By Sandra Smiley other’s bildungsroman based upon our reading material. And we can proceed, guiltless of judging a ‘book by its cover’, 23 because there is so much to be gleaned about a person from what they’re paging through. Don’t confuse this with the unmetered praise of the printed word so frequently put forth. Dubious reports are quick to link reading with all aspects of moral uprightness, from exercising and excelling at work to church-going and giving blood, meanwhile pathologizing a cohort of twitterers and texters as impassive dunces with ADHD. I don’t suggest that reading for disinterested pleasure puts us more in touch with our Stakhanovite selves. I do believe, however, that our choice of belles lettres betrays our absorptions, moods, and biases. I took the Tube to the terra incognita of zone eight to read the literary tea leaves of my fellow travellers. At the peril of breaching the etiquette of public
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In the byzantine weave beneath London’s boroughs, trajectories stretch on for hours; we commuters are captive, with nary a bar on our mobiles or communicative blip on our laptops. What do we do to while away the time, to stave off boredom and to elude the inelegance of eye contact? As rite and ritual, I read. And I am one with my bookish brethren, who similarly eschew iPods and Sudoku puzzles for decidedly more belletristic pursuits – from the newly minted immigrant anatomizing the day’s issue of Metro to the cubicle jockeys seeking enlightenment in the wisdom of Bridget Jones. Some allow the day’s labours to encroach on commute time – you’ll see the odd straphanger leafing through uninspired PowerPoint slides or drafts in the calligraphy of rests, quarters and wholes. For many of we factotum, though, this is a rare interlude in our inveterate workaholic lives – we read, of all things, for pleasure. And we read each other, mentally scribing each