On Reading, Writing, and World War III
Escapism and The Rebelliousness of Joy
Why do you read? Not why do people, in general, read… why do you?
For me, I divide reading into a few distinct reasons.
Edification: I want to understand something in this world.
Entertainment: I want to be amused and distracted.
Enlightenment: I want to understand something in myself.
Escape: I want to disconnect from reality for a while.
I fully believe the perfect book accomplishes all four of those. I’ve never found it but I’m convinced it exists for me. Or it will. Maybe it hasn’t been written yet. That’s alright. I can be patient. It won’t be the same book for every person but I’m confident that somewhere it does or will exist.
Even lacking that perfect book, all of my reading can be grouped into one or several of those categories, regardless of genre.
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi: Entertainment, Escape
The Power by Naomi Alderman: Enlightenment
The Legendborn Series by Tracy Deonn: Enlightenment, Edification, Entertainment
Radium Girls by Kate Moore: Edification
Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff: Edification
For Whom The Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn: Enlightenment, Entertainment, Escape
Book Lovers by Emily Henry: Entertainment, Escape
Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson: Education, Entertainment
I could do this for pages and pages; every single book I’ve read. Even books that don’t top my list offered me something. If it can’t do any of those four things, it is doomed to be added to my Did Not Finish list.
So if that’s why I read, if that’s what I’m getting out of all the books I surround myself with, how do modern events sculpt my reading habits? I’m speaking here as an American, a millennial, and a very tired mom. We are balanced on a precipice for what feels like the millionth time. The Middle East is in chaos, arguing over lines in the sand and which god is more right than the others. The United States, the United Nations, and vast swaths of the European Union have been loading up their tanks and their bombs and their guns in case we need to respond with bloodshed and mourning. I’ve been here before. I can’t know what is to come. None of us can. But we can look back to the precedents set in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Kosovo, Kuwait and all the other times we played world police in the desert sand.
The outlook is bleak and the spiral is calling to many of us. It would be easy to let our knees buckle and just sink into the void, spinning round and round until we are numb. There’s a siren song coming from the sand, begging us to stick our heads in it. I want to stay informed. I need to stay informed. But I can’t afford to be overwhelmed. My children need me to stay level. I can do that scared but how do I stay informed without getting overwhelmed? Books. Music. Art. Creativity.
I read books that provide me an escape. That’s the goal right now. Currently, I am pulled toward books that fully immerse me; books that feel as real as the bed I’m rotting in while reading. Again, what makes a book a good break from reality is subjective. For me, I need good character development, rich character relationships, detailed world-building, and a compelling problem to be solved. I like escaping into books that walk that fine line between literary fiction and other genres. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy other types of books. I do. But the best escapism comes from mega-series of huge worlds with tomes of lore and character backstories.
Oh. And Happy Endings. My favorite escapist titles always have a happy ending. It’s not required by anyone but me but after all the stress of whatever conflict the characters must overcome, I want everyone to end up with their soul mate, to have recovered the kingdom from the evil villain, to have vanquished the rebellion, or to have successfully sailed away from the land that would see them suffer.
I need the characters to do the things I may or may not be able to do in real life. I might not escape whatever consequences may come of this “maybe-a-war”/ “maybe-a-conflict” / “definitely-a-dick-comparing-contest.” Few of us will when all is said and done. All we can hope is that whatever this becomes is brief and the impact minimal. But that’s why I need my escapism to come with a built-in happy ending. I need to remember the feeling of hope that everything turns out okay in the end.
Now on to the authors who read this newsletter. Yes, you need to keep writing if you can. If you are feeling guilty about continuing to “doodle on your silly little stories,” (your stories are not silly…unless that’s by design in which case, carry on) please know that we need it. We need the distraction. We need the immersion. We need a moment where our brains don’t have to think about maps with black dots, and drones with big bombs, and whether it is our sons and daughters and children, our nieces and nephews and niblings that will be fed to the war hawks instead of our brothers and sisters and high school friends like last time.
Artists, writers included, are the harbingers of hope. With our creativity, we show people an alternative. We show people that what they are feeling is felt by many. Even the sad works that I tend to reject in times like this are important for others. Seeing their pain reflected back at them in the story, the song, the canvas, and the sculpture they just consumed is a comfort. Seeing that everything works itself out is a comfort. Seeing that life continues before, during, and after the travesty of war is a comfort. We need you to keep creating. We, the creators, have to keep tapping our creativity - even if our works are coming out a little darker than before.
Agents, publishers, and editors. Yes, your job is still vital. Your job is the dealing of hope. That’s what books give us. Yes, even the sad, literary stories where all the copies have water-stained pages and smell faintly of salt because everyone cries at the end. The stories of travesties and tragedies fuel some folks during this time. “It could be worse,” it reminds us. The saccharin romances and ooey-gooey, lovey-dovey books are just as important as they’ve ever been. They remind us that we are all worthy of love and that we are worth finding someone who loves us as we are, not for how we could be*. The space cowboys, the intergalactic politics, the discovery of new planets, and the final frontier are reminders to keep looking forward, to keep looking at the stars and know they are waiting for us. It is in your power to keep feeding us, the people slogging through yet another goddamn war, the material that keeps us both tethered and free.
*Sidebar; if you’re hankering for a book that discusses the value of romance in the wider literary community please, I’m begging you, go read Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady. Her handling of romance versus other genres is beautifully done.
Illustrators, singers, songwriters, poets, painters, wood-carvers, sculptors, stamp-makers, fiber artists, fashion designers - if you create you are vital and you don’t have to feel guilty creating what you can while parts of the world are blowing themselves to pieces. We create in a billion mediums but what we all truly work in is hope. Art is hope. Art is resistance. Hope is resistance. As we feel unseen, unheard, and ignored by our governments (I’m speaking to the broader world here - feeling ignored by our elected officials is not unique to the United States at this moment in history) we still have to live our lives. Mouths still need feeding, and laundry still needs swapping over to the dryer. Yep, I’ll wait while you go switch that real quick.
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^--^---'--^ `-'`---^-^--^--^---'--'Experiencing moments of dopamine undiluted with guilt does not mean you aren’t paying attention or that you do not care. It means that you have not yet let the hope die entirely.
You’re allowed to be entertained.
You’re allowed to smile.
You’re allowed to make jokes: dark, light, or a shade of vermillion. It’s fine.
You’re allowed to create.
You’re allowed to write.
You’re allowed to be inspired.
You’re allowed to think of things that aren’t the state of the world.
If this whole essay felt a little doom and gloom, I get it. So many unknowns and, like I said, we’ve been here before without a world war erupting. But I’ve always tried to write the books I want to read. Today I wrote the essay I needed to read.
This one was for me. I hope it helped you too.