Literary snobbery

No one likes it. Everyone knows it's pretentious, and whoever says they enjoyed War & Peace is a bullshitter. I've never read it, but that's because I'm smart enough to know that it would be painful.

I work at a bookstore here in my current location of New Zealand. It's something I've done before; I like books. I always have. The minute I learned how to read with ease (after a while spent apparently vehemently denying the possibilty that I'd ever be able to), I never stopped. Books have always been such a pleasure. I think reading is such a treasure to the introvert because a good book has the power to take you out of your own mind for once, pull you away from that constant inward focus and take you somewhere entirely separate for a while. It's blessed respite from constant self-absorption.

And not only that, but when you're a kid, reading can even earn you tiny pizzas. Yes, you read that correctly. I don't think they do this anymore, but Pizza Hut used to have a reading program for kids, where for every certain number of books you read during the summer you'd get a personal pan pizza, these adorable baby pizzas. My mom used to take us to Pizza Hut and I'd often get my little pizza reward for my reading habits, while my brother and sister looked on jealously. Every time they'd ask why they didn't get a pizza, and my mom would tell them to read some books. But I guess tiny pizzas weren't inspiration enough for them to start a reading habit.

I used to love going to the library with my mom. She's always been as crazy about books as me so we went there frequently. I distinctly remember once going to a certain library that was very near to the grocery store we went to, and my mom and I taking our sweet time picking out new books while my brother and sister stood by the door, wearing expressions of extreme boredom and impatience. They couldn't be bothered having a look around. Not even for tiny pizzas!

But I digress. The point is that I love books and the way a good story can be an escape, teach you something about yourself, or even change your life. This is what they do and this is their beauty. I'm of the belief that different books can touch different people in different ways. It all depends on the person and where they are in life. And that's why I do not subscribe to the notion that certain books are more valuable than others (you know, besides the obvious pieces of crap that enrich no one, but I actually don't think there are too many of these).

This brings me to my story of a recent encounter with literary snobbery. I work with an older woman whose gray spiky hair and severe glasses give her a hard appearance that match her attitude. She is a literature snob. And a bitch.

I was talking to another coworker of mine, who fortunately seems to be the bitch's antithesis. I said to her that I wished the bookstore stocked Pat Conroy because he is one of my favorite authors. Spiky-hair snob, who was a few feet away and not involved in the conversation, piped up and actually said, “Pat Conroy is for sloppy people.”

Uh...hey??

It's times like those that remind me that I need to be more assertive at times, because all I did was rephrase her statement as a question. She was kind of reluctant to repeat it, but she did, and added, “You know, his writing's just.....emotional.” Ah yes, emotions. Everybody knows those have always been shunned from true literature. This is where I should have said, “Yes, how right you are. Now, I've been wondering what abrasive old hags like to read, so who are some of your favorite authors?” Instead all I could manage was a is-that-so? expression and walked away. I was just shocked that anyone could be that rude. In an attempt to avoid jumping to judgements, I thought she may not have heard me say that I liked Pat Conroy, and just heard us mention his name. But in fact, I've mentioned him to her before as someone I read, so the bitch did know! And here I thought these kiwis were supposed to be so friendly. I walked around the store the rest of the day so mad I could just BLOG about it.

She's thrown subtler snobbery at me before, like the time I asked about Sherman Alexie and she responded with, “Oh we don't stock him, he doesn't really have a readership here...” with barely veiled condescension that was so clearly saying, “Ugh, he's so American, not to our more refined tastes at all.”

To me, stuff like this smacks of such phoniness. When a person's list of their favorite books on facebook looks like a stiff compendium of required school reading, I just want to say, ok, but what are your real favorite books? Cut the crap. It's a front. Some people use books to define an image for themselves just like clothes and jewelry.

I say (and obviously this is the last word on the matter) that if a book speaks to you in some way, then it has value. It doesn't matter what Harold Bloom would say about it. He's just an old white guy, anyway.