On How Books Change Over Time

A few weeks ago, I went to see a play called The Night Watch with a friend of mine at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. It's based on a book of the same name by Sarah Waters which, to be honest, I hadn't liked very much. I don't think I even got past the first few chapters before giving up and moving on to something else.

I agreed to go on the basis that I'd liked Sarah Waters' previous books, Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, and a trip to theatre is a trip to the theatre, after all. Even if a play turns out to be awful, it's still an experience.

In the end, it absolutely blew me away. It was implemented perfectly, with wonderful actors, and was infinitely better than I remember the book being. After a few days weeks of being unable to get it out of my head, I decided I'd go back to her previous books in order to get some closure from the amazing play.

I knew I owned Tipping the Velvet, I absolutely knew it. But I'll be damned if I could find it on my shelf. I consulted my LibraryThing catalogue and it wasn't even bloody listed and I've kept that updated since 2006, people. I knew I'd read it a long time ago, but I hadn't realised it was at least ten years previously.

(Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that I've been meticulously cataloguing my reading for ten years!? I feel like I deserve an award to celebrate my anniversary of anal retentiveness). 

The more I thought about it, however, that started to make a little bit of sense. I developed a vague recollection of borrowing it from Shipley library when I was first starting to delve into the Adult section (in retrospect, Victorian lesbians possibly not the best book with which to start), and I must never have gotten around to buying a copy. You know, in ten years.

So I bought a copy (for a whole £2.96) and settled down with Tipping the Velvet, ready to revisit the book I remember quite enjoying as (apparently) a teenager.

That brings me to my point. The book ending up being so different to how I remembered, in pretty much every way imaginable. How can that be? It's not like the words in the book have changed, after all, so presumably I must have, but I'm still me, after all. It's odd and I feel a distinct need to discuss it.

The Plot that I Apparently Completely Invented

Firstly, starting with the simplest, the plot just isn't how I remembered it. I'm going to write a proper review later (haha, I'm way past that point), but for now it will suffice to say that the book is divided into three parts, each one dealing with a different stage of Nancy Astley's life. I have zero recollection of the second or third stages; I was under the impression that the entire book regarded Nancy's music hall career. Apparently not. That could be because this part is by far the most interesting and the other two fall a little flat - I mean, of course I was going to remember the interesting parts better.

But then, doesn't that mean that my memories grew fonder with distance? Because, I assure you, that is not usually the case. I can look at books now that I quite liked a year ago that I wouldn't dream of picking up now because their shine wore off, or there's one character who continued to grate on me even from the distance of several months. I clear out my shelves every few months for just that reason.

Then, continuing with my memory problems, I apparently invented quite a pivotal scene. There were only two scenes I definitely remembered from Tipping the Velvet - one was Nancy and Kitty dancing on stage in a music hall and receiving some sort of heckling, and the other was where they met later in life around a piano in somebody's parlour.

I can still picture that last scene so vividly - whenever I'd thought of the book in the previous ten years, I'd thought of that scene. And it simple didn't exist. I kept expecting it to pop up and I was starting to get confused towards the end, when the plot was running out of opportunities for it to happen. Some time, somehow, I'd just invented the whole damn thing. But why!? Why would my brain just make up a scene from a book instead of remembering what actually happened?

My emotions

I can't be completely clear on this as I wasn't making notes on my reading at the time, but I think I remember really resenting Kitty. I mean, that's fine, you're meant to; she screws Nancy over and is really only out for herself. At 16 years old, with no experience of relationships, I felt exactly how I was probably meant to feel. Betrayed, slighted and angry. Everything is so clear cut when you're that age - all your knowledge of how things 'should' be comes from movies or books, so you know that when somebody gets hurt, it means the other person must be Bad.

Now though, having been through some troublesome relationship issues of my own, Kitty seems more nuanced. I've learned in the intervening decade that nothing in affairs of the heart is ever black and white, and there are two sides to every tale. Sometimes people hurt you without meaning to. Sometimes they don't want to hurt you, but they're putting themselves first and you can't really blame them for it.

I just feel sorry for Kitty now. She was clearly conflicted and whilst what she ended up doing wasn't ideal, she did what she thought was best. She simply wasn't able to provide what Nancy wanted and part of adulthood is realising that you can't judge everybody else by your own standards  (I'll try and remember that when I'm complaining at 11:28am that somebody is late for our 11:30am meeting... ). I accept that Kitty genuinely tried her hardest to make it work and I blame Nancy at least somewhat for being naive and overly dramatic. In other words, get a grip Nance.

