Reader's Block

Elizabeth Bachner has published a very amusing (and true!) essay on reader's block in the April edition of Bookslut. Reader’s block tends to happen after reading either a really good book or a really bad one. Nothing seems to live up to the great book we just finished (or we are worried that the next book will be just as bad as the one we just finished). Here is an excerpt:

I have acquaintances who are successful readers. They buy a new hardback book once a month, sometimes at the kind of chain bookstore I boycott, and they read it and like it. Or, they read it and think it’s “okay, although I haven’t gotten to the end,” and they recommend it anyway, and they don’t feel the urge to die of boredom. It is usually a New York Times Notable Book. This little system of production and consumption also brings us room fresheners that are not safe for homes with pet birds, happy pills that cause liver failure, processed ham from tortured pigs, and movies like You’ve Got Mail.

I have Reader's Block. It's fine when I want to read Great Literature -- I just read something old, or foreign. Sometimes the old or foreign books even hit that perfect edge of juicy readability and brilliant, awe-inspiring, high lit goodness. I just finished The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker, which is basically all about themes that I associate with crushing boredom -- farmers and old, sick parents and rural areas -- but I couldn't put it down. It's subtle, quiet, hilarious, cruel, beautiful, and somehow exhilarating in all of its understatement. It has a protagonist with a unique voice. It never hits a false note. It never hits a predictable note. Reading a book like that is joyous, especially when it keeps rereading itself in your head, your heart, and your life for a few days or weeks afterwards. Then again, sometimes Great Literature doesn't provide the pappy escapism I need...

Right now, I'm reading Hallucinating Foucault. It is a great book, and no doubt will result in reader's block for the next book. It is really hard to find good books.