The Unread Book

You find yourself in a bookshop, browsing aimlessly because you have a little time to kill before you need to catch your train, or your bus, or however it is you are getting home. Do you get the train or the bus? The train of course, you get the train. Are you going home? Yes, you are. It’s late evening and you should have been there hours ago. Some problem at work, not your fault of course, but you had to stay back later than you normally would. Still, you are in a thoughtful, reflective frame of mind, which is how you came to be in this particular bookshop on this particular evening. It is raining, quite heavily, which is the main reason you entered, but that doesn’t mean you are some kind of fair-weather philistine. Quite the opposite in fact; you love books, are in thrall to the printed word. It’s just that of late, you don’t seem to have had any time to really enjoy it properly. Which is why you’re not in any hurry to brave the rain, to catch your train; you’d rather be here instead. Still, there’s nothing much that catches your attention. You ignore the new releases (can’t afford the hardbacks), bypass the 3-for-2 offers comprised of the latest flash-in-the-pan author/commercial-tie-in-of-the-month and make for the steady, reliable A-Z, where you know there will some contemporary or classic text just right for you. It doesn’t pop out immediately though. You skim names, names that are familiar to you because you have done this many, many times. Names of authors you know but will never read, because even their name doesn’t sound like a name that would be capable of writing a book that you would want to read because you are a very Discerning Reader. Not that one. Or that one. No. No. Maybe. No. No.

Then you see it. A book, with an author who doesn’t have a name that you recognise, but one that doesn’t immediately turn you off either. It’s the title that you like; unfamiliar, but intriguing. Not overly smart or clever, but simple and bold. Just the very title sounds like the sort of book you would like to read. You reach out for it. The shelf it is on is just above your head so that you have to stretch up to retrieve it which is something that satisfies you because even this very small exertion makes you feel that you deserve this book and part of you realises that all the books you read should automatically be placed on a shelf at this height, regardless of title, author or genre. The book itself is thick, you can see that, but even so, you are surprised at how heavy it is. The pages are that thin kind - not of poor quality, just thin and delicate. This is a book, you think, that you could get on with. You turn it so that the front cover faces you and there is a small pang of pleasure when you recognise the publisher’s design; a stark black and white photograph of some anonymous-yet-recognisable scene that could easily apply in some oblique way to your own life. It is one of those books that you have come to recognise as a Modern Classic. An as-yet unacknowledged-by-the-masses classic. A book that was written not so long ago, but was not particularly acclaimed on its publication. A book, in short, that you would in all likelihood enjoy, but one that will also give you status, kudos, because you acknowledged it before everyone else did. Because you are a very Discerning Reader. Particularly if you are able to track down an earlier, worn-out edition, one that has that delicious old-book smell and claim this new copy to be a ‘replacement’ for your worn out original (although you might have to explain how it was you came to be reading such a complex book on its release with you at the age of seven… You are not that Discerning). It even has a modest quote on the front cover by an author whose work, whose words, you admire greatly and the TLS review on the back is just the right side of fawning.

It is very long though. Over a thousand pages. Not that the length of a book is of any concern to you, it’s just that you’ve been really busy recently and you’re not sure you can do it justice. But then, this is the problem you think. You’re not making enough time for books in your life. You travel to work in the mornings and you travel back home in the evenings. That’s two hours a day, ten hours a week on the train, plus your lunch hour, plus those quiet evenings in and the weekends when you’re not doing anything. On a good week you could spend one out of those seven days reading! How has it got to this stage, you wonder in disbelief, where you have neglected the pleasure of the written word so easily? On the train you glaze over the multitude of free publications that are discarded liberally outside the station, scattered inside the carriages. At work you flick idly through the many inconsequential magazines that litter the office and at home you gaze blankly at the television, surfing the hundred plus channels before deciding to watch a film that you already own. Well, no more, you resolve. Let this day, let this book, be the day, be the book, that makes reading the centre of your world again. You think back to your childhood, your youth, where all you ever did was read, no - devour - books, immersed in a world of print that became your constant companion; a battered paperback always somewhere on your person, a small stack next to your bed, a constant conveyor belt of the collected works of (insert your choice of Distinguished Authors here)…

You take the book to the counter. You pay for it in cash because handing over actual money makes it feel like a real transaction. You accept your change and your book (no bag please, the bag is not part of the reading experience; it has no place in the nascent relationship between you and the book, which should be held and carried in the hand). You leave the shop, the rain having let up, although you do not notice this, your walk brisk, posture upright. You make your way to the station, wending your way through the human traffic and, without breaking stride, step nonchalantly from the platform to the carriage just as the engine shudders and the doors slide shut. Taking a seat, one near the front of the carriage - a window seat, facing the direction of travel - you hold the book in two hands, resting it on your lap, front cover facing up although you do not look at it. Instead, you stare out of the window, watching the gentle rolling urban scenery on the other side morph into a speeding blur. Although tempted to begin reading now - you will, after all, be using your travelling time wisely from now on - beginning the book here doesn’t seem right somehow. You want to do things properly. A subtly lit room with an armchair and a coffee (black), maybe even a small glass of wine (red, for reading, naturally). Not a busy, rattling train. So you imagine, you savour the pleasure that you will soon extract from the book sometime very soon.

