A Year in Reading: Ed Simon
So. How are we expected to begin these things? How can I write about reading in this year of all years, this Annus Horribilis of American authoritarianism, American division, American plague? There’s no judgement in that question – it’s genuine. Because to not state the obvious would be callous: at the time of this writing there have been a quarter of a million deaths that were largely preventable if there had only been a modicum of concern from both the government and the collective citizenry.
At the same time, to wallow in all of that misfortune, the pandemic death count rising, the spate of police murders of Black citizens, the brazen incitements to violence from the thankfully defeated president, could just be more fodder for doomscrolling (the term popularized by the journalist Karen K. Ho). No doubt you’re familiar with this activity, for the correct answer to the question of “What did you read this year?” would be “Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Comment sections. Comment sections. Comment sections.” If anything quite expressed the emotional tenor of this wicked reality for most of us, it was the feeling of being dead-eyed and exhausted, eyeballs vibrating in their sockets and blood straining in our temples, ensconced in the cold glow of the smart-phone screen as you endlessly stared at travesty after travesty. Androids with our Androids.
Being who I am, I’ve got an inclination to write about the triumph of reading, the warmth from pages expressing the ineffable separateness of these people whom we happen to share the world with, for a bit. The way in which literature acts as conduit for connection, the building of worlds with words, kingdoms of interiority claimed through the audacious act of writing, and so on. But do you know what I actually did with most of my free time? Doomscrolling. Just like you. How could it be otherwise? Companion to our worry, companion to our fear, companion to our free minutes. To endlessly scroll through our social media newsfeeds fed that demon of acedia nestled in each individual skull, simultaneously giving us the illusion of control, the strange pleasure of anxiety, and the empty calories that filled our bellies but did nothing to finally satiate our hunger.
Nothing new in this, what Daniel Defoe described of 1665 in his novel A Journal of the Plague Year, whereby the “apprehension of the people was likewise strangely increased… addicted to prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives’ tale than ever they were before or since,” something to keep in mind as I endlessly refreshed Nate Silver. It reminded me of the childhood feeling that I used to have after hours of Nintendo; that shaky, bile-stomached emotion that I imagine senior citizens feeding quarters into Atlantic City slot machines must feel. Easier to pretend that this was a type of reading; knowing facts without reflection, horror without wisdom.
Yet I did read books this year. If I’m being honest, I didn’t read terribly widely or terribly deeply, and there is a distinct before and after as regards the
