There is much continuous cultural conversation surrounding reading and contemporary reading habits. Often, the reading behaviours of young people are given imposed labels. You may prefer to read romance or fantasy books, and you are accused of perpetuating anti-intellectualism. I repeat, for dramatic effect, anti-intellectualism! You may be a quick reader, finishing book after book after book, and you’re accused of over-consumption. You read literary fiction (or, strangely, books with liberal politics) that is seen as ‘cool’ in today’s society, and you’re labelled ‘performative’.
Some of these labels are self-inflicted too. Young women everywhere call themselves ‘thought daughters’ and ‘literary it girls’ for engaging with literature. They make reading lists and call them ‘personal curriculums’. While there is nothing wrong with having a bit of fun, making a reading list for yourself and calling it a curriculum to add a touch of whimsy to your life, the amount of labels and sub-classes contemporary readers are subjected to (and subject themselves to) is astounding.
Rather than focusing on readers’ behaviour and habits, perhaps considering the most memorable books they have read, what really impacted them and what they took pieces from, might provide a more accurate perception of them as people.
As I examine these labels, I want to take a second to strip reading back to what it really is — consuming media. It is, in theory (and my humble opinion), no different from watching TV shows or films, or listening to music. The fact that a person reads does not inherently reveal anything about that person. Okay, they read, and? What they choose to read might tell you a little more about them, or if they have a special interest — a love of a genre or style of book that they return to repeatedly. Still, plenty of people simply read books they’ve heard good things about, or that looked good to them in the bookshop, in a manner not too different from someone who scrolls through the Netflix catalogue to select a film. In contrast to being a casual film-watcher, however, being a casual book-reader comes with a societal expectation of virtue, intelligence, or self-improvement. People scrutinise not only whether someone reads, but whether they are reading the “right” book for the “right” reasons, whereas this doesn’t happen as much with film and music.
The constant criticism against the current popularity of Romantasy novels, I find, is reflective of this. Online, these novels and their readers are faced with all kinds of judgements, including calling this popularity “anti-intellectual.” Where does the expectation that reading must be an intellectual act come from? Reading as a whole is burdened by the belief that it must be an act to self improve, while for as long as novels have existed they have served to entertain, as well as to educate or instruct. There is no shame in consuming media simply to be entertained.
Moreover, where does the suggestion that a romantasy novel cannot have moving dialogue, memorable messages, and powerful symbolism come from? Fantasy universes, regardless of whether their plot centralises romance or not, often carry social and political parallels with our own world. For a book to be impactful it does not have to have been written 100 years ago, contain absolutely no trace of romance or sexual relationships, or take place in modern times and be called ‘literary fiction’. And if it truly has no intellectual impact but functions only to entertain, I ask you, what is the problem with that?
Something also needs to be said about the ‘anti-intellectualism’ commentary being directed at genres whose readership is predominantly by women. Plenty of action-adventure novels, with a majority male readership, primarily function only to entertain just as romantasy novels do. However, we rarely question the intelligence of these readers. This is similar to how female music fans, or ‘fangirls,’ who spend hours queuing for front-row concert spots and are loud about their joy, are called insane and childish, while male sports fans who display violent and rigorous reactions to their teams’ performances are just deemed passionate.
That is not to say men are not victims of these sub-classes and labels. I find that the one label in particular that is directed at men all too often is ‘performative.’ We’ve heard it before – the tote-bag-carrying, ring-wearing, matcha-drinking, liberal-politics-reading ‘performative man’. This figure has become so ubiquitous in contemporary culture that, behold, it has its own Wikipedia entry: “[an archetype that] generally involves performative displays of progressivism, feminism, and emotional sensitivity. Examples of such displays include reading books by feminist writers.”¹ The implication is that the qualities that make a man performative are associated with womanhood; he performs a feminine or feminist identity to attract women. While, of course, performative feminism may exist, strangers cannot reliably infer it from a tote bag and a copy of a feminist novel.
Beneath this stereotype lies a suspicion: the idea that the only reason we dress, act, and read the way we do is through imitation of others and to appeal to others. I dislike the way ‘performative’ is used as an accusation in this way. So many times have I seen something I liked in somebody else and adapted it to my life. Most human behaviours, I promise, are learned from other people. Imitation and influence are fundamental to how humans develop. We borrow from people we admire and from books, films, fashion, music, and culture. What are we but collages of the people and media we like?
The special part is that no collage is exactly the same because so many different pieces come into play to make us what we are, and no two pairs of eyes will find the exact same meaning in the same piece of art. Individuality isn’t the absence of influence; it’s the unique combination of influences each person assembles. That’s why I struggle to see the harm in somebody reading a book with a secondary, subtler motive. So what? Whatever first drew them to it–curiosity, aesthetics, status–they still chose to read it. They still, hopefully, took something from it. Mixed motives do not make an experience any less real.
There are trends, takes, opinions, judgements and labels about reading that will come and go forever. Unfortunately, there are judgements and labels that we can’t quite avoid that come with all acts we may choose to do publicly, reading or otherwise. Fortunately, however, we can choose to disregard them. There is no value in prioritising how others perceive how you read. There is value, though, in sharing and having meaningful conversations about reading with like-minded others. I like reading from a variety of genres for many reasons, one is that I enjoy being able to have discussions about books with different people. I like hearing what they think of books and offering my own sentiments.
Something special about humanity is that we get to make art (including entertaining art) and share it. Sometimes we make it together, and often consume and talk about it together. Indeed, there is beauty in the solitary enjoyment of art, too, but sharing it is one of my favourite aspects. We do it all together.
Reading is not special. You are not special for reading. But what you take away from what you have read is special and specific to you, and the ability to share it with someone else is wondrous. The books we read make us, not how we read them.