Purist Perspectives: What Is Reading

Through my years working with and around libraries, I have run into many reading purists who take a stance about 'what reading should be' and tries to make lines in the sand about what proper reading should be.

Let's look at them and debunk them one by one.

"Literature Purists"

The thing about reading is that, sooner or later, you get to the literature purists. They have a very narrow definition of what reading is. If it isn't Mary Shelley or Bram Stoker, is it really reading?

During my undergraduate, I had a professor who told me that Sherlock Holmes wasn't 'literature' because it wasn't 'saying anything.' There is some broad expectations both that literature should 'say' something, but also that the age of the piece or the reading of the piece critically doesn't matter as much as authorial intent to prove a point.

This idea is, to put not so fine a point on it, garbage. Any story can 'say' something, you just have to try to look for it. That's the point of literature engagement. Additionally, even if a piece of work didn't 'say' something, the point of the work isn't up to someone else to define. Literature Purist is just another word for gatekeeping stories, only it's wearing a fancy suit and tie and thinks it is smarter than everyone else. It isn't, and reading shouldn't be to somehow Be Intellectual.

"Book Purists"

Once you wade past the snobbish purists, you're likely to reach the everyman purists. These are the sort who seem to think the book - traditionally published and written in text - is held on some pedestal. Literature Purists tend to take some issues with them, but they co-exist in some fashion. It's just things like 'not real books' where there becomes a sticking point for the book purist. They think they are better because they read it in a book.

Growing up, there was often a critique for what my sister and I read - not because it was children's books like Percy Jackson or Warrior Cats (the literature purists might take issue with that) but because we were listening to them, not physically reading them in paperback form. Book Purists come in two strains and rejection of all media that isn't a physical book is one of them. Engagement with a story - a love of the game - is scoffed at because it wasn't engaged with 'in the right way.' They will hum and hah when told both myself and my sister had a learning disability and this makes it all the worse. 'Of course' they will say 'that makes a difference.' But it doesn't, actually. One shouldn't have to be told that there are reasons for not engaging with the written text of a book. It shouldn't need to be said. People will listen to audiobooks or to others read aloud to them for many reasons. It forms connections, both with the reader or with the story or both. It is still engaging the mind and fostering a love of stories.

At the end of the day, a Book Purist of this sort would rather take away a piece of 'food' from someone because they feel it isn't the 'right sort of food' for anyone, rather than recognizing it just wasn't the right sort for them. They care more about a books outfit than what's inside it.

The other sort of Book Purist sees books, traditionally published, as the only thing to read. With the rise of the internet, online creations such as fan fictions are often fairly common to find on people's reading list. The Book Purist of this flavor will see it as a moral failing that everyone is not reading a 'real' book, because they see something which has been officially published as better or more sophisticated than anything which might be created with inspiration from another work. But when you lean in, tell them the secrets that are is creative stories, with insight, can be fan fictions as well, they will handwave and mention the other type of fan fiction. The spicy sort. As if that had any less worth - it is human to seek entertainment and does it really matter if it was not contained within binding?

This sort of Book Purist, with it's clothes of paper and string, finds it offense to learn that one does not always have to read the same sorts of things. Fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, blogs, and yes, even fan fiction, can offer touching human insight into a complicated world. If they desire to clasp their linen bindings close and gasp in shock at such things, that is their loss.

"Long Form Stories Purists"

Whether that be rejecting novellas, poems, or graphic novels, the Long Form Story Purist will turn up their nose at the possibility that reading something other than a full length novel can be true entertainment. Unlike a Book Purist, who cares more about the physical nature of the item, Long Form Purists believe that the contents matter. There will be some obscure, contrived set of rules for how they engage with a book which will purposefully exclude what they deem to be 'not good enough.'

Some examples are that novellas are for those who are lazy, that poems aren't reading and are pretentious (and poem stories? they must be worse), and graphic novels are for children. As with many things, these rules mean very little and have less baring on the actual reading abilities of a person who might care to entertain these mediums.

Often, all three of these types of media are read by people who want, first and foremost, a story. They want to feel things that come from words (or pictures) on the page. They can be consumed by the young or the pretentious, but those boxes are made by the Purist, not by the readers or the media intended audience. Sometimes, someone is busy, or needs something light, or simply doesn't often read and short form content can be a better way of gaining the benefit of reading without committing to a novel. Or these are just one of the many pieces of a vast book-filled diet by the rabid bibliophile who has blown through many a full length book, poem collect, manga series, and is even now hungry for more.

Rather than taking context - or leaving better off alone - the Long Form Story Purist will make a tower from the heavy tomes they have read and shout from its tops their royal degrees, which are, to their dismay, unheard on the ground they are at such a great distance from anyone who actually cared.

At the end of the day, a story is an exchange of information. One doesn't care what form that information takes, so long as the reader (even if they are also a listener) is the one doing the taking. The argument, plainly stated, is that diverse media can be a wonderful thing and there can be any number of reasons why someone might desire to engage with a story in a particular way. If you, dear reader, see yourself in any of these purist ideas, that is fine - it happens - but take a moment to examine what you are getting from your books. And are those you judge getting that same thing, but from a different source?