posted on 30 Aug 2015

Howard's End is on the landing   by Susan Hill

This is the second time I've read Susan Hill's journal of a year given over to only reading, or in some cases re-reading, books she already owns and which are occupying her copious shelf space. I was initially drawn to this book by the central conceit - I'm pretty sure anyone with a decent accumulation of books does that calculation; would I be able to read all these before I die? And then there's the tediously inevitable question posed by visitors you barely know, or maybe workmen who are doing something crafty on your behalf: blimey, have you read all these?

It is in these moments of weakness that you allow the thought to creep in - why am I buying more new books when I haven't read what I've got. It's not a worthy thought but it is insidious if you give it house space. Hill's book allows you to indulge this moment of spurious discipline in a kind of proxy way while at the same time getting a guided tour of her shelves and some engaging anecdotes about the extraordinary range of writers she has either brushed shoulders with or, in some cases, become friendly with over many years.

The first time around I found it a light and amiable read and I think that if I was pushed I'd still say this is a fair way to describe the book. However, on a second reading I found myself feeling increasingly tetchy with it and I'm struggling slightly to come up with good reasons. There's no doubt that it is sometimes suffocatingly middle class and self-satisfied and the line between anecdote and name-dropping becomes increasingly blurred. It's also true that, on this reading, I found her taste and her assessment of authors at odds with mine. Not that this is axiomatically a bad thing - but there are limits. Her failure to appreciate either James Joyce or George Orwell push my tolerance of difference to the outer edges of acceptability. However, in her favour she is at least prepared to go on record as saying that the skills of Jane Austen elude her. Temperamentally I think Susan Hill is drawn to essentially middle brow, middle class writers and there's something stiflingly twee about that - it's the literary equivalent of a cottage in the country, an Aga in the kitchen and nothing on the radio except the Archers.

However, beyond these criticisms there is something else that bothers me. I think there is  something essentially puritanical about the idea of spending a whole year being sensible and instrumental about book buying. Buying books you might want to read but may never get around to is one of life's great pleasures. It's all about anticipation. Get rid of the chance of a serendipitous purchase and something in the relationship between me and the vast ocean of books out there is lost. Buying books, fragments stored against my ruin, is my lifeblood and a year not buying them is like being in prison.

 

Terry Potter

August 2015