A Familiar, Consistent and Predictable Story

Lately I've been on a book buying binge.

They're coming in much faster than I can read them, and I have this thing against shelving unread books, worried that once they're up there I'll forget to read them, which is, in fact, what tends to happen, so I stack them on a table next to my desk, a crude but effective self-regulating temporary storage system that keeps them in my line of sight and therefore in my mind so that when I'm looking for something new to read I'm more likely select one from the stack, thereby maintaining it at a manageable size, except, that is, when I start binge-buying books like a drunken professor, disrupting the fragile equilibrium of the pile's ecosystem with an uncontrolled influx of new volumes until, one day, the stack hits the tipping point, both in the sense that at that point it's gotten so big my wife figures out I'm on a book buying binge, something I'd rather she not know because she'll make me stop, and in the more literal sense that at that point, the stack, grown to a teetering tower, topples onto my desk and the floor, making it all but impossible for me to get any work done, let alone get within two feet of my desk, which is exactly what happened last weekend.

So I've got to shelve them. Problem is, I don't have the shelf space. I have enough space for shelves, but not enough shelves in that space. That's because my plans to convert our living and dining rooms into a library annex have, thus far, been stymied by my wife's steadfast resistance, forcing me to squeeze my infinitely expanding book collection into my all-too finite shelf space.

Something's got to give so, with a stout but heavy heart, I resolved to cull my books to clear enough shelf space for all the new editions.

This won't be easy because I've been culling my collection for years, giving away most books after I finish with them, shelving only those books I need to consult (in the case of reference books) or liked enough to read again (in the case of all other books). So there shouldn't be much low-hanging fruit left to be picked.

Or so I thought, as I started the grim task of reaping my way through my books. Instead, I noticed that while I have, indeed, continued to consult the reference books I thought I would consult, and therefore can't possibly get rid of any of them, I've actually re-read very few of the other books I once thought I'd re-read.

A lot of this is due to the sudden realization that hit me a few years ago as I entered my middle ages: I will die. I understand a lot of us formerly feckless get the same sudden realization around middle age. What this means for me is that there's a finite number of books left for me to read, so for every book I re-read, there's an unread book I'll never read. Those great books I shelved in my twenties, back when I had all the time in the work, now look a lot less attractive next to the great books I'll never get to read.

So, mindful of my mortality, and needing to clear a lot of space to shelve the bounty of my most recent book buying binge, I vow to be ruthless.

Genre books are the easiest target.

Some of this is due to changes in my reading tastes -- as a pimply-faced socially-inept teenager subsisting on a steady diet of science fiction, I never imagined there'd come a day when I'd lose my fascination with escapist futuristic fiction, but that improbable day did come. Right around the time I lost my pimples. And, come to think of it, my virginity. Anyways, three decades later, I've still got a shelf stuffed two deep with sci-fi paperbacks exploring futures already passed, yellowing reminders of a past that's also passed. It's time to say goodbye.

And some of this is due to sheer volume. Normally when I read a good book I don't feel the need to read every other book written by the author. I appreciate the book as an individual book, and move on with my reading life. But when I read a good genre book, I rejoice to learn there are 25 others by the same author with the same characters in the same situations, and I eagerly anticipate reading every one of them, in chronological order, knowing all along that, apart from the names and some minor details, I'll effectively be reading the same book 26 times.

And keeping 26 copies on my shelves. After I go to the trouble of tracking down all the books in a series, I'm loathe to get rid of any single volume, no matter how bad. After all, if I ever read the series again, I'd have to track down that missing volume. And in the meantime, any gap in the carefully-assembled series on my shelf would constantly nag at me, like a tongue that can't stop probing the empty socket left behind by a missing tooth.

So, when culling my book collection, if I decide to ditch, say, J.A. Baker, I'd lose one book taking up less than half an inch of shelf space. And a great book at that, so even though I'll probably never read it again, there is some cost and very little benefit to getting rid of it. The cost-benefit isn't compelling, so it stays.

But if I ditch Gregory Mcdonald, I'll lose thirteen Fletch books taking up about a foot of shelf space. I like the Fletch books, but I've already read them and being now all-too aware of my mortality I now know I'll probably never re-read them again and, best of all, getting rid of them will free up space for at thirteen new books. Some cost but great benefit, so away they go.

This calculus turns out to be common, so after an afternoon whacking my way through the shelves, I free up big chunks of free space and end up with two boxes of discards comprised, disproportionately, of series books.

It wasn't easy, and I didn't toss all my series, being unable to part with a few too near and dear to my heart. The exercise reaffirmed my affection for all these series books, both the gut wrenching agony as I tossed some, and the relief I felt in saving others, and it got me wondering why I'm so attached to these books in the first place.

