Julia Cameron said in her rousing book, The Artists Way, that in order to spark creativity, really, truly spark it and allow our full thoughts to surface and breathe then we should give up reading, consuming any reading materials for at least a week.
Without over exaggerating, this prospect fills me with fear. Julia says that for most blocked creatives reading is an addiction and this fully resonates with me. To tell me to stop makes me feel anxious and twitchy and I don’t see how it would be possible for me to do it, unless I was imprisoned in a solitary confinement cell.
On reflection I have never in my life gone more than a few hours without reading. Thinking back to since I learned to read my first book (Polly Pig and the Bee by Lucy Kincaid) it fed me, nourished me. I very early on learned to self medicate through escaping to another world through the chapters of a book and it served me well. Perhaps I would have been better off studying for my Chemistry leaving cert exam instead of devouring Jilly Cooper but Jillys nuggets of wisdom have probably stood me in better stead than perfecting titration.
I never go more than a few hours without reading. And I mean constantly having a book with me everywhere I go, just in case I need to wait for any length of time so I won’t need to idly wait with my own thoughts.
Since I got a kindle for my 40th birthday over 5 years ago I am never without it and wouldn’t even think about going to sleep without reading for at least an hour before hand. (Very much to my detriment as I feel proud of putting myself to bed early at 10pm but could still be reading into the early hours which does not serve me or my family well the next day.)
With smart phones of course we can read all day long but it is the equivalent of constantly snacking on McDonalds to satisfy hunger. We can read Instagram captions, read the news online etc but it is all media consumption.
Julia Camerons argument is that if we are constantly consuming other peoples thoughts we can not give ourselves time to form our own thoughts and allow them to breathe and come to life.
I totally agree yet everything in my bones tells me that I cannot, I won’t do it, its too hard. Even to think about doing it for 24 hours makes me wince.
However this makes me think that I need to do it. How can I get my own thoughts out if I am constantly consuming other peoples thoughts? From books to Substack to the news to Instagram its like a whirling snow globe in my brain.
Its just one day, if I could commit to that first and see how it goes, see where the stumbling blocks are and allow myself space to feel things for myself and then get them down on paper.
Maybe I will try it and document it here as a diary to see how it goes…
Anyway all that being said, I am going to mention a few books that I have enjoyed over the past few months and that have made me see the world in a slightly new way or plunged me into another world that I couldn’t get enough of.
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
I was alerted to this book here on Substack and was intrigued by it. It was first published back in 1995 and has since enjoyed a resurgence in part from positive reviews TicToc.
It is a desolate dark book and I am not necessarily recommending that anyone should read it. It comes with the caveat that if you are in a fragile state of mind and want to lull yourself to sleep without nightmares then don’t read this book.
But if you want to read a book that will leave you viewing life in a slightly different way and contemplating the human condition it all its mystery and desolation and frailty and endurance then read it.
The monotone horror of this book will never leave my mind. Its one of those books that I can’t say I enjoyed and sometimes I dreaded getting into bed to read at night because I never know what quiet terror would unfold next. However I was compelled to keep reading to find out what would happen. The writing was plain, matter of fact but engaging.
The book centres on the voice of a young girl who remains nameless throughout the book and she doesn’t know her exact age. She is imprisoned in a cage with a group of women all older than her of varying ages from twenties through to late 60s. There are 40 of them kept in a cage manned by male guards. They are fed and not cold but they are never allowed out. The guards will whip them if they touch each other or don’t sleep when they should and if they draw any attention to themselves or if they try to commit suicide. Which a number of them have tried.
A huge number of questions remain unanswered throughout the book but It is largely irrelevant. The voice of the book doesn’t know the answers either and she tries to get answers but it doesn’t impact on her need to survive each day. Her need to eat and sleep and try to coexist with the other women.
In the end I was left with a hollowed out core after reading this book and it seems to pare out our human existence to this womans experience. Imagine what life would be like if absolutely everything was taken from you, your home, your purpose, the support and companionship of good men, our children, knowledge. What is left?
Aren’t we all on our own in the end? Don’t we have to try to get on with people we don’t like but we must do it anyway and then they die and leave us. We get pleasure from moving our bodies and feeling needed and contributing to the social group. We want our physical needs to be met.
