The Dark Side of Books About Books

Andi Miller

Books about books are a special treat for finicky readers the world over. I know, I read the blog posts about them all the time, usually with popcorn, a soda, and a pen and paper to add titles to my own wishlist. Until recently I thought it was nearly impossible for a book lover to dislike a book about books. As it turns out, I was right. It is nearly impossible to dislike a book about books, not completely impossible. Occasionally a book about books sneaks under the radar and surprises even the most ardent readers with its mediocrity and by being more than a wee bit maddening. Such is the case with Mikita Brottman’s The Solitary Vice: Against Reading.

The title alone was enough to make me doubtful before I ever flipped a page. Against reading? AGAINST READING! In her opening pages Brottman asserts that reading can be bad. I know, it threw me for a loop, too. As a teenager, she read so voraciously that she cut herself off from society at large damaging her ability to function in the world and wield her underdeveloped social skills. With her experience as evidence, she goes on to challenge the assumption that reading is good. Essentially, she thinks that reading without discerning, that piping the reader’s mantra of self-improvement and emotional richness is more or less propaganda. Reading is not good for everyone and will not magically make a person smarter, healthier, or better.

Yes, fine, the analytical philosophizing part of me that studied ideology in graduate school agrees. Brottman’s assertion is comparable to “the myth of the American dream” as it is called in certain circles. While the belief that anyone can make anything of their situation by pure will and ambition is a good motivator, the truth is that it just does not happen for everyone. Same with reading: just because someone picks up a book it does not mean that they will magically become smarter and more well-rounded.

But a bigger part of me, my own ideological center, says, “But it sure can’t hurt.” It is the very same part of me that still believes in the American dream. When I was tutoring at the university I often felt under-qualified, especially in the early days, to tell anyone what was wrong (or right) with their writing. I suspected that a band of armed men in riot gear might burst through the door at any moment and arrest me for impersonating an English teacher. Then a wise professor with a special gift for healing the graduate student psyche said, “Even if you haven’t had a great session with a student, she is better for having had you read her work. You have knowledge and expertise to share, and while it might not always be perfect, the students are better off for having your eyes run over their work.” Likewise, I think if a person opens a book to explore her imagination or even run face first into some new ideas, she is better for it even if in a very small way.

I suppose my biggest quibble with Brottman is that she continually contradicts herself and generally shoots herself in the foot. While she makes a play to resist the idea that reading has an inherent social value, she goes on to discuss why reading is valuable. I could just be a bit dense, but it sounds like someone is having trouble sticking to her thesis statement. Allow this English teacher to find a red pen.

In various chapters throughout the book, Brottman digresses further by formulating loosely structured essays on her own reading life: her love of literary biography, gothic novels, and true crime. She even tackles a general habit she assumes most bibliophiles have of discussing books they have not read in an effort to appear more literary. She writes:

Be totally honest for a moment—just between us. Have you ever pretended to be familiar with a work of literature you haven’t actually read? […] I bet you have. If so, you’re not alone. We’ve all done it, whether it’s to impress a date by agreeing with them about the latest Philip Roth, or to appear blasé by arguing that Dickens is overrated, though we may never have managed to finish one of his novels. It’s odd how many otherwise honest, decent people should feel so insecure about what they haven’t read that they’re willing to lie about it.

Brottman nearly offends me by not allowing for the many complex reasons people are inclined to discuss books. We have as many approaches to reading as there are books to read. Perhaps some of us, instead of agreeing about the latest Philip Roth without reading it, go pick up a copy in order to carry on an informed conversation. How many of us know the plots of Dickens’s novels without ever having read them, don’t mind admitting it, and listen thoughtfully to someone who has?

The thorn in my paw really comes down to this: Brottman often characterizes readers as those who put on a facade instead of actually picking up a book. To hear her tell it, everyone is reading true crime and celebrity tell-alls in the closet and putting on a mask of literary intelligence that they can never live up to. It is a nasty assumption and an ill-conceived one at that. Most of the readers I know—bank tellers, accountants, university academics, city secretaries, teachers, janitors, and a slew of other professionals—read widely. They might read a celebrity biography one day and The Scarlet Pimpernel the next. What Brottman fails to realize in The Solitary Vice is that people possess far more facets and inclinations than she gives them credit for, and it is a sad day indeed when a book about books is so presumptuous as to alienate the bibliophile who picked it up in the first place.

Books mentioned in the column:
The Solitary Vice: Against Reading (Counterpoint, 2008)
Mrs. Dalloway (Harvest, 1990)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Modern Library, 2002)


Andi is a recovering university academic employed by the North Carolina community college system as an English instructor. While she decided to forego a Ph.D. and career as a professor, she fills in all the free time her current position affords her with editing literary publications, reviewing, freelancing, and blogging at Tripping Toward Lucidity: Estella’s Revenge. Her work can be found in the journal, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), and Altar magazine as well as online in various venues such as PopMatters.com. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), and writes fiction. Her turn-ons include new books and gelato, while her turn-offs are reality television and washing dishes. Contact Andi.