Judging at book club

The people, not the book

Welcome to Getting Better. My name is Miriam, and I share weekly personal pieces to invite you to slow down, wake up, and find your fulfillment. My pieces touch on motherhood, chronic illness, human nature, and more. Subscribe for free, or upgrade for the price of an oat milk latte — my favorite / unequivocally the best drink on any menu 🥰  Sign up here:

Libreria Acqua Alta in Venice, 2018 — my dream (so many books!!!) and nightmare (chaos). And a treasure trove of condemnable authors, I’m sure.

I plod into the world on the promise of connection.

There’s a local book club that I decide, on a whim, I must attend. This is despite the fact that I don’t like leaving the house anymore after dark — I’m still working through how to be physically distant from my 10-month-old boy for any span of time. (It’s healthy. We’re fine.)

But I’m blown away by this novel, so I’m eager enough to connect with these people who no doubt fell equally in love with this author’s stunning prose and compelling characters that I’d regret staying home. My people are gathering — I want to be a part of it. I want the felt experience of uniting in adoration. Some part of me desperately needs that moment of togetherness with strangers.

30 minutes later, I wish I were home. I should be curled up on my armchair with my book in hand, nightguard popped in, oversized wool socks pulled high, and electric heating pad at infernal levels scorching my bum. My happy place.

Instead, I’m feeling shocked and hurt (I wish I were joking) to discover that what I thought would be a lovefest turned out to be a theoretical book burning. “I found it very difficult to read,” the woman across from me says — no, sniffs. Her nose elevated, her eyelids downcast, and her lips pursed just enough to make me question whether I’m imagining it all.

But I’m not imagining it, and that plus her seven words give me justification for the dislike I felt for her all along. The dislike hardens to lead in my mind now; nothing she does or says from this moment on can alchemize it into something softer, kinder.

Of the 20 people here, 15 or so (including my adversary) condemn the author along with her book, given her proven inadequacy as a novelist.

There’s something jarring to me about all of it: how we could hold such opposite regard for this piece of literature, and how I could have such a visceral reaction to these contrary opinions. Why do I care so much? As I sit there, listening to these people criticize the author’s creative expression and list all the things she should have done differently, my mind fires up and my heart shuts down. Who are you to judge this author? What improvements have you made upon a blank page?

I wonder if they’re writing or painting or marching or sculpting or singing or offering anything of their own passions and interests. And what a beautiful thing it would be — if they ventured to share a gift like that with the world. And what a sad thing it would be — for anyone to tell them otherwise.

Don’t we always make things personal the moment we recognize even the faintest glimmer of ourselves in something? It takes me ages to develop enough self-confidence to put any of my words in a public space, and here someone did it. To me, the author said, I made this for you — I hope you love it. And 15 people around me reply, Ew, no. We hate it. This almost terrifies me back into silence.

I have a deep fear that someone cleverer than I will laugh at my writing.

(I had to Google if it’s “cleverer than me” or “cleverer than I.” I’m still unsure I’ve chosen the right one.) I have long feared clever people in this way.

I picture a (supposed) friend of mine reading my words out loud to a lover, the two of them snickering at my expense — at how silly and stupid my sentences sound. The intimacy of their bond makes it more painful.

What a vain fear — to think that I’m so near the center of someone’s world that they’d take the time to be this cruel. Surely they’re too busy focusing on their own main characters, the center of their worlds — themselves — to care all that much about my silly, stupid sentences. Reminding myself of this brings me comfort.

But that comfort is a lie, isn’t it. We’re never too busy.

I tell my husband my secrets, so he’s the first to hear me say it: “I want to be a writer.”

“You are a writer. Annie loves your writing and she reads a lot.”

“She reads a lot of trash. I want to be a great writer.”

I’m not at all too busy.

My nose elevated, my eyelids downcast, my lips pursed just enough to convince myself I’m imagining it all. I would never.

But my husband points this out, so I try to take it back.

Why do we judge each other so harshly and incessantly?

Haven’t we all experienced the fruitlessness of gossip and the humility of words you wish you’d never spoken coming back to haunt you?

We know we’re often wrong or just plain ill-wishing in our judgments. We cast them on a whim of resentment or jealousy — hoping to catch as many tender hearts as possible in our spiteful net. We drag them out of the depths of sensitive beings, of their spaces of nurture and belonging, exposing them to the harsh elements of ridicule, robbing them of any chance at all to unfold into Truth. We watch as they flail, desperate to return to the vastness of malleability and nuance and mutual understanding and compassion and bravery and generosity and…

Why are we so cruel?

I forget where, but I remember reading advice on how to write (a classic moment of desperation for someone to give me a list of 10 rules to write by, to de-risk this space, to replace my soul and spirit with and MLA safety net of sorts).

The advice went something like “don’t use adverbs, ever, and avoid long sentences — you’re not William Faulkner.”

I understand this advice and the beauty of precise language (à la “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time” — Blaise Pascal), but I also fear we miss out on so much raw beauty in this way for fear of being judged and ruled as a Failure.

Isn’t there beauty in trying?

Not in trying to dethrone Faulkner, but in trying to find your own stunning prose and beautifully crafted words and expression of Truth that someone, someday, might refer to when they advise, “don’t even bother trying to write like her, you’ll never be that good.”

Isn’t it a gift for each of us to explore how to capture a glimmer of Truth in a way that resonates and brings us all closer? To explore our own expression of the human condition?

It’s near (I removed the -ly) impossible to try this, to seek this Truth, when we fear the whole world is watching us, waiting for us to say something foolish, to point its finger and laugh us so far down a hole that we never dare attempt a climb back up in the treacherous darkness.

It’s so easy to let that fear guide us — especially today, in our world of social media. But we forget that social media is not our true nature. It warps it. The world is not at our fingertips in this way. It is not stalking us, waiting to pounce — watching for a misstep, eager to publicize our latest atrocity. We misinterpret what it means to be alive and well when there is only this ending to be feared.

Instead, the world — the real world — is at our fingertips in a much more life-giving way. It patiently waits for us to engage, to rediscover all its joys and all its wonders. It’s here now and always, welcoming us to join it in celebration of our courage and our innately kind hearts.

And that is why it is always worth trying.