Backfilling

I've said more than once that from now on I'll mostly read what I've read before. So far this summer I've entirely read what I haven't read before. I started with restorative works of Henry James. Edmund Wilson's essay "The Ambiguity of Henry James" led me to Jane Eyre, one of the presences lurking behind The Turn of the Screw. Wilson's essay suggests that Sentimental Education may be a more prominent lurking presence for James, but after reading most of Jane Eyre I'm more interested in Wuthering Heights than Flaubert's other great novel.

What comes after that is anyone's guess, including mine. We all have our glaring omissions. Some people seem to take pleasure in admitting the books they haven't read, as if one's critical or academic reputation could be enhanced by fessing up to what little one hasn't read. Garry Wills once admitted to "not being able to read the Psalms, Job, and Isaiah in Hebrew. . . ." Likewise, I admit to not being able to read the Upanishads in Sanskrit. However, I don't have an academic or critical reputation to defend; I won't be losing sleep over my glaring omissions.

My biggest hole is probably the English novel. I have never read Emily Brontë, Jane Austen, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Anthony Trollope, and George Gissing. I couldn't finish Tristam Shandy. I'm too embarrassed to say how few are the novels of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy I've read. Forgive me: I've too often found the Brits—at least in their novels—to be tedious. Perhaps now that I've become tedious—or at least more patient—in my late middle age, I'll begin the long project of backfilling my most gaping hole.

Of course, for every tedious English novel I read, I'll be displacing something I'd much rather return to. Such thinking has kept me for years away from Pamela and Clarissa. I don't have any immediate plans to reread Milton or Moby-Dick, but what if I did? Is there really time to waste on 18th century epistolary novels? This is why I don't plan what I read. I let one book lead to another—just about the only spontaneity I allow in an otherwise highly regulated life. I prefer to limit my choices to which bowtie I'll wear for the day—the red one or the blue one?

I might be done with Jane Eyre by now if I hadn't stopped to read George Orwell's "Such, Such Were the Joys," his account of surviving the torments of an English boys' school. I'm tempted to go on to his "Charles Dickens" and take issue with it, no matter what it says. There's something about George Orwell's essays that makes me combative. I suppose I should read more of Dickens before I presume to argue with Orwell. There are innumerable ways to be led into reading. A desire to join the fray will suffice until a more inspired reason comes along.