A Hitchhiker's Guide to Comfort and Familiarity

I once lived in a Communist country. It was a lot like living anywhere else, if you ignored the fact that you were living in a Communist country. There were things I liked about it. There were things that took some getting used to.

The things that I missed the most were, in no particular order: my family and friends, Mexican food, the Constitution of the United States (which I am missing again nowadays but that is a story for another time), and lots and lots of books.

Put me in another country, place me somewhere where I cannot speak the language and I am rightfully discombobulated. But if you add a library or a bookstore, I am right at home. I love being surrounded by books. I did so when on the other side of the world, and I do now. I cannot think of a time where I haven’t been surrounded by at least several things to read. First thing I did when I went to a strange campus in Guangzhou? I went to a library. I think they told me to leave, but I’m not sure, because the first thing I did when I went to a strange campus in Guangzhou was to go to a library, not learn the Cantonese that they probably used to eject me from the library. And after I perused a little and decided to obey the little fella who was waving his arms about, I left with a feeling of satisfaction and a firm belief that it would behoove me at some time to learn Cantonese.

Books soothed my initial culture shock. When living in Lijiang, I often dropped into the Chinese bookstore in town. Did I understand the books? I did not. They were written in a strange language that I was not able to read. It was probably Chinese. But I wasn’t really there to read. I was there to be around the familiar, and perhaps see if there was someone who would be so kind as to wave his arms around in an attempt to get me to leave. Books made me feel at home and comfortable. Now that I’m back in the States, the feeling of comfort and familiarity is still there when I step into a Library or a bookstore.

Books of all shapes and sizes interest me. Books of all types and interests intrigue me. No matter the subject, I’ll read a little something about it, because what it boils down to is this: it isn’t just what is said that is interesting, it’s also how it is said.

Except for the Bible, every book that I’ve read could have benefited from an edit or two. Add to the text here, subtract from it there, maybe add a fire-breathing midget, and it could have been improved. Some were edited so loosely that it had me wondering if the editor was drunk, M.I.A. or took the afternoon off for an errand of antiquing. Some were edited so strongly that I wondered if it drove the author to drink, go missing, or try to send his editor off on errand of antiquing.

Regardless of the problems, sometimes major and sometimes minor, the good ones always found themselves in one of two categories.

1)Books with a Good Story/Premise.
You know the books that have a great premise. A mosquito caught in tree juice that fossilizes and lends itself to a creation of a T-Rex that terrorizes smart-alecky kids who somehow think faster on their feet than Scientists with Ph.D.s? Great premise. A kid with a lightning scar on his forehead who finds out he’s marked for death while still trying to get through a labyrinth of cooties and wizarding mid-terms? Pretty interesting premise. A ring that renders the wearer invisible, susceptible to curly hair, and addicted to lembas bread? Good premise, and one of the best 12-hour movies out there.

And it doesn’t have to be just about fiction. It can be non-fiction as well. There are books that compare historical events to the present day, or deal with how to enact a healthy lifestyle or how to Photoshop a diabolical gym teacher out of all my elementary school photos. They can all have a great premise.

What I’m saying is, fill a book with an interesting premise and it’s worth the time and energy to read. It doesn’t have to be literature, or something poetic, heroic, epic. It can still be utterly riveting and be worth the time. I like books like these, but they aren’t my favorite type. For that, there is a second type.

2)Books that are written well.
Well-written books, sometimes known as “Literature”, don’t have to have a great premise. They can, of course, but they don’t have to. For these books the joy is in the journey and not necessarily in the destination. They begin great (Ex: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, “Call me Ishmael”, etc.). They flow majestically and are a true privilege to read. They engross you, and the time you spend reading them vanishes. They have the enviable dilemma of always seeming too short. And they can be about seemingly banal things. A story about a guy fishing in a small boat won Earnest Hemingway a Nobel Prize for Literature. A book about hunting a whale became one of the greatest novels in the English language.

You name the most boring of situations, and if it is told well, it can be a work of art. They are artistic because if told well, they become something else entirely. They open themselves up to interpretation and can be incredibly meaningful. “Old Man and the Sea” becomes less of a surface story about obsessive weekend deep sea fishing and becomes more about a search for hope and meaning while struggling with overwhelming odds. “Moby Dick” is less about wondering why the crew signed on with a maimed captain and more about bitterness and anger leading to self-destruction (He named the whale that wounded him, for goodness sake. Wouldn’t that be a sign that his sails didn’t go all the way up the mast, if you know what I mean?).

And so there you have it; the two kinds of books that most interest me. Of the two categories, I appreciate the latter more, but writing with a good premise can still sell a gazillion copies and be entertaining to boot, even if it is only to pass the time and then is quickly forgotten.

I don’t always find a great book at first. Sometimes I end up with a book that I could have sworn was written in crayon while the author was on a weekend bender, or one that should be disposed of only by C.D.C. officials. Why go through the agony of being hosed off by doctors in Bio hazard attire simply because the airport bookstore had the gall to place their bilge near the cash register, with a cardboard display, no less? Because the joy of finding a great book after crawling through a desert of awful books can be described as nothing less than joyous and wonderful. Great books broaden your vocabulary. They can exponentially increase your imagination. They can take you to another time.

And they can do something else equally priceless. If you find yourself at a time in your life where you are missing friends and family, yearning for a place of familiarity and comfort, they can even transport you to another place, allowing you, even if it is for just a moment, to be back home again.