Aren’t we all trapped on this earth and need to survive as long as we can anyway? Sometimes the pain becomes too much and some end it all. We encounter horrors along the way and terrible things happen to other people but all we can do is acknowledge it and honour it and move on through the drudgery and survive another day.
Small glimmers of hope and pleasure and joy are afforded to all of us at some times but the rest of the time is a struggle. We can get satisfaction from a job well done like building shelter for ourselves and our tribe. And the quest for knowledge for knowledges sake is what drives us.
In the end calmly awaiting a dignified death is highly prized in this book. It’s maybe one of the only agencies we have. We are all going to die, and dying after living to an old age is better than nothing and calmly accepting your fate and arranging yourself so that your body is sitting up straight and relaxed and not panicked affords you some dignity in death that maybe nobody will see but it is reality for you and is that all that matters? Is that all we have? If you take away our children and all hope and all relationships then what is left? All that is left are our thoughts and what we make of them and if we can find a pencil and a few pieces of paper and set them down in an ordered fashion to make sense of them for ourselves then that all there is, whether anyone ever reads them or not.
Really it should be a completely desolate book but underneath there is a tiny glimmer of something, its not even hope, its more like even in the absence of hope we still have some spark of agency where we can make a choice, a choice to think for ourselves to set down our thoughts and to choose how to die. And to choose how to take care of ourselves and show kindness to others in our lives and to reflect on how we have lived that life.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
What a beautiful jewel of a book. It glimmers in my mind long after I have read it.
I tell my children and my husband all about it saying everyone needs to read this book. “What is it about?”, they said. Its about six astronauts orbiting the world on the international space station. Did you know it orbits the world 16 times in 24 hours? And they experience no real night or day, time looses all meaning for them.
But what happens in the book? Well nothing and everything. Time means nothing. Their spoons are magnetic so that they won’t float away while eating. They must exercise for 2 hours every morning so that their muscles won’t waste away after 9 months in space. And they look back at the earth and they see a storm brewing and they worry about people left on the earth and one womans mother dies. And when a couple of them leave the space station to go on a space walk they are the only living beings (that we know of) out there in the massive endless universe of space at that time. Mind blowing.
This book is not a novel so don’t read it for a story about deep relationship insights between the astronauts. But it is a wonderful book that defies categorisation. If I had to come up with a list of 5 books that everyone in the world should read to educate and enlighten and entertain then this book would make the shortlist.
It brings me huge comfort to know that everything we do is so small and meaningless within the vast universe.
Just do the thing you want to do, you know what it is.
We are merely whirling around in space the tiniest speck in the timeline of the quantum universe. We can’t even think about how large and vast it is because it hurts our heads.
Our brains can’t stand it, so we have to make love, go dancing, paint, dig in the earth, write, play, love, not waste time with drama (unless its a play) and go hiking in the mountains and forests of this beautiful earth. We need to look after her and mind her and not waste time in this mindless want and possession and buying and Black Friday and buy, buy, buy. We need to self reflect and reach outward and share and help and hold hands and not be afraid.
This is what the book is about I said to my kids. My mother said I’m not sure if I like reading books about space which means she will never read it. But its not about space at all its about us here on earth and humans and nature and god and not god and rivers and countries and politics and the environment and the black vastness of what’s outside of the earth and the miracle and preciousness of life.
How does the author do it in 200 pages? Its a beautiful, precious, rare jewel of a book. Just go and read it. Every teenager in school should read this book. Our world would be a better place for it.
Four Thousand Weeks - Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
I have just discovered this British journalist Oliver Burkeman and he is a treasure. Drole, witty and practical he is the voice I have been craving as a mother of four who is not renowned for her housewifely skills. Lets just say I was never in danger of being nominated for the “Calor Gas Housewife of the Year” competition.
He says that assuming we live until about 80 we have roughly 4000 weeks at our disposal, which is a frighteningly small number.
In this book Burkeman tells us that we need to be comfortable with chaos and incomplete activities. Because we are never going to be able to ‘clear the decks’ and get started with a clean slate - whether that be replying to all your email or in my case, getting the house clean and tidy before I get around to sitting down to write.
