Feel Guilty? Join a Book Club

Feel Guilty? Join a Book Club
By
Ruth Lampert

Copyright September 2011

(see also: “My Reading Disorder” 8-12-08)


For those of us who fell in love with books before we were strong enough to lift one, there has always been a price to pay in guilt for our passion. (This may come as a surprise to those who never liked to read, a condition which will probably not be explored elsewhere since no one would want to read it.)

But for book worms of all ages, as soon as a volume is picked up and you are comfortably settled in your chair, a nagging refrain turns on listing all the things you should be doing instead. (This excludes of course books which must be read for a class assignment. This topic also will probably not be explored elsewhere.)

As a child I remember hiding in the cellar with a beloved book while that merciless voice nagged:
Better you should go out and play in the fresh air.
Your room is a pigsty, why don’t you go clean it up and make it neat like your sister’s?
You’ll never make any friends this way, you goofus.

Growing up, the list of “should do instead” grows longer, including, but not limited to,
Doing your homework, especially the stuff you hate (like math.)
Washing your hair
Fixing dinner, or at least making a shopping list
Better you should go take a walk and get some fresh air.
The house is a pigsty etc as above
Writing your blog instead of leaving it to the last minute

And then, to the rescue, comes The Book Club Remedy! If you belong to a Book Club, there is always something you not only should be reading, but quite likely also enjoy a lot... It’s not the same as reading a class assignment, because the book has been chosen either by you or by a friend who likely shares your tastes, and if not, you can begin the next month’s selection or read something new that can be your choice the following month. s I mean, you really should do your part and be prepared.

Some say this phenomenon is nothing but Jewish Guilt and since Jews are known to be The People of the Book it all takes on an added intensity. This would make a good subject for a scholarly study which I probably should undertake, but I can’t, because I have to finish this month’s book.
Ha ha ha.



I imagine the earth when I am no
more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a
strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song
in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the
shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from
radiance, heights.

Last lines from a poem by Czeslaw Milosz.
Quoted by Bruce Ja7 Friedman in New York Times Book Review
September 14, 2008.Name of poem not given.