The Trouble with Literary Snobbery is that You Don't Know Who You're Talking to...
AKA a post about what happens when I get defensive about my reading.
I am a literary snob when I get defensive. It's not pretty. It's the result of being raised by people who were proud readers, going back at least two generations, but people who were also considered uneducated by their peers. I have the speaking voice of someone raised by blue collar workers and by grandparents who didn't even graduate from high school, but I have the literary background of someone with a Phd in literature because everyone in my childhood family inhaled books like they were oxygen, from pulp fiction to classics, often interchangeably.
While I do have a B.A. in Secondary Education with an emphasis in English, I have only ever met two people who know more about Shakespeare than I do, one had a graduate degree and the other was a college professor. I went to see my first Shakespeare play, Henry the IV, Part 1, at the age of ten. I read all of his works by the age of 24, and some of them I read on repeat, plus I taught classes about him to homeschool students, studied his life, and have a strange love for The Tragedy of Macbeth. After decades of study, I can say that I love some Shakespeare plays, but I strongly dislike others. This is both based on personal preference and the way I see misogynistic and racist themes played out in some of his writing.
I was expected by my family to read adult and children's literature, pulp and classics. I read David Copperfield by Charles Dickens the summer I turned ten, and Sense and Sensibility by Austen the year I turned twelve. I read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books at age ten and most of the Wizard of Oz books at age eleven, so it was always a mixed bag of books, and I continued (and still continue) to read picture books meant for younger readers because I think they are as powerful in their prose as anything written by Shakespeare.
I have strong feelings about the books I read, but I especially have strong opinions about the books which are touted by so many people as "real" literature.
For example, I've read Anna Karenina twice and although I have friends who declare it to be unrivaled literature and crow about the Biblical themes, the justice, the beauty of it; all I see is the oppressive, abusive societal expectations, a woman making a single mistake from which she can never be redeemed in the eyes of that society, a suicide, and "innocent" children raised to know nothing of her, setting them up to potentially repeat the cycle. The hope everyone else sees at the end of the novel is something I see as false hope, or a hope based on a lie as the truth is pushed down and ignored in a way that doesn't really speak to redemption or good in a way that I recognize as being Biblical. I just can't like this book, although I know many people who do, and I will admit the prose is pretty.
So, like I said, I have strong feelings and opinions.
I read between 100 and 200 new books a year, some unreported via Goodreads or any other place because I generally don't review books I don't like unless they are the "good for you" books, or the books claimed to be "real literature."
In addition to new books, I reread books I love.
Every year, I read books considered classics. Every year, I read poetry. Recently, I've been upping my graphic novel reads. Every year, I read books some might consider "too young" for me, and every year, I read books that are definitely considered pulp. I like nearly all of them.
This is all a long rabbit trail to say, I have a leg to stand on when it comes to literary snobbery. I've been there. I've done it. When someone questions my tastes in books or wonders "IF" I could possibly have read something, I feel my spine stiffen. I get ready to spit and growl while the true literary snobs speak in eloquent circles.
I know what my voice sounds like. I know I've grown up using colloquialisms and discussing things in conversations full of interruptions. I know I give into a casual, stream-of-thought style while writing, and yet...
None of these casual habits mean I do not read.
I was raised to treat books like oxygen, water, and food. I was raised to read from lists of pulp and lists of classics. The people who taught me were uneducated by literary snob standards, but they devoured books most college students never read.
When I get backed into a corner by someone wondering "IF" I could possibly have read something, I think of my parents, I think of my grandparents, I think of my own bookshelves, and again, the spit-and-growl literary snob that is within me starts to unsheathe her claws.
I have read all the written works of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. I've read Malcom X. I read Uncle Tom's Cabin at the age of seventeen because I wanted to understand both the historical significance, the reference to it in The King and I, and the controversy about it. I read Roots by Alex Haley over the course of two years (I had to check it out from the library three times). I've read The Bluest Eye. I've read Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street. I've read Plato's Republic, I've read the Iliad and the Odyssey. I've read Fahrenheit 451, The Foundation Trilogy, I, Robot, Dandelion Wine, Ender's Game, 1984, Brave New World, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, The Giver, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, and other "classics" of science fiction and fantasy literature.
I could go on and on. I've read books on writing, books on grammar, books of essays. I read in nearly every genre, fiction and nonfiction.
So, if you would like to talk to me about books, please ask, "Hey, have you read this?" and don't say, "I read this book the other day. I wonder IF it's POSSIBLE if you have read it," or worse, "I read this wonderful book. I DOUBT you have ever read it."
If you can't hear the difference between those three statements, it is unlikely I will be able to talk books with you aka discuss the literary merits of the volume of work you have recently read.
Also, I believe in the original, old-fashioned, Middle English origin definition of literature, from the Latin "litteratura" meaning writing, grammar, learning, or as Merriam-Webster states it as the first definition: "writings in prose or verse."
Yes, you can go on to say that literature means: "writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest." This is also from Merriam-Webster, as an extended definition of the word. But tell me, if you read The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, did it not have permanent effect on you and speak to universal truths?
Literature, to me, is written work, spoken work, narrative, non-fiction, dramatic, poetic, and lyrical. Literature includes audio books and graphic novels. Literature includes picture books and the scrawls of young children learning how to write.
I love books. I don't love all books. But, please, don't ever doubt my ability to read "hard" classics or talk smack about my favorite genres.
If you don't read because others have trash-talked your favorite books or stories, don't let that stop you. Pick up the books you like. Read the stories you love. Browse your local library or bookshop until you find something you think you might like, and then don't let anyone judge you about it. Listen to audiobooks. Read graphic novels and comics. Read the classics, or don't. Just read.
And, if you want to, pop by in the comments and tell me about it (without throwing shade).
Happy Summer Reading! Read what you love!