When I first started reading by myself, it was incredible; a story that came to life in my head, with characters and places I got myself familiarized with until the book had created its tableau in my head. I spent hours a day pouring over books, reading as much as I could. I quickly grew bored of books for my age group and “read ahead” so to speak- to books considered well beyond my years. First, they had chapters. Then they were bigger than my head, hiding my features entirely when I was reading. And suddenly. I had stronger back muscles from lugging around 700-page books to school, so I could read during recess. I’d reached the point where adults, seeing me, would give me book recommendations to further my “education”. Thus, I became aware of the canon.
I didn’t know at the time that it was called the canon, but I understood that there was a list of books smart people were “supposed” to have read. As someone who liked to read, and strived to be a smart person, I took to the task of conquering this list. My book piles were filled with “classics”, books I often found tedious and downright silly. Who had created this list? I wondered, peering at my copy of The Secret Garden annoyed. What mattered though, was reading these books, so that I too could belong to the group of smart people, of well-read people.
Over a decade later and I find the canon still haunts me. I am supposed to be well-read, and yet there are bookshelves upon bookshelves of books I’m “supposed to read” that I haven’t touched. There are days where in a panic, I run through lists of books in my head that I haven’t read yet and that everyone else must have read because we’re all supposed to have read it, and I wonder if people know I’m secretly a reading failure.
It’s embarrassing for me to admit some of the things I haven’t read. But why? What am I proving, or not proving by not having read Catch-22? Does one (or many) unchecked boxes in the canon list define my intellectual ability or my validity in intellectual settings? I’ve lived with the secret fear it does for so long that to negate that seems wildly hopeful.
The reality is, I can guarantee that not every “smart person” has read Moby Dick. And not everyone who has read Moby Dick is smart. It is impossible to consume all the “right” culture, to be educated so as to seem educated to everyone. It’s not really the point of education anyway.
We’re all afraid we’re not good enough, that we’re lying and that everyone will see that in the end, we’re just some random person, doing their best. But the number of books you’ve read doesn’t define your worth or your intelligence. You can consider yourself a reader even if you haven’t read Wuthering Heights. If you spend your time reading sci-fi, you’re still reading. Take joy in what you read and read deeply, because the pleasure of reading comes out of the story and things you learn, not whether you can one up someone.
Being well read matters less than reading well.
Read well, and read on.