Why is that okay?
Because there's more on the Internet - heck, there's more in one single public library - than any one human could ever read in a lifetime.
So we have to be choosy, and we might feel guilty about that. I know I do at times.
What right do I have to say that great writers like Guy de Maupassant, or Mark Twain, or Edgar Allen Poe, or Charles Bukowski, are no longer worthy of my time? Doesn't this go against all ideals of open-minded consideration - keeping an open mind, gathering evidence before passing judgment, and all that?
Well, I came across this issue last year, when I committed to read one short story, one essay, and one poem a day for a year.
It was an interesting intellectual exercise, and one that I very much enjoyed. However, I began to notice something as I was going along.
Some of these authors I read were intensely prolific - and I found myself NOT enjoying their work so much, that the thought of reading more of it filled me with dread.
"If I have to chew my way through one more Francis Bacon essay - " Even though his name is Bacon, his writings are not nearly as enjoyable as that.
I then began to have a distinct problem with Maupassant, and with Twain, and with Poe and Bukowski, among others. I had a distinct visceral dislike to their style of writing, or to who they were as a person when I read their biographies. I didn't like the topics they put forward, perhaps. Or maybe their writing was just downright boring.
To me, reading someone's writing is like getting involved in a conversation with that person, spending time with them. It's a holding of the hands across the centuries.
There's a pretty obvious reason why I haven't read Mein Kampf then, as you can see. Some people's hands I really don't want to hold. Some people who feel compelled to write are people I would feel compelled to excuse myself from deeper conversations and find the literary ladies' room to escape.
Now, am I telling you, dear reader, that you shouldn't hold their hand across the centuries?
Of course not.
Perhaps someone might like Adolf's tome, or feel they should read it as a cautionary tale, to analyze his thinking and perhaps point out where other people might be heading in the same dark direction. That would be a very worthy use of someone's time.
Just not mine.
At the same time, while I was reading these repellant authors, I was reading more - many more - that sparkled like gems. Writers whose names are all but forgotten, but with whom I would prefer to spend time with - sometimes more so than real, living people.
A.A. Milne, Joseph Addison, G.K. Chesterton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, O. Henry, Rudyard Kipling, Anton Chekhov, Saki, Edith Wharton, Jack London, D.H. Lawrence, P.G. Wodehouse - I have tons of kindred spirits. If they were all still alive, I'd throw dinner parties every weekend for them. We'd have conversations the likes of which mere mortals would never know.
So in my mind, it's okay to discriminate. As long as no one's grading me, why not? As long as I've given them a fair chance (some of them have had more than their share of chances), why not choose friends I like?
This week, I'll introduce you to a dear word-friend of mine - Mr. Gilbert Keith Chesterton.
Okay, maybe not the most impressive-looking specimen. I get that.
However, he's one of my most favorite writers ever, ever, ever.
He is both hilarious and thought-provoking in ways you just never see coming. I'll post one of his essays this week, and maybe you'll come to love him as I do. Maybe not - if you don't, that's okay.
For me, it's a deep and abiding love of one wordophile for another...
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