World of imagination: A well-written book takes us to a place where it wants us to be. Photo: Bernard Bodo/Getty Images
The thing about reviewing books for a newspaper is that you’re going to be reviewing current books. Authors and their publishers want people to know about the “new hotness”, not the “timeworn old warhorse” that either got made into a movie or disappeared from public consciousness other than popping up on reading lists for undergrad literature students.
But what about those old, reliable, well-thumbed masterpieces that lie in the back of the metaphorical bookshelf in every avid reader’s mind? They are the reason we love reading in the first place, the cherished pieces that made us laugh, made us cry, made us think, made us feel.
Nothing quite matches the quiet intensity of the first time you read a part of a book that scares the bejesus out of you, tugs at your heartstrings, or makes you momentarily put the book down and go “hmmm …” and then re-read the passage.
These are the books that, when we converse in person, are the ones we recommend to anyone who will listen. The book that made you realise you wanted to read everything in a given author’s oeuvre, that gave rise to a specific thought or feeling and has evoked that thought or feeling every time you have read it since.
There is, of course, the well-deserved love for the trashy potboilers where Chiselled Hunk X meets Helpless Damsel Y, and the purple, lurid prose flows like wine. The love for pulp horror where Big Scary Thing X pops out the shadows, and is eaten by Bigger Scarier Thing Y.
The love for pulp science fiction where we travel to Planet X and have a close encounter of some kind with Unexplained Phenomenon Y. These loves are all just as valid, for the book in question, however questionable, is still transportive, taking you to a place where you want to be.
I’ve said before that the wonderful thing about books is how they fill the various book-sized gaps in our lives. Unlike movies, books — and music, it must be said — are fully portable.
Everything you need to enjoy a book in its fully realised form can be carried with you. Because all you need is your book and your brain. And, despite what we hear about various members of parliament or members of the Kardashian clan, your brain is a standard-issue daily travelling requirement.
Open the pages, blink once and you’re gone, transported to wherever the book intends to take you. It’s not some fanciful Latin evocation from JK Rowling, it’s magic as old as the written word. We first started writing things down as a way of keeping tally of possessions, and then to preserve the knowledge of those we knew would one day no longer be with us.
Over time, we as a species realised that we can commit to paper, or whichever medium, whatever occurs to us. This birthed religious and mythological texts, books of law, textbooks for the transport of knowledge, and, of course, literature.
If textbooks are how we transmit knowledge from one person to another, literature is how we do the same for emotion. A well-written book places us in exactly the same state of mind the author was in when they committed their words to paper, and thus to eternity. Not a similar state of mind … Exactly the same.
Like gazing at a well-painted picture, or listening to a well-composed piece of music, when you read a good book, you’re there. It’s magic of a practical kind.
And this is why we love them. This is why literature endures when other historical forms of entertainment have fallen by the wayside. This is why we erect structures to house precious books.
This is why the Hollywood cash machine seeks to adapt books: a well-loved book has a built-in army of devoted fans, and attendance is guaranteed despite the quality of the movie. And this is why, alongside few other things, we maintain a special place in our hearts for books.
So, let’s raise a metaphorical glass to every book that has transported us to where it wanted us to be. Every book that has made us more human.
To books!