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Binge viewing seems all the rage these days. Apparently the idea is to spend hours ingesting junk food while mainlining Downton Abbey or Game of Thrones. Mind you, I have nothing against junk food but I lost whatever taste I ever had for non-stop video viewing in the autumn of 1971. Two events and one technological reality converged that fall to sour me on marathon video viewing. The first event was that I had to select a topic for my Master’s thesis in Communication Arts and Sciences at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The second event was that I decided to measure the amount and type of content that aired on the four available TV stations in the area - ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. The relevant technical reality was that the home video recorder was still just a very expensive gleam in the eyes of the video engineers at Sony and Philips. The result was me, perched bleary-eyed before my TV, stopwatch in one hand, pen poised over a legal pad in the other as I monitored each station from sign-on to sign-off [another ancient concept]; on four successive days.
So, no, I don’t do binge viewing. But least I get dizzy and fall off my high horse, I do need to confess to the bingeing that I do indulge in. Back in the olden days - like 1971 - to go on a “binge" was to lose a few days by over-indulging in alcohol or other mind-muddling substances. My own particular binge preference was, and remains, to lose a few days by over-indulging in serialized print fiction. I have written elsewhere here on the Wall about this addiction that I share with my sister and my older daughter. I blame my mother. It was either 1954 or 1956, as those were the two summers that we spent in LA area while my father did an “exchange teaching” summer school stint. My mother would cart we three kiddies off to the library where we would hoard the maximum of books allowed and head out into what I now realize was the then relatively unpolluted Southern California sunshine. We would loll about on the lawn that surrounded the library, lost in the pages of our personal never, neverland. My first serialized addiction from those early summers was the Mother West Wind stories by Thornton Burgess. My sister and I never looked back. Our big brother, Jim - now sadly gone - was several years older and I’m not sure if he was ever bitten by the serialized fiction bug, but I do remember dipping into his stash of Albert Payson Terhune canine books, Lad, the Story of Dog, etc.
Still, I digress. I am not sure when or where I first encountered Louis L’Amour. But it must have been a few decades ago when I first read the 18 books that constitute the Sackett family saga. The series follows a fictional family from Elizabethan England through immigration to “Raleigh’s Land” and eventually, across the continent and over a couple centuries, to the American West. I have kept my eye out for the books ever since. However, there must be some restrictions on the series, or L’Amour’s works in general, as they are conspicuous by their absence in the ebook world. So, I finally bit the bullet, and bought the series in paperback from Amazon. They arrived four days ago, so I have finished the first four. I know, I know, it’s a sickness. "My name is Robert and I’m a bookaholic.”
But a strange thing has happened. It has been a long time since I have spent so much time with a physical book in my hands. I read almost exclusively on my iPad or my phone. It is just so convenient. I can carry hundreds of books around with me. Pull them out when the line at the grocery store is too long. Whenever or wherever, and ta da, there’s my book. But not really, or at least not completely. A book is a conversation - author to reader. Rarely back again, but still a conversation.
I am beginning to think that digital texts can mute part of that conversation. As I read the Sackett books I can literally feel the flow of the conversation. The pages in my right hand decrease as those in my left swell. As they do so my heart rate increases, a strange mixture of joy and sorrow. Joy that resolution grows closer and closer. Sadness that the conversation is coming to end. A beloved friend will soon rise from the table and leave me alone. The comfort of a series is that they will return. A glance at the Amazon box reveals 14 more books. Pristine, spine smooth, unbroken. Calm returns.
And that was when it struck me that another obsessive binge had to lie on the other side of the conversation. The obsession of the artist. The mandate of the muse. I have heard an apocryphal tale about L’Amour. I don’t know if it is true. I choose to believe it is. It goes like this:
L’Amour rarely lingered over breakfast. He would slurp down his coffee and rush off to his study to write. One morning his daughter asked him why his was in such a hurry to get to his writing. L’Amour’s reply: “I can’t wait to see what happens!”
I am stunned when I consider the sheer number of pages in the Sackett saga, especially when the dust jacket informs me that this is just a small portion of L’Amour's output. I glance over at the Harry Potter books on my bookshelf, same feeling of awe. Some masochistic inclination makes me do an internet search for “books by David Baldacci.” Ouch. The Great Bridge by David McCullough is sitting on the coffee table across the room. I am not going to look him up. I sit back and take a sip of now cold coffee, yech. My first, and foolish, thought is “How fast can they type? How do you - in the course of lifetime - put that many words down on paper?” And that, of course, completely overlooks the essential variable: these are really good words, often beautiful and inspiring words. Words that make us smile, laugh, think and cry. Words that weave narratives that keep those of us on our of the conversation enchanted.
I realize that counting the words or pages in great writing is like pricing art by the square inch. Go to an art show and find the booth that has, in your opinion, the absolute best paintings or photographs in the show. Eavesdrop on the shoppers. I guarantee you will hear some version of this conversation:
“Do you really like it?”
“Yes, I do. But that seems like a lot of money for such a small painting.”
The public's inclination to count pages and measure paintings are a couple of reasons that I tell my students that very few artists choose to be artists, their art chooses them, and rarely lets go. The incredible volume of work provided by the authors I have mentioned is without doubt staggering - but that is, at best, a coarse measurement. We do not go to see Michelangelo’s David because it weighs 12,478 lbs. We go because those 6 tons of marble enable beauty in a way that helps us to better see the beauty of the world.
We do not binge on the works of L’Amour, Rowling, Baldacci and McCullough because they have spewed out millions of words. We binge on their words because their obsession to create has made our world more fun, interesting, livelier, more beautiful.
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