A Short Solution to the Non-Reading Crisis

[Ya Sam]

Not a solution for an aspiring Pynchon reader, of course (that would be 
limited to Lot 49 and SL)

"Good news. Relief is at hand. If would-be readers no longer have the time 
or attention-span to read weighty books, the solution is as plain as the 
button-nose on your face. In fact, the major clue to the solution of the 
non-reading crisis is found in the unread books cited by the non-reader 
confessions: every one of them, from Gibbon's Decline and Fall to Proust's 
In Search of Lost Time is as long and large as a library. It's obvious that 
the New Non-Readers are not referring to books, but to long books, long-long 
books, and very long books. The sensible answer: read short books. As Thomas 
Huxley said upon recognizing the obviousness of Darwin's theory of 
evolution, "Gee, why didn't I think of that?"

The Short Books to Solve the Non-Reading Crisis program sets a 250-page 
maximum for any book. More than that, we've scientifically determined, and 
your mind will wander, or you'll be due at the next activity on your 
overbooked schedule. But 250 pages is more than enough to get the job done. 
Sticking to 250 as the limit, here's some of what you get:

Just to momentarily confine ourselves to 20th century bona-fide first-class 
literature, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness swiftly sails up the Congo in 
132 pages, Albert Camus's The Stranger is in the sun for only 119 pages, 
Marguerite Duras's The Lover does it in 117 pages, James Joyce's Dubliners 
is 220 pages of fabulous blarney (his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 
is even shorter), and Hermann Hesse's cult classic, Siddhartha ends all 
suffering in 122 pages.

You say you want some CanLit? Coming right up. Timothy Findley's The Wars is 
191 pages, Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion is 244 sheets of 
paperback parchment, Doug Coupland's Generation X is a tight-lipped 211 
pages, and Brian Fawcett's postmodernist Cambodia: A Book for People Who 
Find Television Too Slow is a swift 207 leaves.

Speaking of highbrow postmodern works, hey, no problemo. Italo Calvino's Mr. 
Palomar presents his stylish tale in 130 pages, John Berger's indelible 
Photocopies comes in at 180 pages, Samuel Beckett limns The Unnamable in 125 
pages (his Molloy and Malone Dies are but a breath longer), and French 
intellectual Roland Barthes' The Pleasure of the Text wraps it up in 67 
pages, practically a Guinness record for brevity. Barthes' reflections on 
photography, Camera Lucida are a snappy 119 pages, and his quirky autobio, 
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, is a svelte 180 pages."


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