Between fiction and real life:
A little over a year ago, we conducted a survey of women readers to find a “watershed” women’s novel – the book which, above all others, had sustained individual women through key moments of transition or crisis in their lives. We began by polling women who were prominent in the arts and the media, then moved on to women journalists, academics, university students, schoolteachers and sixth formers. By the end we were polling every woman reader who crossed our paths; in total, 400 women responded to our inquiry.
Absolutely every woman we spoke to had her favourite. The top titles that emerged were surprisingly varied. They ranged from The Lord of the Rings and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to Catch 22, Gone With The Wind, Rebecca, Heart of Darkness and The Golden Notebook. This was alongside such perennial favourites as Jane Eyre (our way- out-in-front eventual winner), Mrs Dalloway, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch and Anna Karenina. Jeanette Winterson’s Passion and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale had bands of loyal followers.
This year, we tackled the obvious next question: what do men read to get them through life? If polling women’s reading habits had thrown up such an astonishing variety of reading, surely men’s reading would be equally revealing. After all, as two female researchers, we might have been prepared for women’s reading choices; in the case of men, we admitted we really hadn’t a clue.
Our sample of reading men was selected on exactly the same principles as the women – that way, we felt the results could be directly compared. The first thing we found, unexpectedly, was that the men were more reluctant than the women to discuss the influence reading might have had on them. Or, perhaps it might be more accurate to say, they seemed suspicious of the question. Women had responded to our questionnaire without hesitation, producing a number of key moments in their life at which they unselfconsciously acknowledged that fiction had offered them guidance or solace. Many men we approached really did not seem to associate reading fiction with life choices.
Because it’s a ridiculous question! What sort of moron associates imaginary characters with life choices? I’ve read thousands of novels, I’m an avid reader and not one ever “sustained me through a transition or crisis”. I couldn’t name one such book, let alone five, nor could any other sane human being. Can you? Anyhow, if you don’t manufacture imaginary crises for yourself every other month you probably won’t find yourself requiring fictional solace.
What this study actually reveals is two things. First, it shows that people lie about books they claim to have read or found significant. They might as well have asked the question: “name five books that will make people think you are an intelligent and educated individual.” I’d bet more than half the people who claimed that Jane Eyre or The Outsider were the most significant book in their lives have never read more than a chapter or two.
(The correct answer to the question, of course, is American Psycho or maybe the Executioner series. “Because, you know, The Executioner really consoled me when I hit this confused period in my life, I was sort of wandering and just fell into this rut of tracking down and killing Mafia hit men.” Another quality answer would be: “Watership Down, because I honestly feel that I’m a rodent trapped in a man’s body.”)
Second, it demonstrates that the average women’s grasp on reality can be more than a little shaky. If a man told you, in all seriousness, that reading an HP Lovecraft novel had changed his life, you’d surely back away slowly and attempt to avoid making any sudden movements.