I can’t read the way I used to

by theworm · January 17, 2015

Just had an interesting Twitter conversation with @mrdavidwhitley about Moby Dick, based on a blog post he shared, supposedly about someone’s time spent on a commercial whaling vessel. I got that it was referencing Herman Melville’s classic book, but hadn’t realised it was actually the book! In my defence, after giving up at the third paragraph I instinctively hit the ‘End’ key to read the last paragraph, to try to get the gist of what happened – not noticing the tiny scroll bar on the right, which would have given away how massively long the post was. I genuinely thought it was a long-form article about the guy in the photo that sounded interesting, and responded in kind. Only just had another look at the article now and worked it all out. Feel like a right tit.

Moby Dick

I remember reading Moby Dick at school, but that was so long ago now, I can’t remember anything more about it that you couldn’t get from a synopsis. Reading this ‘article’, that first passage alone was like trying to canoe up a white water rapid. Something clicked inside my brain and went ‘Nah’ and I skipped to the end. Is this because I assumed it was an article, perhaps three screens long at most? Is this because I’ve become so used to my reading diet being made up of ‘short form’ articles in magazines and websites, with which you can ‘get the gist’ of them from the first and last paragraphs and decide whether you want to read the whole thing? Is this because, again assuming it was an actual article, the overly dense writing of the author made me think “You’re trying too hard mate. Just tell me about your whaling story, because I am actually interested! Give up the flowery nonsense, you’re not writing a book!”. After all the title is “The Time I Spent On A Commercial Whaling Ship Totally Changed My Perspective On The World”, not “Moby Dick”. Or would that have been too obvious?
Ultimately I got as far as “Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon.” and gave up. It was unreadable to me. Yet as a child I read it. I read Lord Of The Flies, I read Shakespeare, I read (no, devoured) The Lord Of The Rings trilogy in two weeks. I was ahead of everyone else at primary school for reading level, and I kept reading well into my University years. But now, my brain comes to a screeching halt with anything it deems too ‘difficult’.

I don’t think this is limited to myself either. Most people read for pleasure. Reading something “of its time” like Moby Dick is work. We lead such intense, pressured lives that I guarantee most of us who still read, want to ‘chill’ with a book, not expend too much effort. We want to easily get inside the head of the protagonist, become caught up in their struggles, gasp at the twists and turns of the story. Entertainment.

I wrote POWERLESS and KILLING GODS to be more ‘literary’ science fiction books. I wanted to focus on character first, within a story second. I wanted to dive into these people’s heads and get to know them, understand their motivations. I didn’t want to re-create Arrow or The Flash TV shows in book form, no matter how much I enjoy watching them. I wanted something more meaningful than those slickly scripted shows, with their emotional ‘beats’ carefully placed throughout to keep you gripped. It’s entertainment, and of course I want readers to enjoy my books, but I want to write about something deeper. Something more along the lines of Watchmen. Heroes with faults; ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances. This does mean my books aren’t “airport novels” (although I don’t mean that disparagingly) that crack along with short description, high action and snappy dialogue – much like a TV show. They may be a bit more “work” than some readers are expecting, but I can manage them, and I can’t get three paragraphs into Moby Dick!

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to read those classic books again. I wouldn’t say my reading skills have devolved, they have just modified themselves to fit the types of articles and stories you see in magazines and online. At the same time I want to write something that isn’t just the novel equivalent of a Transformers movie. Does that mean my books fit some uncomfortable gap in the market that doesn’t exist? Are they too detailed for Superhero SF, but not meaningful enough for literary SF? Should I experiment writing either side of this writing style? Do I still feel like a tit for not recognising Moby Dick?

Not half.