readers as it could with a better cover, but then again, I always wonder if people without a personal connection to the subject matter would get so much out of it as I did? It’s the sad paradox of great art, isn’t it? That every person who experiences it might get a unique reading of what it’s about, but then recommending it you don’t necessarily know if the other person would get a similarly exhilarating experience.
Mirror, mirror
I think about mirroring a lot. That people see in the world what they see in themselves. That people get from art something unique to them as it’s almost a crooked mirror – some amplify your shortcomings and some end up providing the missing parts. One thing is for sure – that the base material is always us. Things are not good or bad in themselves – it’s what we think of them that makes them so. I’d say who I’m quoting but I chew over various ideas in so many forms and contexts, that I rarely remember who the original seedling of the concept came from. It feels like a rude and dismissive comment, I know. But if I stopped talking about ideas that I can’t provide the origin of, I’d never talk about anything. And isn’t the whole point of everyone experiencing works of art in their own unique ways the final exchange of ideas and perceptions that grow out of the experience? I do so love a good chat about something I’ve read or seen, but somehow it seems it’s harder and harder to find people in the real world who might consume similar books and films to you. I remember I was so jealous at my last workplace of all the people discussing the latest Netflix shows, when I didn’t have Netflix at the time. It wasn’t that I’d never had Netflix, it’s just that at that point I was doing a rotation of streaming services – a couple of months of each at a time, so that I wouldn’t spend excessive funds on having all of them at once. It’s the seeming infinity of choice that makes connection over the same programs or books such a rarity. Yes, live shows used to have that effect (and still do in certain circles), but most people I know, for instance, don’t bother paying for a TV licence anymore. So in my view, while there’s more than ever to watch, we’ve lost such a crucial way to connect with strangers. Everyone’s watching their own shows, reading their own social media feeds, getting tracked online and being fed more of exactly the same thing (plus all the same opinions on all the same things) everywhere they go. No wonder we get so combative with people who we disagree with. I loved reading online reviews of Eadie Browne – many people wrote that there was too much waffle and I laughed thinking, I must have a totally different tolerance for the author setting the scene and creating the atmosphere, because I thought that the immersive experience was part of the charm. It’s fascinating to read that some people get irritated by how uneventful the book is at first. Some by how Eadie was nostalgic about things she’d never mentioned as they happened. And I kept thinking, I love works of art that seemingly go nowhere. Me and my other half struggle to watch the same films, as the ones I love never seem to have enough happening in them for him. I love artistic license and metaphors and I understand brevity and omission for the sake of telling a story that flows, and he seems to always laugh about how nothing is ever portrayed realistically. Ah the beauty of disagreement!
See you when
Well, that’s the gist of my rant on uninspired book covers. I’ve swapped Eadie Browne for Sarah Sawyer’s The Undercurrent, and so far the book is deliciously matching the layered colourful cover that really spoke to me. I don’t know where this story will take me, but I wonder if I’ll perceive it as less amazing than Eadie because the gorgeous cover has set the expectations so high?
Until my next sleepless night full of thoughts.