'Great Readers Who Did Not Go On to Write'

“Although a great reader, he disliked flaunting a too-visible wardrobe of learning; yet how could his intensive, extensive reading not enter the writing? Reading is passed down to others the ways parents pass down their traits. One may even wonder if there have ever been great readers who did not go on to write in one form or another.He was an omnivorous reader. In his early work there is a great deal of wordplay, sometimes over-rife with Joycean allusions and erudition, but often hilarious; sometimes sombre, abstract—and, at times, as he himself observed, overloaded.”

It’s a young writer’s sin to over-write, to show off and embellish what probably ought to be left plain and self-reliant. I find Beckett’s early work, though much valorized by certain critics and readers, largely unreadable. He writes like the kid who raises his hand to every question asked by the teacher and says, “Me! Me!” He confuses architecture and gingerbread. Beckett didn’t hit his stride as a writer until Watt and the trilogy. Don’t confuse my point with minimalism. I love a rich style that has earned its richness – say, Sir Thomas Browne or late Henry James. It’s the cheaply, self-indulgently sophomoric I object to.

Anne Atik is writing about her friend in How It Was: A Memoir of Samuel Beckett (Shoemaker and Hoard, 2005). She’s right about passing on a love of reading, especially to one’s children. If you read, they are likely to do the same. It’s not a matter of lecturing. Kids model their parents, whether good or rotten. The point Atik makes that most interests me is this: “One may even wonder if there have ever been great readers who did not go on to write in one form or another.” For me, writing started out as a form of envy. I recognized early how much pleasure I derived from a good book. Creating such a thing – a machine for manufacturing pleasure -- looked like a lot of fun. Why not give it a try? Yet the first formidable reader I ever met – a contemporary; like me, a university dropout – dabbled with poetry but soon gave it up and moved on to other pastimes. He never shared his reasons with me, but I suspect they had to do with having read too much. He knew what a gifted writer could do with words and recognized that such accomplishments were beyond his capacities. A bitter but healthy lesson to learn early.