My Own “Generational Reading Gap”

[note: apologies for not keeping the blog up to date. i have a few announcements lined up for when i have more time to post, please stay tuned.]

This personal post was inspired by a blog entry in Philippine Genre Stories titled Generational Reading Gap [blog] [multiply].

I grew up in a library that my father built up from scratch. Most of my literary education came from this. But I’ll have to admit, I feel like growing up with this repertoire led me to become more isolated from the readers and writers I correspond with.I know very few readers from my generation (or older) who call themselves “sci fi fans,” and at the same time know who Cordwainer Smith even IS. They may have read a little Asimov, a little Clarke, a little Philip K. Dick – but for the most part they’ve read and liked more Carl Sagan, Greg Bear, David Brin, and people who got published WAY after the “golden age,” than I ever will.

I sometimes get vibes from younger readers that run along the lines of: “Well, you’re not a real sci fi fan if you haven’t read China Mieville/Iain Banks/Stanislaw Lem” and my knee-jerk defense is to go “Yeah? To me, you’re not a real sci fi fan unless you’ve read “Doc” Smith/Theodore Sturgeon/at least one Aldous Huxley title that is NOT Brave New World.”

No, I’m not automatically resentful… and I don’t blame people for this, of course. These are just some of the reasons why I don’t:

1. not everyone had access to my father’s books, when they were growing up. I was lucky to have grown up surrounded by them. These were pretty hard-to-find titles even back in the day, and I’m afraid the many floods I’ve lived through have already claimed most of them. These are the titles we now see and pass by in book sales. Not even libraries carry them anymore.The books I read when I was younger shaped me. While they may not come up to today’s standards of “good writing,” they certainly gave me a sense of history and tradition. Also a nagging suspicion that I was born into the wrong generation, because my dad was a time traveler who exploited a wormhole just to collect obscure paperbacks, and eventually decided the future was a better place to raise a family… but yes. That’s not important.

   Moreover, thanks to my stable income and PayPal-savvy, I can probably pick up and read any new title, if I really want to – however, it’s hard for most people in my immediate vicinity to have access to really old titles, even if they were interested in them.

2. people are generally drawn to reading because of fads – make something sensational enough, they’ll get curious and spread the love of the written work to others. If people say a particular work is awesome, but it’s not widely available AND at the same time highly publicized, it fails to “catch on.”So if a title hasn’t already been turned into a must-read by some sort of recs list, isn’t fresh off the shelves, or hasn’t been turned into a movie/TV miniseries, it is at a remarkable disadvantage – no matter how well-written it is or how important it is to the history of literature, or at least its own genre.
3. tastes change. I find that the tastes of younger readers are indeed very different from mine, but they are by no means inferior. I’ve met writers around my age who grew up reading contemporary fiction and are bored to death by Tolkien and Le Guin, two of my biggest literary influences… and yet these writers blow me away with their prose. Then these writers recommend titles by authors I end up not liking as much as they do, but are in their own ways quite interesting and inspiring.I’m no longer as enthusiastic about new titles as I was when I was younger – honestly, I think I get more kicks out of finding a rare old title on sale, than in learning there’s a new Anne McCaffrey title out – but I still try things, and I still end up liking them. Recently I fell in love with Michael Swanwick and Dan Simmons, and I know I have a LONG way to go.

You know what’s funny/sad, though? I can see myself losing even more interest in new writing. I think it’s happened once or twice already, except some Really Good Writers have popped up and pulled me back into the fold. But if we bear in mind that they’re more the exception than the norm, this pattern of disinterest seems to be something I will comfortably fall into – unless I develop the habit of forcing myself out of my comfort zone, which… may not be all that healthy, in the long run. I read because I love to read, and nobody can tell me how to love.

However, I also think it’s a natural thing. You’re young once, you go through a passionate “honeymoon” phase… then you grow up, it pleateaus, and it dies down. I don’t blame other people if they too become disillusioned and a bit tired of new stuff coming out. Very few people actually get to live their whole lives with youthful enthusiasm for new things… although of course it would be nice if we were all able to do it.

I still out try new things because I’m told they’re good, and I seldom regret it. But I do wonder if I can keep this up for much longer. I’m probably too easily jaded, but I’d still like to be the sort of person that can do something like this.

One more thing I have to mention: I sometimes feel like some readers/writers enjoy a sense of culture that is built only around what happened in the course of their lifetimes – the newest bestsellers that came out, the latest trends (“new weird” and “unrealism,” anyone?), the latest awards given, the latest writers honored. I’m awed at their ability to absorb, embrace and share new information – but I’m sad at how much history escapes them and their peers just because they’re not interested.Watching them, it feels like, I dunno – like literature is not going in a way it’s supposed to go. Like it’s forgetting a lot of vital things while it speeds ahead.