I have just emerged dazed and shaky from almost a whole day reading Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World. I only started it last night but felt compelled to lose hours oblivious alone on the sofa to finish it. It’s been a long time since a book made that much of an emotional, almost a physical impact on me - I feel fluttery and drained. We Need to Talk About Kevin was a similarly intense experience – I found it immensely difficult to read but at the same time extremely moving and somehow important. Shriver has a gift for making things hit deeply and personally. In the case of both books, as well as being completely absorbed in the stories, I felt as though they were discussing some point of essential importance to me.
Not all books are just a ‘good read’. Some can be a difficult and painful read. Not all books are an escape. Some turn your gaze uncomfortably back on yourself with a sense of the ‘unheimliche’ or uncanny, the familiar made strange.
As a child, I could become utterly absorbed in a book, books were vitally important to me. As adults, I think many of us view books merely as a diversion, something to fill in empty time on the train, but not as a part of our ‘real lives’. I might feel as though I have done nothing today. But if something provokes a deep emotional reaction in you, what could be more real than that?
