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Books I Have Not Read

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Growing up casually Catholic, and growing up further by distancing myself from Catholicism equally casually, I saw something truthful about confession. Nothing original, mind you. It just seemed, from a child's point of view, intriguing that by speaking truthfully about one's conduct anxiety could vanish almost magically. 

So it's equally intriguing (but extremely rare) to encounter very intelligent people in print or in person who, almost catholically, are quite up-front about stuff they have or haven't done that's closely related to their chosen work. Take the writer of fiction as an example. To hear one speak - especially a good one, or a well-known one - is to acknowledge almost automatically that this person has read many more books than you. Hell, she's probably read all of them, or at least all of the relevant one. 

Thus one never really wonders what it is this or that author has not read, and it is to be filled with wonder to hear that rare scribe sheepishly admit that he or she has never read Hamlet. Or War and Peace. Or See Spot Run. You assumed they would have. 

Which brings me to this article I just read, wherein a bookish and brainy type spends a few hundred words confessing all the works he either looked past, skimmed, abandoned, or just has not yet gotten to. A good part:

I’ve never read the Proust. (If you want to be cool you have to call it the Proust.) I’ve tried before. I’ll try again. I’ve read the classics illustrated graphic novel. Never read the real thing. It’s particularly shameful because my academic focus for awhile was 20th century European novel. I’ve never read War and Peace. I read Anna Karenina,although it was kind of a half-assed reading effort. But I read it! But no War and Peace. Just too iconic, too daunting, too big. I’ve never felt prepared enough. Ready for the trek. (You know an author has a serious reputation when you get tired just thinking about reading him.) 

Like all the best confessions, this one is simultaneously humbling and confidence-inspiring. The former because it takes some strength to confess a transgression - or in this case, an oversight (or ten) - and the latter because it brings the pros down a few pegs and makes you see, as for the first time, that they're human. 

And thus the title of this blog. 

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