Ian, at Marbury, disagrees with my criticism of Martin Amis for suggesting that economy of effort in reading should direct us to writers already established (by 'time') as being good writers. 'Norm is wrong about this', Ian says; because time is short, Amis's is an enjoyment-maximizing strategy. I stand my ground. If I may adopt the same idiom, Martin Amis and Ian are wrong and I am right.
I shall set out my reasons for thinking so.
Before I do, notice that Ian's and my views about this are not as polarized as they may appear to be. For he allows: 'Whilst I don't think it's sensible or desirable to read older books exclusively, I think it makes sense to have a strong bias towards them when making your reading choices.' And I concede: 'There is something to be said for hanging back a bit and not trying to read every latest thing just because it is that.' Yet, there's plainly a difference of emphasis, and though I spend a fair amount of time reading older books, I shall defend the view that there's absolutely nothing wrong with reading younger ones.
First, it's true that if you read a classic, you can rely on the fact that many other people have read and enjoyed it. However, literary taste being what it is, that is no guarantee that you will enjoy it. I read Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier on the basis of its reputation as a classic, and while I don't regret the experience since I learned something from it, I didn't like the book. I didn't even admire it. Or think about Dickens, whose work has been loved by millions - and I am amongst them - but for whom there is also no shortage of readers he bores and even annoys. Why, there are those who, incomprehensibly, don't like Jane Austen.
Second, if the authentication of millions of readers is, as Ian says it is, a guide towards one's own probable enjoyment of a book, then time is not of the essence. One could read Dan Brown, who was born when I was already 20, and whose The Da Vinci Code was published in the year I turned 60.
Third, the risk, and the cost in time wasted, of experimenting with a newish book and maybe happening upon one you don't enjoy can be minimized by stopping reading it at an early stage.
Fourth, Martin Amis was speaking about not reading his 'youngers'; but the same logic of time-economy as applies to them would also apply to one's contemporaries. Adopting it as a strategy, not only would I never have read Colm Tóibín or Maggie O'Farrell or Zoë Heller. I would also not have read Anne Tyler or Marilynne Robinson. Whether the books of any of these writers will 'grow' into classics with the longevity of a Pride and Prejudice or a Madame Bovary I don't know and nor do I really care. I'm glad to have read them and I enjoyed myself doing so.
For, fifth, even were Ian's and Amis's time-saving stategy infallible, which it isn't, it's not everyone's objective to read only what has been certified, by the ages, as being 'good literature'. I've been more than happy reading Austen and Dickens and the Brontës and Dostoyevsky and James and Wharton, but one of the things I also want to read is fiction that is, precisely, contemporary - to see how novelists are writing about the world of today. How else to do that but to take a chance? And, in truth, it isn't all that much of a chance you're taking; it's not like your eyes will stop functioning if you're bored by a few pages. You can throw the book aside.
Sixth, since this is about reading as enjoyment, who really wants a finely-calculated strategy anyway, ensuring economy of time? Will that get you the variety and the rhythms you want in reading, the contrasts and continuities you happen to feel like, the impulse to follow the recommendation of a friend, the abundant wealth of the world's literature, its peaks and depths, its monsters and monstrosities, its wild imaginings or mature wisdom, its humour intended and unintended, its subtleties and exaggerations, its genius, its gaffes, its pleasures expected but also unexpected, small gems hidden from view, established neither by time nor by armies of readers?
Cramped is what I said and cramped I repeat. It's a reading strategy that might be devised by a firm of accountants, or by a government department for the regulation of reading productivity. It's not well adapted to its object and it isn't for me.