Book Cover Lust and the Writing Life
To adapt lyrics from a popular song,
“some drink to remember, some to forget.”
Most readers share a precious, yet complex, relationship with books, marked by joy, guilt, discovery, and so much more. Dear Troubled Reader, written by Suresh Menon, is an advice column on all things literature and language. It addresses questions that readers have, from the simple to the profound, treating every question with equal seriousness. You might ask: How do I begin reading? Or is writing a mirror into the writer's world? Expect recommendations from the columnist, remedies for ‘bad’ reading habits, advice on navigating the inevitable reading slump, and much more.
We hope this column becomes a space of hope and companionship for you, the reader. A place that brings you back to your bookshelves with renewed love for reading, greater curiosity about languages, and the desire to discover new voices and fresh literature.
Send your questions via email to editor@the-hyphen.in, or leave a comment below.
Do we read books to understand the world or to escape the world we already understand?
Indrakumar HB
It could be both, but pinning it down could take away the joy which is a key element. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ theory of reading or writing. Think of alcohol. To adapt lyrics from a popular song, “some drink to remember, some to forget.” Books may not help you understand the world, but they might help you understand your world. Binary classification (“this or that” and nothing else) is misleading and unhelpful. You could argue that understanding the world is one way of escaping the world we thought we understood, so maybe it’s the same thing!
Sometimes I buy books just because they look pretty and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Does that make me vain?
Samyukhta H.
That’s as good a reason to buy a book as any. I myself sometimes have three or four editions of the same book because I have bought them at different times and loved the new cover, typeface, or simply the ‘feel’. Sometimes I even buy books I know I am not going to read just because the cover is attractive – or strange! Or best of all, has been illustrated by the writer herself. Daisy Rockwell’s recent delightful book on translations, “Mixed Metaphors” has an illustration by her on the cover. As to the question of vanity, it is vain only if you feel compelled to visit your hair stylist or get yourself a new dress just to buy the eye-pleasing book in eye-pleasing style.
As someone who writes for their job, how do I keep my work writing or “content” separate from the writing that is more joyful and personal?
Juilee Kamble
Personally, I would make sure that there is very little difference between the two so you can enjoy both. But for technical reasons this might not be possible. Think of novelists and poets who were professionals in other fields that required writing: T S Eliot (banker), Franz Kafka (insurance clerk), Charles Bukowski (postal service), Harper Lee (airline ticket agent). Two of the finest writers of our times, George Saunders and Vivek Shanbhag held down technical jobs while writing their early stories. Keeping the writings separate will come with practice – it might possibly be like playing three different formats of cricket, conscious of what is uniquely required for each. But that may be just my inner (and outer) cricket writer speaking!
Indian authors generally have a bad reputation, in the sense that their writing is not as good as certain western authors, and since we hold everyone to that western standard, how do you improve Indian writing or how do you discover good Indian authors?
P.
I don’t know where you get this idea of “bad reputation”, because it’s not true. Nor do we hold everyone to the western standard – that’s a colonial mindset. As for Indian writers being “not as good as certain western authors”, this can be said of all professions – medicine, IT, garbage collection, politics, acting, mattress testing and so on. You can’t compare “in general” (implying “most”) with “a certain.” That’s comparing a large portion with a small fraction. There are great, good, bad, indifferent, terrible practitioners in every profession. The quest to discover good Indian writers is understandable, though (and maybe even noble). You can read the best in your language, or in translations. One of the missions of Hyphen is to help you do exactly that, while making good writing accessible to a larger audience.
