after I turned the last page of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, last month’s novella for the IndieWeb book club, it felt like I needed some time to live into the gifts of the book. as a near-graduate1 that’s what you call a learnaholic9 we can call this a workaholic in its prenatal phase that unwittingly does a three-in-one degree at university, only to burn out in ways you won’t believe, and not be able to claim all those credits on Degrees #2 and #3 in English Literature, I’d be the first to tell you that a book is only as good as its reception. it has to land somewhere for the reader. it really doesn’t matter where “there” is; the writer’s process culminates in a story that is, to the reader, a blank train ticket. the writer feels, thinks, writes, edits, and publishes. the reader, as a consumer of the author’s mind, skips the latter trilogy and is given a free pass to anywhere. and I do mean anywhere.
depending on the genre, it might be important to author and reader both that they’re travelling in the same direction, aiming to arrive at the same end-station once their asynchronous journey runs its course. this is especially relevant in argument-driven non-fiction, where an author sets out to prove a thesis; their arsenal is stocked with weapons of mass persuasion—research and logic chief among them. in fiction2 again depending on genre—a whodunnit thriller leaves little room for doubt as to who did it , things are much more open-ended. it’s not as important where you end up; it’s all in how you get there.
I love both genres. I love reading. if capitalism didn’t exist, I’d be a librarian3 no surprise that I love tales in the magical realism and cosy fantasy genres that have a magical library at the core of their premise! . I’m very much a bibliophile (bibliomaniac, depending where on the spectrum your own relationships with books lie). if the Japanese term tsundoku isn’t a countable noun yet, it should be. the ingredients in teasing me were, from my earliest schooldays, a) being a bookworm, and b) having red hair4 neither of which felt insulting or shameful lol . there’s no such thing for me as ‘preferring’ fiction over non-fiction, or vice versa. it’s like being asked to choose between your kids. I only have one so I’ve not had the experience, but each child is so unique that I doubt it’s easily done. so something isn’t better or worse because it’s fiction or not. it just is.
the reason I’m taking you on this tangent is to say that a review — especially when it comes to fiction — is not really about the book. it’s really all about the reader. sure, there are mechanical reasons why a book ain’t good (according to you, that is; in my experience, there’s always someone who’d disagree!), whether it’s the author’s limited, or perhaps even just avant-garde, mastery of grammar and style, or their spelling5 a lot less forgivable, of course, once the book’s sitting in your palm . possibly, you just didn’t like the content/philosophy/angle. but for the most part, it’s about the stations you land on.
an author might be writing about the existential (but also political) threat to bees, yet reading their work doesn’t have to mean that’s where your train is going. let’s imagine that after reading it, you decide to change your lifestyle and move to the countryside and take up pottery on the beach at sunrise6 good luck with that! . nothing to do with the book (the bees won’t be safer because you don’t have to suffer through rush hour anymore), but it was reading the book that just so happened to spark (or rekindle) a flame in you that may low-key keep you nice and warm (or worried and unsettled, whatever your brain’s workout of choice) for a while, or even grow a fire so bright you’ll need shades.
Louise M. Rosenblatt, in The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work7 free to read online by borrowing it through the Internet Archive , describes this two-way relationship between reader and text. she distinguishes between efferent reading—focusing on what we carry away from the reading, such as information, facts, solutions, or actions—and aesthetic reading, which centres on the feelings, images, and ideas we experience while reading. these sit on a continuum; the same text can be read with either emphasis.
and that’s the spirit in which I like to write book reviews. aesthetically, I suppose8 not a big fan of the term tho; sounds very TikTok-trend like 🤷♀️ . it’s not all that important to me what was said or done—unless it’s that kind of story. I gravitate toward literary fiction because that’s its intended orientation: open-endedness. but science-fiction does the same: it allows me to think about the future and triangulate it with the present day in my own world, in order to think through ramifications and dream about possibilities.
in short, books are man-made hallucinogens. the legal kind (except when they go banning books, then apparently we can’t be trusted with them). they allow you to alter your state of mind without taking anything.
footnotes
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that’s what you call a learnaholic9 we can call this a workaholic in its prenatal phase that unwittingly does a three-in-one degree at university, only to burn out in ways you won’t believe, and not be able to claim all those credits on Degrees #2 and #3 ↩
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again depending on genre—a whodunnit thriller leaves little room for doubt as to who did it ↩
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no surprise that I love tales in the magical realism and cosy fantasy genres that have a magical library at the core of their premise! ↩
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neither of which felt insulting or shameful lol ↩
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a lot less forgivable, of course, once the book’s sitting in your palm ↩
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good luck with that! ↩
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free to read online by borrowing it through the Internet Archive ↩
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not a big fan of the term tho; sounds very TikTok-trend like 🤷♀️ ↩
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we can call this a workaholic in its prenatal phase ↩