The Flywheel

Where have all the great books gone?

I read a lot of books per month. For the past few months however, I realized that I am buying more old books than newly published books. By newly published, I mean books printed in the last 12 months or so. Take a look at my book list on this page; you will see that most of the books have been published in 80s. In one case, the book is published in 60s! The point is I find it increasingly difficult to get captivated by a newly published book. Case in point: I just bought Blink and Faster.  Yes, they are good books; well written, nicely argued and all; but, in one word, they are not unputdownable. After reading them for an hour or so, my dominant reaction was, hmm, that was interesting. There is nothing wrong with such a reaction, however, these days I pine for a book that can make me go wow!

On the other hand, consider a book like Guns of August.

So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates…

How can anyone resisit a book that starts this way?As Ms. Tuchman starts the narrative, you find yourself swept along with her into the thick of action. You know how the World War 1 was fought out, how it got mired in trenches; but, for the time you are reading the book, you suspend all prior knowledge and you are there with the actors and yet, above them, filled with a sense of confusion, dread and doom.

Or check out The Discoverers. Reading this book is like visiting your childhood home after a long time, wandering through the rooms and stumbling into some delightful treasures here and there. Some would say, for the topic that is handled by the book, it was all wrong; no pictures, no maps, no illustrations; yet, for all these shortcomings, it remains the single best book I have read on history of scientific knowledge.

My point is, all these books are published way back. The Discoverers was published in 1983 and if I remember right, Guns of August was published in 1962 or thereabouts. Where are the great books of today? If I were to ask you this question, can you come up with an answer in 10 seconds or less?

I wonder a lot about this; maybe I am a sucker for the grand sweep, for big subjects and that is why books like Blink or Faster fail to hold me till I finish the book. I love Malcolm Gladwell's articles in New Yorker. They are informative, entertaining and thought provoking; but, do I want to read a 200 page article from him? I am not so sure. Probably one reason is the number of books published per year have increased significantly. In addition, the number of small publishers has also increased, leading to the situation where everybody can find an outlet for their book idea as long as the idea is good and saleable. In such a case, we will get more and more books which dig deep into a specific topic. While this will lead to proliferation and democratization of books, it also means that books with big ideas might get lost. I don’t know. All I know is that I have not found a single book for the past 12 months that really enthralled me. That is disturbing.

Difficult Books

Ever started a highly recommended book that you just could not finish because the book is so boring or difficult to grasp?

I love to read. Usually, I read 3–5 books simultaneously, switching from one to another as my fancy dictates. I find that by reading multiple books at the same time, I sometimes get fresh and different perspective on each book. But sometimes, I run into a book thats like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It tantalises, coyly promises blinding insights and a quantum leap in synthesizing all my interests only to lead me into a maze. A maze that I find increasingly difficult to navigate because the topic is treated very densely. I keep reading thinking if I can labour a bit more, read a bit more seriously, the treasures buried deep inside will be mine! But alas, I never quite make it and then it sits there on the shelf, mocking me, calling me and teasing me. In my opinion, one of the worst sights to a voracious reader is a book started and left unfinished. I have at least 5 such books on my shelf now. I will only mention 3 that really bother me whenever I reach for my bookshelf:

1. Emperor’s New Mind. I bought this book about 18 months back. Perhaps, one should never buy a book that is more than 1 year old to read for the first time. Some concepts in the book were familiar to me and some were totally alien. The worst part were the sections of symbolic logic used for proving some point (I no longer remember now) about Turning Machines. I seriously doubt if I will ever be able to finish it.

Difficulty Scale: 9/10 & Interest to Finish: 4/10

2. The Order of Things. In my opinion, Michel Foucault is the most elusive of writers. I feel like Captain Ahab chasing the Moby Dick of M. Foucault while reading this book. He infuriates me by his elusiveness and entices me by the sheer breadth and ambition of his writing. I suspect finishing this will turn out to be one my life’s projects.

Difficulty Scale: 9/10 & Interest to Finish: 7/10

3. A Perfect Spy. Call me a low-brow, but I prefer Jason Bourne to Magnus Pym. When I read a thriller, I want to be thrilled, not educated or illuminated. The travails of Mr. Pym and his family bore me.

Difficulty Scale: 7/10 & Interest to Finish: 3/10

So there you have it. My all-time Bottom 3 books that haunt me, tease me and frustrate me.