Reading for Pleasure
I’m done with the classics. I’m done forcing myself to read postmodern word salads just because some pretentious types call it avant-garde. And I’m sure as fuck over all things BookTok. Those tools would have you think Lonesome Dove is the pinnacle of literary art.
Spoiler: it isn’t.
I’m not saying there’s something inherently wrong with those books. There are some who genuinely enjoy them. And I believe there are seasons in life in which the esteemed classics can be important in a variety of ways. But let’s not pretend that many of them don’t take work, and at some point, most of us don’t want our precious little reading time to reflect the drudgery of our waking hours.
I’m happy to have read Dostoevsky and Dickens and Hemingway, but I can’t say I ever closed any of those books and said, “Wow, that was a lot of fun.” No, I certainly appreciated the art, the worlds I experienced, and the lessons learned, but I wasn’t necessarily enjoying myself. That’s an important distinction, I think.
Sometimes I think it’s just a flex. We enjoy saying we’ve read a book more than we enjoyed actually reading it. It looks good on a shelf, whether it be at home or on Goodreads. We get to wax intellectual with others who are also pretending.
So, I’m done. I want pulp. I want ridiculous fight scenes, overpowered characters, and crazy magic systems. I want mystery and horror, witches and monsters and wild conspiracies. I don’t need the stories to make a grand statement. This is escapism, pure and simple.
The world is on fire. I just want to enjoy my book before I’m roasted alive. Today, it’s Crone by Keith Rosson.