Nothing respectable

I read in preference to almost every other activity, though I didn't read anything respectable.

Jane Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

Jane Smiley

Like so many girls of her generation, Jane Smiley enjoyed reading the adventures of the Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew, as she describes it now, not "anything respectable." Nevertheless she matured into one of America's most respected and versatile novelists, as well as the author of 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, a 500-plus page book that analyzes 101 major novels, none of them featuring Nancy Drew or the Bobbsey Twins.

I guess one could consider today's brief essay as a continuation of the one I posted a few days ago, "Too many or too few?" At that time I considered the question of whether low-brow books drive out the high-brow ones. In Jane Smiley's case, that was obviously not true.

And I don't think it's true for young readers in general. Anything they read with pleasure, whether it's Nancy Drew mysteries or comic books, encourages the habit of reading. Perhaps they will transition one day from Nancy Drew to Harlequin romances, and that's OK. At least they are still reading. Some of these avid young readers, however, will transition to Jane Austen and George Eliot. What's important for the young is developing the reading habit, an even more challenging goal in an age of smart phones and social media.

My granddaughter, who recently turned 24, always has several books going at once, just like her grandpa. She was overjoyed when I gave her a gift card to buy more books. She is proof that even in today's world it is still possible to create avid readers, not unlike Jane Smiley.