Solitary or Social Readers

Recently a local book club leader wrote to explain why she devotes herself so energetically to the group:

…what I love best about the book club meetings, other than talking about books with other people, are hearing peoples' takes on the stories we read. We all lead such different lives, and come from such different backgrounds, (and are at different stages in our lives), that the book usually has different meanings for each of us. It's interesting to hear how many different ways a story can be interpreted, and I usually come away with a better appreciation for what I've read... anyway those are the moments I look forward to, (other than meeting fellow book lovers! What's not to like about that?!

In the Times recently, Motoko Rich takes a slightly contrary view arguing that reading in the era of online book groups, Oprah clubs, Shelfari, and the countless informal book groups that are everywhere these days, has now become “a relentlessly social pursuit.” She notes: “Publishers, meanwhile are fashioning social networking sites where they hope to attract readers who want to comment on books and one another.”

I know individuals who belong to three or four different book groups at the same time and each and every one of them meets somewhere to have a meal before or during their “meeting.” Are they there for the meal, the friendly chit-chat, to flirt or to have a serious discussion about the book they may or may not have read before hand?

But there is a different class of reader as Rich points out who feel “that their relationship with a book, its characters and the author is too intimate to share.” These readers can engage in all the benefits cited by the leader of the local book group for why she likes her group. They too can reflect on the book’s meanings, its relationship with the works or other authors, and read the opinions of those who have reviewed the book and who might have a different take on it or who view the story in a usual way. And all of this can be experienced without the gossip or the meal at the current restaurant of the year.

Rich also concludes that these two (public and private) readers are not mutually exclusive, that readers who prefer to read privately are not necessarily adverse to discussing it publicly, although my hunch is that a group of more than one of two such individuals would be sufficient for them. And perhaps if the club was structured more around the type of reading groups that we usually called seminars or conferences in college or the Book Salons as in Europe during the 19th Century, they might be more likely to become more social readers.

I used to teach at a college where in order to graduate students were required to write a Senior Thesis and then engage in its defense with a group of faculty members. At the time of their defense the students almost always brought trays of food, (baked goods, sandwiches, trays of vegetables and fruits, etc.) and abundant beverages. Did they think all this food would increase the likelihood they would pass?

It was always difficult for me to carry on a coherent discussion munching a chocolate croissant and so I found myself in an awkward position, not knowing what to do with these offerings, since I was never hungry and didn’t much care to snack anyway.

I guess that is why I have always been one of those readers who prefer to carry out the pursuit of reading and what I say about it in a largely, although not exclusively, private fashion. Nonetheless, I remain quite interested in the question of whether the solitary reading experience in some way significantly different than reading without the expectation of discussing it with others

Online Book Club

I have been reading the New Yorker Book Club’s “discussion” of Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road. More accurately I’ve been trying to read the comments that are posted from time to time on the Club’s website. You don’t “listen” to the discussion at this book group as you would in a face-to-face gathering, nor is it possible to follow-up immediately with comment or question, that is responded to, in turn, by another member. Indeed, the experience of an online book club is quite different than it is in a real-time group.

Here is how it works. First you go to the Book Club’s website to read any one of the several Discussion Topics. You read it as best you can and then, should there be any comments you click on “comment” whereupon to are taken to a new page where you can read them. Most are brief, although some are as lengthy and detailed as the original statement itself.

There are two ways you can contribute, both of which require registration. The Book Club leader (a New Yorker staff writer) must first approve your remarks if you wish it to be listed as a Discussion Topic. Otherwise, to respond to any of the general Topic statements, you need only fill in the box on the comment page for that Topic.

The Club began meeting on February 19th and to date to date there have been 12 Discussion Topics and a variable number of comments to each one ranging from 0 to 11. I think the discussion of each book will last about a month plus or minus a few days. The next reading will be George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London.

I began reading the Club’s discussions to find out what it is like. And what I am finding is that it is not all that likeable. Rather, it is a somewhat cumbersome and awkward routine. The task of reading the list of Discussion Topics, then switching to the comment page of each one, and then back again to the next Discussion Topic is a slow and awkward process. So is the routine for making a comment.

