The CBC’s recently relaunched arts website includes a screed by writer Li Robbins on the many evils of book clubs. Her point seems to be that they destroy the individual freedom and essentially solitary pleasure of reading. Oh, and book club types are also tools of The Man. “Beware of book club fanatics: marionettes gently dancing for the publishing industry’s puppeteers. These people want to tell you what to read, when, and how to read it.”
The real impetus for the essay, though, may be the writer’s apparent contempt for the very idea of applying thought and analysis to reading. “Reading is the greatest of great escapes. Reading is permission to simply be, to exist in another world, the world of the book. But you can’t maintain that Zen state when someone is wittering away about plot, tone and setting as though they are the new holy trinity.”
Related links:
Click here to read Li Robbins’ piece on book clubs
While Li Robbins has a perfect right to express her opinion, so does everyone
else who wishes to do so. Sometimes there is the need to share an expereince and state
an opinion and book clubs allow for that venue.
It almost appears as though Ms Robbins protests just a little to much. Is she some how
shy of having her works put under scrutiny.
The truth is, that if a reader wishes to have the solitary pleasure of enjoying a book then that
is their choice and if another reader wishes to share the experience that is also their choice.
And an individual can be both types of readers and not have to feel categorized and judged
by their choices.