Manu Joseph: The pressure on men to read novels can be insufferable

Mint

2 days ago

Now and then, there is a lecture given to men about how they must read, chiefly novels. And why the fact that most of them don't read novels is yet another reason why they are not better people, like women.
A few days ago the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a column entitled, 'Attention, Men: Books Are Sexy!' This headline portended a genre of advice to men—that if they did what women did, they would be more attractive. You may have also come across articles that say, 'Men: Doing chores at home is sexy' and 'Men: Listening is sexy.'
Once, on a Goan beach, I was practising yoga, or what I think is yoga, when two Western women nodded in appreciation as they walked by. What made me laugh in the warrior pose was not only their social confidence in complimenting a native practising his own culture, but also my suspicion that what they approved of was a man doing peaceful exercises, instead of pumping iron like 'toxic men' do.
I wanted to tell them I have read Sally Rooney too; they would probably have taken me out to dinner. If I said Jane Austen, they might have swooned.
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Dowd makes the rewards for men clearer in her NYT column: 'It was one of the most erotic things I ever heard. A man I know said he was reading all the novels of Jane Austen in one summer."
This is part of an ongoing lament about the disappearance of men who read novels. 'I interviewed Ralph Fiennes, and it turned out that he loves Shakespeare and reciting Beckett at 3 a.m. under the stars," she writes, I guess in an appreciative way and not in alarm at the mental health of such a man.
Alright, most men do not wish to recite an absurdist playwright at a late hour. Is that really a problem?
As an expert on men, let me explain why most of them don't read novels. Because they find novels boring. There needs to be no other reason. Finding something uninteresting is a human emotion that does not need to explain itself.
But still, you may want me to explain, so I will try: Most men have no curiosity about the lives of people they do not know, especially made-up people; and lack the narcissism to connect the drama of fictitious people with their own lives. As a result, they are unable to overlook unremarkable plot lines and unremarkable scenes, particularly in 'literary' novels.
Also, if they are over the age of 30, they are entrapped by an imbecilic question: 'What is the takeaway?' If something is not entertaining, men can still soldier on, like going to a gym, but they need to know what 'use' it will be. I agree it is a foolish way to be, but this is how most adults, not just men, are today.
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In my view, reading is the highest form of entertainment, especially when a book gets going, but I completely understand why some people might find it boring. As the American writer David Foster Wallace said, 'I have friends—intelligent friends—who don't like to read because they get—it's not just bored—there's an almost dread that comes up... about having to be alone and having to be quiet."
Actually, reading his 'great' novel, Infinite Jest, has been more dreadful to many people than loneliness. Also, anything by Thomas Pynchon. Their works are so dense that people admit to suffering through them.
They do claim 'rewards,' but that could be something they are trained to say by the establishment. I can see the point of working a bit to enjoy a work of art, but suffering it for weeks only reflects a lack of self-confidence to toss an acclaimed book aside as unworthy of your time.
The veneration of novels as predominant temples of wisdom and powerful schools of empathy is in great part the propaganda of writers and literary middlemen who have a vested interest in insulting those who don't consume their goods.
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First of all, the novel, especially the vaunted literary novel, is a luxury enterprise, the preserve of the upper class. Most of world literature is the point of view of the top 2%. I would even say all of literature is just that when you consider that the top 2% regulates what counts as 'literature.' You don't have to be in awe of it. But I would say this: Of all the things the rich have made, this is probably the most enjoyable.
As women are the primary market for novels today, they have created a world where the most powerful people in publishing are mostly women.
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There are some male literary superstars, but even their fate rests on a special quality of women—they are generous to men, in the sense that they are somewhat interested in what men have to say. Men, in general, do not seem to have that generosity. A lot of men, in my experience, have no interest in reading the thoughts and stories of women. There is no villainy here; it is just the way they are. It is a bit like how Indians are interested in reading about America, but Americans have no such reciprocal interest.
The male view, despite the generosity of women, is not so saleable anymore. In 2022, the novelist Joyce Carol Oates wrote on Twitter, 'A friend who is a literary agent told me that he cannot even get editors to read first novels by young white male writers, no matter how good."
Women readers have been pushing male novelists out of the mainstream market because they are naturally drawn to what other women have to say. Perhaps this points to how natural it is for men not to be all that interested in the things that interest women.
The author is a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. His latest book is 'Why the Poor Don't Kill Us.'