Already Read 'Em, An Experiment

This is not my bookshelf. This is not my house. This is not my to be read pile. But it could be if I let it. Bibliophiles are a dangerous lot, always pulling in new books around us. We can't wait to read the next book, before we are even finished the current book.

There is a great scene/line in the remake of the movie "Cape Fear," where Max Cady (played by Robert De Niro) is getting out of prison. When he is sent to prison, he can't read. So Nick Nolte isn't worried about Cady realizing that he let him hang, so to speak. But Cady/De Niro teaches himself to read. And he reads like crazy. And figures shit out. And along the way he develops a collection of books, which he is leaving in his prison cell as he walks to be released. So he is walking out with the guards and another guard calls out:

"Hey Cady, what about your books?"

"Already read 'em."

The ultimate utilitarian. They have served their purpose. Later, bitches. A bibliophile, Cady is not.

There is a funny thing about my bookshelves and my books. I haven't already read them all. I'm a tangential reader--I'll have books lined up to read next and some stray thought from something I am reading runs me down a mental rabbit hole, I pick up a new book and the book that was next in line gets backburnered. Rinse, repeat.

So I own some kickass books that I haven't read. And it is time to read them. Because some of them are beyond classic. And they are already here, living with me, untapped.

Here is the experiment: no new books. No new books so that I get to, and stick to, reading some of what is here. My goal is to go for a year. That would be some shit. But I will try six months, and then take the experiment's pulse. The goal is not to read all of my unread books. That would take more than a year. The goal is to spend the next six months to a year reading only books I already own. No new books.

But it hardly limits my reading. I am a slow reader. I am not saying I will get through this list, or that I won't modify it by swapping out one book for another off the shelf. But with a little thought, here is what an opening salve:

Fiction

"Ulysses," James Joyce
"The Old Man and the Sea," Ernest Hemingway (haven't read since high school)
"Far Tortuga," Peter Matthiessen
"Cathedral," Raymond Carver (short stories, have read a few of them)
"The Once and Future King," T.H. White (have read part)
"V.," Thomas Pynchon

"The Sound and the Fury," William Faulkner

Non-Fiction

"The Spell of the Sensuous," David Abram
"The Poetics of Space," Gaston Bachelard
"Travels with Herodotus," Ryszard Kapuscinski
"Forests," Robert Pogue Harrison
"The Golden Bough," Sir James George Frazier

A formidable list. I am first finishing Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian," and Tony Horwitz's "Confederates in the Attic," before embarking, but buying no new books begins today, Sept. 15, 2014. Vegas odds aren't good that I can complete this experiment; that I won't cave like a book junkie and have a book binge, but I am going to give it a shot.

The book selling industry may feel a slight pinch. And I guess there are at least a couple reasons behind this experiment. One would be not spending money I don't have to spend, when the riches are already here. It frees up more cash for craft beer :)

But I think the bigger point is that reading isn't always about reading the next thing or the new thing. If your mind is actively engaging what it is encountering, and adding its own thoughts and depth, then the right stuff finds it and even more mundane reading (which this list is not) can turn into big stuff. Sometimes it is the reader, not the book. Books are the stimulus, not the result. You are the result, what you do with or from or because of the stimulus/book.

And that isn't to reduce books, literature, or art to just being stimuli. But that is in effect what it is. A painting is experienced by a viewer, a book by a reader, who reacts to it. Who takes it in. Who studies it. Who feels it. Who relates it to their own experience. And in that respect, art, to the viewer, the reader, the audience, is to be experienced, to stimulate us. To make us think; to make us cry; to make us laugh; to make us create; to make us question; to make us wonder; to make us love.

We have to change ourselves. I have to change myself. The lesson, perhaps, is to look at what is around me, the things I already have, rather than continually looking for new and next. And I am excited for the books that are here.

And why not start with a literary mountain to climb? Next up, Ulysses. Let's talk, JJ.

Off the Shelf: "A Moveable Feast"

Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast," will never be put in a box in my house. I keep it on a bookshelf where I can get to it or at least see it as a reminder. I'm not given to re-reading books particularly, but I like it as a visual prompt, something to kickstart my cranium.

Writing is a solitary (read lonely) pursuit, as is running and a lot of the things I find myself drawn to. At the same time I am drawn to chilling with like-minded folk and being a part of a creative community. That's part of the reason the Rise Up Runners group has had such a big impact on me, my pursuits, circle of friends, etc. When I can share experiences and accomplishments with and of others--finishing a marathon, a PR, finding a new trail, stumbling upon a sublime scene--it somehow deepens the whole deal.

That's harder to come by in writing, being able to find that sense of shared, creative community. Those folks who, by their own writing and inquiries and commitment and curiosity and enthusiasm, also push/encourage others to do the same. "A Moveable Feast" tracks Hemingway (he wrote it, so I guess more accurately he tracks himself) in Paris in the 1920s after he's made a BIG decision to kick journalism to the curb and dedicate himself to writing his own truth, his own art. How many people come to a point in their lives where they opt not to make that tough choice? Imagine all the stuff high school and college English students wouldn't have to read if Hemingway had not made that call ;)

Hemingway describing Paris and the other writers and cats around him is eye opening for anyone who has only come to know F. Scott Fitzgerald by reading Gatsby or Ezra Pound by scratching their head through the Cantos. H (we'll call him "H" to save time) runs into them, parties with them, talks shop with them, those who have made the call to make the attempt to be writers and who would all end up being widely studied and read by all of us that follow. They became their own creative community. H describes them and the whole experience with the irreverence with which we talk about our own peeps. Refreshing and inspiring for a 20-something wanna-be writer who picks up the book just after graduating as an English/philosophy student, who has always thought about writing and has only know the Paris-in-the-20s luminaries through their books an people writing about their books.

I like thinking about them on the ground floor, as they went about their business. The same as I like thinking about the Founding Fathers of our country in the way Joseph Ellis does in "Founding Brothers"--as cats that wake up in the morning and go about their business and make decisions the way any of us do. They had a conviction that those decisions and actions might amount to something, but no guarantees.

So when I wake up and knock back some coffee and contemplate what I will do with the morning or the day or the weekend, I look over at the bookshelf and I catch a glimpse of "A Moveable Feast." Perspective. A kick in the arse. The rest is up for grabs.