What this sort of online book club (perhaps any online book club) lacks is the lively to and fro of an active conversation, the development of ideas and the clarification of meaning, all of which are present in a face-to-face meeting. And as I read the remarks I don’t see much in the way of dialogue either. Each person makes a statement, followed in turn by another that rarely, if ever, acknowledges a point made by anyone else. (Full Disclosure—yesterday a person did, in fact, respond to a comment I had made. Although my comment was posted over a week ago, at least it was made note of and I was relieved that the responder happened to agree with my view of the novel.)

I began reading the Book Club as an experiment. I haven’t found it a very congenial experience. More to my liking is a conventional book club, especially one composed of serious readers who actually read the book and are more interested in its ideas, rather than the tasty morsels and general socializing that are often found at these gatherings.

In fact, my Ideal Book Club would follow the model established in some academic seminars. It would begin with a brief paper, circulated in advance if possible, and followed by an open discussion of the paper and the book upon which it is based. In a sense, each book read would have a “leader” who would be responsible for the brief paper and guiding the discussion.

The Reading Groups at the Mercantile Library for Fiction in New York are something like I have in mind. Take a glance at the groups--one reading the Great Books, another Virginia Woolf, one reading a novel by Rainier Maria Rilke, another detective stories and yet one more considering Latin American novels. And if this wasn’t enough, there is also a Proust Society at the Mercantile Library with several groups discussing the works of Marcel Proust. Can you believe such a place like this exists? It puts one in a mood to flee this island paradise and fly away to New York on the next plane.

Book Groups

Although I’ve never participated in a book group, I’ve been hearing about them for years. According to a recent estimate there are roughly four to five million such groups in the United States. I am told there is an annual Book Group Exposition and even a professional book group facilitator who you can hire to guide your group for an annual fee of $250-$300. Now there’s a job for the countless unemployed readers in this country.

In my long time search for readers of the kind of books that I like, I thought I’d try my hand at forming group in my new hometown. After several failed attempts, I succumbed to the lure of language and the Internet and posted a notice with a “seductive” title on the Groups page of the local Craigslist.

Rather than call it a book group, I referred to it as a Salon. Basically that’s what I wanted to create anyway. By labeling it a “salon” I was not referring to a place to have my hair cut. Rather I meant a gathering of individuals to discuss a book, an issue, or any common interest or goal during afternoon coffee or tea. Doing this has a long history in several European countries especially during the 18th and 19th century. The idea appealed to me a great deal and I thought it would be the sort of term that would mean something to a reader who is serious about literature and quite willing to leave the drama to the books they ostensibly discussed, rather than the personal lives of the discussants.

Eventually, I received one response from a person who was a freelance writer for the Associated Press. That was it. She, in turn, asked a few of her friends to join and was successful in obtaining 4 individuals, all women with very busy lives at work or at home with children. So we were a group of 6, 5 women and one aging yuppie.

However, they all wanted to read a book I was not the least bit interested in (Annie Proulx’s new collection of short stories, Fine Just the Way It Is). In addition, they wanted and could only meet at a time when I could not. I realized this was not for me, not the book the wanted to read, not the time or the day they preferred. So I bowed out as gracefully as I could.

More importantly, I realized I really prefer to be a solitary reader with a pen in hand. In a note about communal reading Gregory Cowles put it best: “…reading has more in common with the cloisters that it does with the congregation.” Perhaps one day I will meet in person a serious reader and then we will be a twosome to talk about the books we both enjoy.

That surely won’t happen until I enter the Pearly Gates and can sit down one afternoon at the feet of Mr. Harold Bloom himself. Or wonder of wonders, I locate a like-minded reader on this island in the Pacific. Again, Cowles expressed it well: “And there is an undeniable thrill when you discover that the beautiful stranger on the subway likes Alice Munro as much as you do.”