Within each genre, the books pretty much follow the same formula. They start the same, they end the same, they adhere to the same story rules, their main characters share the same fundamental traits. The books differ chiefly in color, style and setting, and some manage to take minor detours off the well-trod plot path, but they're all much more alike than different. Which is what makes them genre books, of course.

As if this general genre uniformity wasn't uniform enough, the most successful genre books are part of a series offering the same character, the same setting, the same color, the same style, even the same detours off the plot path.

It's easy to denigrate genre books. They are, after all, formulaic by definition, and "formulaic" is a pejorative word indicating lack of originality, reminding us that it is, of course, originality that we value.

What's a lot harder to explain is why a people who profess to value originality so often devour books defined by their lack of originality. I've often wondered that about myself. Over the years, I've entertained a number of explanations, none wholly satisfying.

Perhaps because I read genre books, I don't believe those who read genre fiction are necessarily inferior readers, rubes lacking the education and enlightenment needed to venture beyond formulaic entertainment. I've known too many educated and enlightened people with a fondness for genre fiction, sometimes a secret fondness for a guilty pleasure, but a real appreciation nonetheless. It may be pap, but it's pap they keep consuming long after they've cut their teeth on the hard stuff.

Genre books are like comfort food. Variety may be the spice of life, but it's only a spice, not the main course, which for most of us remains your basic meat and potatoes. Or, in another strained food analogy, genre books are like Saltine crackers, cleansing the mental palate between forays into originality.

My current thinking is that our brains have evolved to prefer genre fiction. (Note: Not being a scientist, or even particularly knowledgeable when it comes to scientific matters, you'll find my scientific pronouncements refreshingly free of pesky limitations imposed by facts, knowledge, understanding or accountability, more informed by a mixture of "just so" stories from preliterate days and sci-fi I consumed while a pimply-faced teenage virgin than the latest peer-reviewed papers and objective studies. So please do not quote these theories at cocktail parties unless you either (1) seek to cultivate about yourself an aura of ignorance or (2) can imbue them in the telling with sufficient sarcasm and detached irony that others will merely see it as a feeble attempt at meta-humor.)

The brain prefers the familiar; genre fiction is nothing if not familiar. Long ago in our primordial past, as our ancestors migrated around the world they encountered new potential food sources. Some of these were food, and nourished them, while others weren't food at all, and killed them. Those who evolved a preference for eating the same old same old over and over were more likely to survive long enough to reproduce, while those who couldn't resist sampling the root or berry du jour were more likely to die young. We are descended from the survivors, so embedded deep within our brains is a built-in preference for the familiar. While we work our way from A is for Alibi to Z is for Zee Final Book, our brains signal "survival," but the minute we pick up a slim volume of modern experimental fiction, our brains signal "death."

Similarly, the brain seeks recognizable patterns; genre fiction provides stories with recognizable patterns. Bombarded with billions of sensory signals, how does a brain manage to get through the day? By seeking recognizable patterns and discarding the rest. If in the sea of signals it detects A and B in the context of C, it knows to send the D signal. So, if A is the flash of anger on your wife's face, and B is a verbal threat from your wife, and the context of C is her standing in the middle of your toppled pile of books, evidence of your ill-advised and heretofore hidden binge buying spree, and she's holding one of them like a frisbee, that's all your brain needs to send a frantic D for "DUCK!" signal immediately before the book hurtles towards your head. Genre books send similarly recognizable patterns to the brain, soothingly massaging it with the assurance that it can make sense of the world. Reading a genre book, you know that A and B in the context of C will always mean D. If instead, in the example above, the book in your wife's hand turned into a giant rat chanting Bushisms in Spanish with a Castilian accent while dancing the can-can around your now-befuddled wife, you'd have an original and challenging work of modern magical realism but a very unsatisfying pattern for your brain to process. Is it any wonder the brain seeks the formulaic and so often rejects the original?

In short, the brain works 24/7 to construct meaning, so it latches onto the familiar, the consistent, the predictable. But much of the world is unfamiliar, inconsistent, unpredictable, making it very difficult, maybe impossible, for our brains to explain what it all means. Genre books offer a safe haven to a mind frazzled by reality, a mini-world consisting only of the familiar, the consistent, the predictable, allowing us to find, if only for a moment, the meaning that eludes us outside the pages, where we're just one of billions, in a world that's one of billions, in a galaxy that's one of billions in a universe so inconceivably vast that it might just include, somewhere, a giant dancing rat who speaks with a slight lisp and has it in for Bush.