Why Read? (When there's a show like 'Book Notes'...)
When I read, yesterday I think it was, that Mark Edmundson would be Brian Lamb’s guest on the last installment of ‘Book Notes,’ I resolved to try to see it. I've just read Mr Edmundson's Why Read?, which I found to be among the most sensible books ever written, and I thought it would be interesting to see what this popular University of Virginia professor, a man about my own age, was like. Because Kathleen and I don't watch television, we don’t have the habit of remembering broadcast times, but in the event I finished a boring task just in time to tune in. I had never seen the show before and I had no idea what to expect.
It was almost immediately clear that 'Book Notes' is not about books. Mr Lamb prodded Mr Edmundson to tell a couple of stories from Why Read? that had little bearing on the heart of the book; otherwise, the book was more photographed than talked about. Mr Lamb peppered his guest with such cringe-making questions as “Where do you write?” “Do you go to church?” and “If you had the time [choice], which would you prefer, fiction or non-fiction?” If this is what ‘Book Notes’ has been like for – what? – fifteen years, then I’d have to say that it explains declining literacy. What it really is is vaccine against reading. Watch the show to rack up your points – no page-turning required! When Mr Lamb asked Mr Edmundson what advice he would have for non-readers thinking of taking it up and wondering "where to start," I had a ghastly look at the show’s likely demographics.
It would have been better to confine my acquaintance with Mark Edmundson to the dust-jacket photo on Why Read? On television, he was personable – rather too personable for my taste. His smile (great teeth!) was too eager, although that may well have been the result of television nerves, and his leather blazer was ridiculous; all I could think of was Chip Lambert of The Corrections. (Men my age have no business in leather; it makes them look truly desperate.) I found his remarks attractive but suspiciously suave, as if each point had been made, in its articulate way, many times before. Although Mr Edmundson claimed to say "controversial" things in class, he spared Brian Lamb’s audience any and all discomfort.
So much for my latest dip into TV. I come away more convinced than ever that books and television are as profoundly incompatible as any two human productions. They're fundamentally deadly competitors for the human eye, upon which they act in opposing ways: reading refers the the eye to the imagination, which television completely eclipses. As for Brian Lamb, he couldn’t touch Why Read? without trivializing it. So I'm glad, I suppose, that he didn't touch it very often. Why Read? remains one of the most sensible books ever written. More on that anon.
