Longitudinal studies on book deprivation

"So you don't read books?" I ask.

"Never."

"Not even in school?"

Nelson laughs. "I mean if there were Cliffs Notes, I read those. Anything to not read a fucking book."

It's clear that he's proud of this fact, and doesn't understand why I find it so odd. As if I'm the weird one for reading books that haven't been assigned to me.

"OK, but you want to be a writer? And you don't read books?" I ask.

"I am a writer. And I don't read books because I want to be original, for everything I write to be wholly mine. I don't need these outside influences muddling up my words."

We go back to eating, the sound of chewing filling the room¹.

My earliest memories of books include an old wooden toy box overflowing with picture books—my favorites being Madeline and The Snowy Day—and a 400-page copy of The Yearling, whose slick forest green jacket cover would stick to my six year old legs on summer afternoons. My life has always been inextricably bound up with books; they've been a source of joy, comfort, and adventure from the moment I was born.

I've nurtured an interest in writing for almost as long. I still have my third grade report on lemmings, and a fourth grade "book" I wrote about a horse named Morgan. My mother used to set me down with a typewriter and a stack of paper so she could get a couple of hours to herself.

The more I read the more that I want to write. It becomes almost a sickness. I'll be out minding my business and a sentence drops into my brain, and I'm forced to repeat it, mantra-like, until I get home. And that's when another sentence stops by, and then another, none of them related to each other, but all the same piling up and demanding to be recorded or slip away forever.

And in my mind I think I'm clever. I think because these thoughts have come to me, unbidden, and called me away from my work, my shower, my doctor's appointment, that I have been bestowed with a gift. That some molecules in my brain have clicked together in a once in a lifetime configuration and given me words and phrasing that encapsulate profound thoughts that only I could think.

And so five years later, this conversation with Nelson still ricochets around my mind, like a pebble in a worn out shoe. I shake and I shake the shoe, listening to the damn pebble bounce around, but I can't seem to dislodge it.

Because it seems so ridiculous, this idea that one would willingly deprive themselves of reading in order to preserve their voice, their art. And if Nelson had any artistic inclinations I could at least chalk this up to an absurd performance piece played out over the course of his life, because what is life like without reading books? What kind of writing does a writer who doesn't read produce? Could we put Nelson in a control group? What's the IRB approval process for longitudinal studies on book deprivation?

Although if I'm being perfectly honest, I do worry sometimes that someone else's phrasing has stamped itself on my unconsciousness, and that I'm merely regurgitating it. And what if I get caught? There I am in a darkened room, swearing on my life that all of my writing is my own, and then my interrogators will swing the lamps into my eyes as they calmly lay out the evidence before me: liner notes, newspaper clippings, printouts from the Internet Archive. It's damning and things don't look good for me. I'll have to admit that I've been a phony all along, even though I didn't realize it.

A few weeks ago I had to write a short piece introducing myself to my classmates in a writing workshop. The stakes were high, and I wanted to impress. After describing my favorite books I was particularly pleased with how I phrased my latest hobby: …slam my bike down the 'hills' of Central Illinois.

How satisfying that phrasing was to me!

And then on an idle Wednesday afternoon in July, indulging in the nostalgia of songs I was obsessed with in high school, a slow discomfort in my gut began to spread as the bass line for Belly's Feed the Tree came through the speakers:

This old man I’ve talked about
Broke his own heart,
Poured it in the ground
Big red tree grew up and out,
Throws up its leaves,
Spins round and round.

I know all this and more
So take your hat off
When you’re talking to me
And be there when I feed the tree

This little squirrel I used to be
Slammed her bike down the stairs
They put silver where her teeth had been
Baby silvertooth, she grins and grins

Perhaps Nelson had a point after all.