I’m afraid of books

what do you do when your bookshelf is crying

When I am reading a challenging book, I often read an easier one at the same time.

My current easy book is Negroland, writer Margo Jefferson’s memoir about mid-twentieth century Chicago’s black upper-middle class. Though perhaps I should not call it easy. Jefferson recounts a childhood immersed in ballet, Langston Hughes, and Talented Tenth-esque social conditioning. Meanwhile, my father, aunts and uncles grew up in Chicago at the same time, but they were eating beans and dodging shootouts. Of course, Jefferson’s privilege was not her fault, and she rose to the challenge by applying a critical eye to her upbringing. But this book challenges me to not write hate letters to the Jack and Jill headquarters.

Jack and Jill @ me

However, my genuinely hard book is A Very Short History of the Carnation Revolution. It is technically easy to read—the language is not complex. But it is full of names, historical dynamics, and timelines I do not recognize. As I read, I worry I am not smart enough to truly absorb the material. Negroland is a cushion. And when not that, my phone. Of course.

Why do I do these things? Hilde, I mutter daily, you graduated top of your class from [insert world-renowned university].¹ If you can do that, you can read about the Carnation Revolution. Then I undermine myself: university was hard, but full of people uplifted into elite higher education by status as much as by intelligence. I oscillate between pride and ambivalence: this is my personal problem. But if, even in possession of such a marker of success, I doubt my reading ability, I know others do too.

So take it from someone who has spent years being surrounded by university-educated dumbasses: one does not need to go to university to be able to read. But we need to learn somewhere—and at some point, and at some time. I think of this often whilst writing my essays.

In part, I craft my screeds because I love to shit on bitches (non-gendered, non-derogatory). But what also drives my pen is concern for my generation’s comprehension skills, historicity and literacy. For instance, this underpinned my recent Dua Lipa essay: if one criticizes Jeff Bezos on leftist, Marxist-lite grounds, one ought to apply these theoretical frameworks to beloved celebrities—even if they are not as wealthy or morally bereft. But it is difficult for one to draw these connections if one does not actually understand the flow of capital, having only been coached by TikTok to know the identity of the world’s richest men; and if one’s ideology is not formed through wrestling with ideas—textually and with peers—but absorbed from social media.

Before generative AI steamrolled the education system, this was the true privilege of university: discussion. It is why reading groups—such as at bookstores and libraries—are still important resources. Social media does not take you far. It is a place to start—it is how you all found me, and I you, and also how I found Negroland, much as it raises my blood pressure. But this medium has a low ceiling for complex thought. We become ensnared in it because we feel too distracted, stupid and sad to risk ourselves to the outside world.

People love to write essays about how one time they put their phone down and they noticed the birds chirping. I love birds too. But they constitute a small part of our lived experiences. Spend more time offline, and you begin to encounter the unpleasantness that makes you rush to your phone. Like reading something and feeling like a total fucking dumbass. This is what we are avoiding when the birds go quiet.

We cannot shame people into literacy, particularly when so many of us already doubt our intellect. So I want to remind us all: you can find your focus. You are capable of engaging with new ideas; with histories of places you cannot locate on a map. You can withstand rejection from peers, challenges to your sense of self, exhaustion at trying to understand, and failure when you do not. Because eventually, you will.

Just give yourself a chance to open a book.

1. It’s giving ANONYMOUS!