Dear Kelsey,
As a lot of the rhetoric surrounding digital books and e-readers has shown, one of the most treasured aspects of physical books is their permanence and tangibility. The feel of the paper, the smell of the pages, the ability to accumulate and posses and share and lose them. So when I talk about a book being somewhat passé, it probably strikes you as a little odd. I mean, if we’re still reading Austen and Shakespeare and Aristotle and Gilgamesh, how can The Help, published an archaic two years ago, strike me as “over”?
With books like The Help or Harry Potter, there’s a structure of feeling surrounding its release and promotion where the book becomes almost impossible to ignore. Book clubs, movie releases, editorials in the paper…when a book gets big, everyone knows it, and everyone (read it or not) has an opinion.
With Harry Potter, I was definitely part of the in–crowd, and it’s one of those books where I can’t—and will likely never be able to—separate the story from the feeling of reading it. They’re almost like time capsules. Every time I read Deathly Hallows, I simultaneously remember the speculation and anticipation, waiting around in costume at midnight, staying up waaay past midnight on your spare bed struggling not to cry about Dobby because I knew you weren’t there yet, and the vindication/sorry-it’s-five-years-later-and-I’m-still-sobbing moments when I read “The Prince’s Tale.” I remember “NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH” and “all was well” and all of that will never go away, no matter how many times I read, or watch, or talk about, or find critique of it.
Harry Potter is (clearly) still around, and new readers are always being introduced to it and will have new ways of connecting to the book (I, for one, will accept nothing less than poorly-written-but-well-punctuated fanfiction from my children). But no matter how much they love it, they’ll never be able to access that same structure of feeling that we had—at once intangible and clearly present.
Eventually, this brings me back to The Help. Yeah, that’s right: there may be seven bazillion reviews of The Help online, but I’ll bet mine is the only one that puts it in relation to Harry Potter.
Unlike the Harry Potter series, it’s impossible for me to separate The Help from its 
critical context. By the time I came around to it, I was too far removed to react wholeheartedly, and without that kind of devotion—positive or negative—whatever my initial response was has been lost in the Open Letters, the Critical Editorials, the Scandals. It’s the kind of context that makes me want to take a stand—Yes! This book is moving and worthwhile despite the reductive stereotypes! or No! Despite raising consciousness, the book trivializes race relations to a harmful degree!—but I don’t feel like I have any stakes in the argument.
Coming to this book so long after the initial fervor and post-movie renewal has felt oddly irrelevant. What’s left to say that hasn’t already been covered many times over and from a million different perspectives? Most everybody has heard of it, knows the premise, and has made their decision about it: to read or not to read. I’ve clearly missed that ideal window where there are engaging discussions to be had and the debates are lively and passionate instead of tired and rote.
…Which brings up some interesting questions about why we read and review books in the first place: is it to engage with others or for ourselves? (and I’m sure you remember this is a pet topic of mine) But these, I think, are questions best left for another day.
Love,
P.S. As if I was going to stop there. More questions: is merely ‘liking’ something enough to recommend it after you’re aware of its flaws? I often like books in spite of their flaws, but this story (and the movie has exacerbated this greatly) has given profound offense to some people. Should a vague inclination override those deeply-held beliefs? Should it change my impression of the book? How important is a first impression—and is altering that opinion indecisive or educated? Is it cowardice to abstain from an opinion on something so divisive? Or elitism? Or prejudice?
Blue Black Ink 
Irene Frances said:
Maggie –
This whole post really resonated with me. I’m sure you’ve heard me go on rants in the past about how much it bothers me when people *try* to be cool, or reject something purely because popular culture embraces it, but I will admit to having a touch of that type of behavior when it comes to books.
I don’t choose not to read super popular books because I think I would be uncool if I was seen reading something like “The Help,” but there is a definite phenomenon with me when a new book is so widely loved and talked about that my English Major alarm goes “Beep! Beep! Beep! Go read Henry James or something that real capital L literature loving people read!” And this is not to say that serious readers cannot read things like The Help or Harry Potter (obviously, they can, and they will probably enjoy it), but my gut reaction when a book like The Help becomes popular is to read something that’s not at #1 on the bestseller list. Why? Maybe it’s a touch of English Major snobbism, a touch of wanting to be off the beaten path, but you have helped me articulate what the bigger part of my rejection of these novels probably is: feeling on the outside of a phenomenon.
You know when a sports team that has typically not done very well makes it to, say, the super bowl or the world series, and all of a sudden a rush of people are posting “WOOOO, GO SUCH-AND-AND-SUCH TEAM!” on facebook or twitter etc and then there is a sudden backlash of a bunch of people posting “SHUT UP, BANDWAGONERS! I LOVED SUCH-AND-AND TEAM WAY BEFORE YOU DID!”? I think that my resistance to reading a book like The Help comes from a place of not wanting to enter into that type of argument at all. I’m sure there are thousands of people that read The Help during the first month that it came out and loved it and recommended it to others. I’m sure there are thousands more that picked it up when the hype started getting huge, and when the movie came out. And they probably loved it too. Maybe their experiences were slightly altered by having heard more about the book prior to reading, but ultimately both groups read the book. But! I’m sure there are bunches of people from the first group that got annoyed when the second group started reading that book and would grumble under their breath “They’re only reading it because it was made into a movie… bandwagoners…”
Wiith a book like The Help, I was not a part of the first wave of readers. When the second wave of readers began I deliberately chose not to read it, thinking “if I read it now, it won’t really feel like a book or experience that’s *mine,* and all of those first wave readers will see me reading it and think the same thing.” I think that fear and discomfort with not being a part of a movement makes me want to continue to not be a part of the movement, because the farther it gets from the first wave of readers, the less of a legitimate and weighty and meaningufl experience it feels to me.
So! In the most long and ramble-y way possible, that is why I’ve never read The Help. Cutting For Stone. The Hunger Games. And really just a whole number of other books that have been really touted and that a community has formed around. Instead, I retreat to my comfortable space, where I read Henry James, or Jane Austen, or some newer more classified ‘literary’ novel – because I *own* that space. Even hundreds of years after novels were written I still feel like the first wave, because for literature, the first wave is English majors. Whether it’s 1800 or 2012, when I walked across that stage to accept a degree in English, I joined the frontline of literature lovers, a community which makes me feel in the know and in control when I read something like Wuthering Heights, even though I was not even close to being alive when it was written, and makes me feel prepared and legitimate reading this year’s Booker Prize winner.
Sorry for the rambling, you are the best!
Maggie said:
Irene, this is one of the loveliest comments I’ve ever received! I think with the HJs and the Austens and even possibly the Linda Hogans, it’s easier to feel like you’re making a contribution because so many people dislike/misinterpret/misunderstand the novels in the first place. They’re difficult, complex, old-timey, and these all lead to some space where your thoughts can add something, even when the conversation has been going on for hundreds of years. With current popular novels, I think, they tend to be fairly accessible, and without going into deep literary analysis, there’s not a whole lot to be added (at least if you come to it late in the game). And one can certainly do the analysis, but then, I think, it’s kind of a labor of love, and without a significant amount of passion for the book (or the argument!), the satisfaction/motivation would be hard to muster.