A Reader of Loose Morals

It happened again. Someone saw me reading and said, "I can't believe you'd read something like that." For the record I was reading Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs which is light reading to be sure but hardly worthy of derision. My response is usually, "why not?"

This is often met with a stammering explanation about how I'm such a big reader and how I have such interesting insights on books that they just couldn't see me reading victorian pulp. This isn't even my students, mind. I get this much more often from adults and other teachers.

Being a big reader doesn't mean a person reads good literature. Some of the biggest readers I've met are the little blue haired ladies who used to call up at the Book Nook and make me scurry down the series romance aisle after missing issues in their collections. Some of them pack away 15 romance novels a week. They blow away my page counts by a handy margin.

Being a good reader doesn't mean every book is or should be a brain-buster. Yeah, I do read things like Pride and Prejudice for fun, but I also read plenty of YA fiction, sci fi, and trashy vampire novels. While no one would discount the value of a Jane Austin novel, there's a lot more value in the plebian literature than people give it credit.

Take Princess of Mars for example. Burroughs creates this amazing southern genteel voice without any hint of dialectical writing. As a writer myself, I find that worth study. My only conclusion is that Burroughs has a mastery of meter and cadence that I find enviable. But that's not the only thing I found interesting. John Carter is an American take on the archetype of 'Gentleman Explorer'. As a general rule, most of those are Victorian Brits, so it's interesting to see an American cast in that mold. Honestly, I found that more interesting than the somewhat lurid plot line. John Carter is this interesting mix of warrior and artist. He's a very masculine figure but not pig-headed, I'd almost call him sensitive. Almost.

So, I'm not going to apologize for my reading diet. I'm not indiscriminate in my reading, but I'll give anything a try and in doing so, I have a much broader base of knowledge and experience than people expect. This is no bad thing. I think that it's more important that people read than worrying about the relative worth of the book.