F-F-F-Fiction? F-F-F-Feelings??

A while ago I wrote about how rarely I read fiction. I thought, since I was an English major and actually a high school English teacher way back in the Dark Ages, that perhaps I was an anomaly.

Not so, it seems. A recent survey conducted in the UK among educated, literate folk indicated that while women devoured novels and works of literature at a notable level, only approximately 20 percent of males ever read fiction. Phew, that was a relief.

Male tastes in reading material tend towards the factual, the pragmatic, and the ‘true’ adventure tale. Romances aren’t very big on the list. Surprisingly, perhaps for some, neither is erotica.

I have, of course, read lots of fiction in the past, both modern ‘classics’ and the traditionals. Lots of Joyce, Lawrence, Scott Fitzgerald, dos Passos, Huxley, Orwell, and so on and so on. I enjoyed them all, and there was a time in my teens and 20s when I devoured a quantum quantity of fiction. But, then, it waned on me.

I think I have figured out why. When your average male is a callow youth, he is still attempting to define himself. He’s not sure of what he thinks, feels, aspires towards or even lusts after, so he seeks the interpretations of others and attempts to define himself accordingly. That’s why many young people are so tiresomely intense. I know, I was.

Later life changes, and the second part of my theory is that older males don’t read fiction because fiction demands that a guy must “get in touch with his feelings.” That’s a scary thought. Indeed, it’s outright intimidating. Some movies can make me weepy, so I sure as hell don’t want that to happen when I’m reading. It blurs my eyes. I also don’t want to be shocked. That was why I quit reading John Irving a few years ago. I don’t care which Irving book you’re talking about, but the characters will go on quite nicely and life will be working out, and then you turn the page and some absolutely awful fucking thing happens. I just hate that. It’s too much like real life, and I don’t need reminders.

Anyway, right now I am reading a novel. It’s a very good novel, called The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. Franzen is a fine stylist and a terrific story teller, and I truly envy (even resent since he makes my paltry linguistic renderings seem pathetic) his elegant and highly literate style. I also like Franzen very much because he effectively gave the finger to Oprah a couple of years ago and said he didn’t want The Corrections to go on her list. Albeit not the best career move in terms of sales, but an admirable gesture in the direction of a hideously overrated ‘icon’.

Anyway, I began The Corrections about a year ago. And then I let it wane about half way through and returned to some non-fiction. That dragged on for quite a while, though I always intended finishing the book. Yesterday I picked it up again. I read and I read. I went to bed, and I read and read and was still wide-awake long past normal lights out time. That’s because the book was screwing with me. It was asking me to emote at a time of day in which I don’t want to emote.

Damn ‘feelings.’