Clearly your own experiences influence how you perceive a certain situation and the characters therein. I'd be interested to reread this in another ten years to see where I stand on Kitty, Nancy and the decline of their relationship.

Quality

In the intervening approximate-ten years since my first reading of Tipping the Velvet, assuming I've read an average of 100 books a year, I've finished about a 1,000 books. A thousand books. Obviously these will have been of varying quality, but I've definitely read more classics and more literary fiction than I had in 2006. I suppose I now have a different frame of reference for what makes a 'good' book, aside from just having more books under under my belt with which to compare it to.

I still really enjoyed reading this book. But I now notice inconsistencies, character flaws and shoddy dialogue much more than previously... or at least I assume I didn't notice, considering I remember being pretty impressed by it. I like it regardless, but I now have a more accurate (or at least more cynical) idea of where it belongs on the scale.

_________________________________________

I just felt that I had to talk about this because it shocked me how much I'd changed over ten years. The ages of sixteeen and twentysix are so far apart in terms of experience, maturity and knowledge that I probably shouldn't have been surprised, but I didn't expect it to affect my reading so much.

I'm looking forward to reading this again in ten years time, when I'm 36, and seeing how I feel about it then. After another ten years of experience, maybe I'll have a completely different perspective again!

I'd love to know your take on this. Have your reading opinions ever changed with time? Why do you think that is?      

The Year of Reading Whatever the Hell I Want 2016

2016 is going to herald a new change in my reading habits.

As I was putting together my review for We Were Liars last week, I had cause to tally up how many contemporary YA novels I'd read since I started keeping track of my books on Library Thing, nine years ago. I noticed then when I flicked through my lists of books read in and before 2013, I got a much happier feeling than when I looked at the lists from more recent years.

This time period coincides perfectly with the years that my incoming books started to increase and my TBR pile got slightly out of control. In consequence, I started doing TBR challenges until they were coming out of my ears in an attempt to ensure I read the books I needed to.

That was a stupid idea. I ended up feeling guilty every time I reread a book or read a book that I'd only bought the previous month, which meant that I wasn't reading the books I knew I loved or that I actually, you know, wanted to read. Don't get me wrong, I found some wonderful books using this method - Miss Buncle's Book, for example, or The Woman in White, but I still picked them up for the wrong reasons.

This had the knock-on effect that I was reading less than I had in previous years because it felt more like a chore, and I was less interested in talking about them so my blog suffered as well.

You know what? *@!x that. This year, in 2016, I am going to read exactly what I damn well please. I'm not going to sign up to any challenges (especially no TBR ones) and I'm not even going to concentrate on my unread books if I don't want to. I'm still going to make an effort not to buy many new books (although that's partly because I'm saving up for a house deposit), but my TBR can still as it as for the rest of the year and I do not care a button. I don't care how many male/female authors I read, and I don't care when or where they were published.

I feel oddly liberated. I've read three books this year: one of them would have counted for a bloody TBR challenge anyway, one was a reread and the other I hadn't read since I was a small child. I've talked about Scarlet already and I fully intend to talk about Peter Pan and Persuasion as well. I'm actually excited about doing so.

Maybe I'll go back to my usual way of doing things in 2017, maybe not. It depends how I feel at the end of the year and if I need to get myself back in track to control the incoming books! Either way, wish me luck for this slightly inane plan!

 Do you plan to monitor your reading this year? If so, how?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Gif-filled Explanation of Why It's Actually Not All That Funny

The following phrases have the potential to turn me into a ball of snarling indignation:

"Haha, I'm so OCD about that!"

"God, my pens have to be straight - it's like I'm OCD, haha!"

And that is why we're here today, ladies and gentlemen. I am so so sick of people treating Obsessive Compulsive Order as if it were some kind of casual joke, something to be thrown out there like the idea of it being an actual mental illness is hilarious. 

So you like your pens to be straight, good for you. It bothers you when your nails are dirty, fair enough. It does not make you OCD and claiming that it does (jokingly or otherwise, I've seen both) demonstrates your sheer lack of understanding about what this disorder actually entails and actually makes you seem kind of (read: incredibly) dismissive.