However, it doesn’t quite work out that way. Things rarely do. You get in, you place the book on the small table next to your armchair. You prepare a small meal. You shower, you change. Out of habit you flick on the television and a news item interests you (news is important, it’s not like other television shows). You watch the item whilst eating your meal. A show follows the news, one you watch occasionally and enjoy. You haven’t seen this one either, so you leave it on but you also find yourself dozing off (it has been a long day, don’t forget) and so rather than fall asleep in your armchair and crick your neck, you think an early night prudent and retire to bed.

The next day is similar to the one before. You wake up later than intended and have to dash out to make the train, forgetting the book. Work takes up more of your time than you would like - it always does. You return home exhausted, in no frame of mind to read and the book lies where you left it on the table the night before. The following day is the same as the other and so on and so forth until you get to the end of the week where instead of going home, you stay in town and go to a bar with your colleagues in order to wind down. The weekend brings its own distractions; a family birthday, an unexpected visitor, a last minute invite to dinner. Life carries on, much as it always does. Work continues to rudely elbow its way into the corners of your life, people continue to have birthdays and to turn up unexpectedly. Soon, the book is hidden by a discarded newspaper, one you forgot to leave behind on the train and later on it is almost put to use as a coaster before you have the presence of mind to rescue it, dust it down absently, fondly, with your hand and make space for it amongst the already comfortably ensconced inhabitants of your bookshelf.

Until one day you are browsing through the newspapers. The weekend supplements, the literary section. And a title, a review catches your eye. Something to do with an old novel, newly popularised as a result of it being made into a Hollywood film. The director - one whose work you admire, as Hollywood films go - read it many years ago upon its first publication (damn him!) and it has been his life’s ambition to recreate it on celluloid. He has even got that rare breed of actor - one with mass appeal and acting ability - to play the lead. The title of the film is unfamiliar because it is not the same as the book, but the title of the book is very familiar, as it is the same book you have been putting off reading. Which means that now you certainly cannot be seen to be reading it as this would be an open declaration to the world at large that you are not a Discerning Reader. Rather you are one who allows your literary tastes to be determined by celebrity fads and Hollywood’s fickle fancies. You might as well just become the sort of person who buys their books exclusively from the 3-for-2 section of the bookshop and holds the opinion that bargain and economy trump taste and selectivity. At least, you think, groaning as you finish the rest of the review, your copy has some semblance of original artwork for the front cover and not a glossy, highly polished photograph of the actor in the guise of his character from the forthcoming film. At least, you take comfort in consoling yourself, your copy goes by its original title and not one deemed suitable for the less discerning cinemagoer.

The thing is, you really want to see this film. It has good reviews, creditable reviews. But here’s the nub; one of your pet peeves is seeing an adaptation of a book before you’ve read the original. Even if the film is better than the book (which you know has only happened ten times in recorded history) you wish to be able to compare, to contrast; to have an informed opinion. But then, how can you do that? You can only read the book at home, when there is no-one around and the film is to be released next week? There is no way you can finish reading it if you are only able to read it at home. And you can’t just watch the film and tell people you haven’t read the book. You are, after all, a Discerning Reader. It will surely be taken as read (ha!) that you have read it and besides, you don’t go to see films if you’ve never opened the book, do you?

You rise from your armchair, the armchair in which you used to do all your reading and walk over to the bookshelf on the other side of the room. You retrieve the unread book and hold it in your hand as if you were weighing it, the thousand-plus pages bobbing in the air like some undecided flotsam. To read or not to read? As you stand there, facing a small wall of words of your own creation, you suspect that your tastes in literature have, of late, become less catholic and more superficial. Standing there, you begin to re-evaluate your relationship with the written word. Perhaps tomorrow you will begin the book, in public, on the train journey into work, with the cover and title showing quite clearly. Perhaps you will catch other passengers reading the same and maybe even share a smile over your mutual tastes. Perhaps someone will see you reading at work and strike up a conversation about the book and ask your opinion of it and you will reply, quite honestly, that you’re not sure because you’ve only just begun to read it but you’re hoping to finish it soon because you’d like to see the film as well. Perhaps this book really will make reading the centre of your world again, albeit in a slightly different way than you intended.

You decide there and then that starting from tomorrow you will do all these things and you resolve to revel again in the simple act of reading a book for what it is and what it can be. It will become once again a thing of intrinsic worth and substance and you will value it for these rare qualities rather than reduce it to a mere tool for theoretical posing and posturing.

However, you still won’t buy your books from the 3-for-2 section of the bookshop. You are, after all, a very Discerning Reader.