Why I needed an older man to point this out to me I don’t know but I find it enormously comforting. I like deadlines, it focuses my mind. Once I got over the number, of which over half is already done for me, it lights a fire within me.
I will never get to the end of all the jobs. The day I do is the day I die. Then there are no more jobs to do. Conversely no more fun to be had or parties to dance to the end of. Everything must coexist, doing a few chores a day and writing a small bit each day and resting and eating and then wake up and repeat it all again the next day. Its simple.
Not so easy to live by daily and put into practice but this book goes into the reasons why we think we should just finish all the chores, clean the house, declutter your wardrobe, clear out all your emails, THEN you will start writing your novel, learning how to paint, learn Spanish, learn the piano etc.
No, all of these things must co-exist in imperfect increments. We must start now. Slowly building tiny habits every day. For me its meditation, exercise, writing, a little bit of boring but necessary house work every day. I must keep the momentum up on these, if I leave them slip then things start to fall apart. But if I manage to do even a tiny bit of each every day then I feel like I am on the right track for how I want to live my life.
In the past perfectionism has led to procrastination, beautifully blended with self criticism. My cruel inner voice whispering of the futility of artistic creation has meant that I really have not lived according to my core values perhaps ever.
My true values and what I am constantly drawn to is artistic expression in all forms. In reality I have believed for along time and have only recently been able to give voice to the fact that actually I believe that art and creative expression is possibly the most important thing we have.
It is what I turn to for solace in times of joy, sorrow, pain, loneliness, fear. Everything from literature (mostly books above all else for me) visual art, paintings, poetry, film, music. Who doesn’t in some form or other?
This is what it comes down to for me - we have roughly 4000 weeks, if we are lucky, and once we have food and shelter (which I know is not a given for many) we need to find a way to make life fun and express ourselves in whatever creative way we can find. It doesn’t have to be how you earn a living but we must make space for it. Whether that is through music, dance, writing, drawing on walls, knitting, whatever, its what makes life worthwhile and it makes us feel alive. It’s too easy to get sucked into the grind of working on spreadsheets and screens and stress and career and finishing all the jobs first but there needs to be more.
Art and creativity is also what helps us get through the painful parts of life. What we turn to so we can process grief, hurt, loss, rejection. Just go listen to a song called ‘Pain and Misery’ by The Teskey Brothers!
Its hard to face the fact that we all have a finite amount of time on this planet but what better way to focus the mind on what is important to you and do it now, just for a small amount of time today and do it imperfectly, its infinitely better than not doing it.
Anything by Agatha Christie
I spent the winter cozying up to the murderous world of Agatha. Why is it so comforting to read about murders and who committed them?
Its Queen Agathas style of writing, humorous, caustic, socially observant, laying out all the characters of life in a fun way and pitting them against each other, all neatly tied up in a bow at the end.
This past winter I devoured Death on the Nile, And Then There Were None, At Bertram’s Hotel, The Murder at the Vicarage, various Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple short stories. Pick any and enjoy, they are all delightful and wonderfully written. And they hold up surprisingly well considering that they were written in the 1940s and 1950s, probably because Agatha writes from the perspective of a woman and presents women as heroines and villains equally. Both men and women are capable of being evil and stupid and clever and good at various times.
Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
I am going to wrap up by recommending the Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros - Fourth Wing and Iron Flame. I have finished Fourth Wing and plunged straight into Iron Flame. I am absolutely loving the escapism into a fantastic world of badass cadets where death is a daily occurrence and they ride dragons into battle. Expect death, sex and violence. Lots of villains and juicy sex scenes and beautiful young people fighting for life and death. I mean what is not to love coming out of winter into spring. Read if you want fun escapism, think Harry Potter with sex and dragons!
I could go on and on about books and my TBR list but I will leave it here for now. I have been working on this article on and off for weeks and there comes a point when I just need to publish it and move on.
Perhaps my next piece will be to document if I take a break from reading and see what happens and how it affects me.
I would love to know if any other reading addicts out there have tried this and how you got on?
Thanks for reading!