Actually, the sterotypical OCD traits (cleanliness, germs, order, etc) can be the least invasive and aren't as common as you'd think. They've only become so prevalent because they're the ones people make jokes about. See above for my thoughts on how simply hilarious that is.

I don't have that kind of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, although some people do and it's still dehabilitating. I do like clean bed sheets and I don't like my food to touch other food when it's on my plate, but those are just my preferences. That's the key word here - preference, not compulsion.

Anybody who has experienced an actual compulsion can't fail to recognise it for what it is. They're not always all physical - thinking in a certain way or about certain things can be a compulsion. For example, I have always had an obsession about death ever since an inappropriately young age. I obsess over the fact that my parents, friends and cat will die some day and therefore I compulsively store memories and photographs so I don't regret missing time with them.

This sounds like it might actually be quite nice - savouring every moment, etc. Except it means that I can't stroke my cat without remembering how he's going to die one day, how he might die and what that might look like. Same with my Mum - every time I get out of her car, I have to tell her that I love her in case she dies before I see her again.

  
I have an odd set of compulsions regarding my Mum, actually. You know in Ella Enchanted, where Ella has to follow every instruction given to her or it makes her physically ill? That. If my Mum makes me a packed lunch, I have to eat every single part of it, no matter how ill I might feel, or I get such severe feelings of guilt as I obsessively picture an uneaten sandwich rotting in the bin that I end up with wracking stomach ache.

Today I rang her because I had a three hour gap in between meetings and I was bored. She suggested I go to Waterstones and we had a short conversation about how she (jokingingly) had no doubt I could spend three hours in a bookshop. I decided to go to the office where I volunteer instead - I could make myself a free cup of tea and have a chat with the friends I work with. Except I found myself getting more and more tense, more nauseous, more twitchy and I kept picturing Waterstones and replaying the conversation with my Mum. By the time I left the office I was practically jogging down the street to get to Waterstones so the pressure on my shoulders would dissipate.

I should add that my Mum knows about none of the above. She'd be absolutely horrified at the amount of power she has over me and I'm not particularly fond of it myself. I was never particularly a Mama's Girl and I wasn't coddled. That's just the way my hilarious illness has chosen to show itself, based on nothing.

What shall we talk about now? Oh, I know. A few weeks ago my Mum tidied my bedroom, to be nice and helpful because it was a mess. Except I broke down and cried hysterically for about three days. And I do mean hysterically. Sobbing in a ball on the floor until I choked. It felt like everything in the room had eyes and it was malevolently watching me. Then I spent hours rearranging everything to exactly how it was before she came in - to be just as messy as before. I don't need things to be tidy and clean, I just need them to be where I put them. Then I tidied my bedroom anyway because hey, I preferred it tidy. But I'd tidied it.

However, since then, I've had paralysing guilt about what an ungrateful wretch I was. Every time I think about it I get that sharp pain in my stomach and a pressure in between my shoulders. I replay it in my head constantly and I just feel so ashamed. 

I'm nearly done. Just one more example of the true hilarity that is OCD. Sometimes, I have compulsions that I can't act on and I only feel compelled to do them because I can't act on them. For example, when I was about twelve I was taken along to sit quietly at the back of an AGM meeting for the club that my Dad was Chairman of. At some point he asked if everybody was happy with the current newsletter editor and I had a desperate and absolute compulsion to stand on my chair and announce that I was going to be the new editor.

I didn't want to be editor. I couldn't have been editor. But that was the entire point - announcing this would have been such an inappropriate and humilating thing to do, that every fibre of my being wanted to do it. This happens fairly often and it's worse because you can't give in to it. You have to sit on your hands, count to one hundred and focus on a stationery spot on the floor while your stomach is twisting and your brain is telling you to just give in, just do it, you know you need to!

 

Don't think I'm not aware how crazy I sound in this post. But that's kind of the point - this is what actually goes on in my head, not just a mild desire to straighten the table mat. This isn't a pity party and I am actually a contributing member of society - I have a good job, I have friends and I'm reasonably pleasant to talk to (I hope). 

OCD isn't just people who like clean things. And even if somebody does have compulsions about cleanliness, it's a serious issue that can be completely dehabilitating. You don't know what's going on behind the scenes and assuming that you do, and assuming that it's some kind of joke, is just offensive.