If you’ve perused the video introduction above, you get the gist of the idea. In keeping with the new interest in the REACTION vlog, in which a person reacts in real time to a media artifact like video or music that they have never seen or heard before, I propose to try a reaction vlog to a literary text.
I have a common disorder whereby I purchase more books than I can possibly read*. I’ve got books on the shelf I bought two decades ago that I have never cracked open. I buy books sometimes because I like the author, because they’ve been recommended to me, because I’ve read a review, because they were written by a friend, or, often, because it is a book I feel I “should” have read. My brand of the disorder is heightened when I find a book I “should” read published in a limited or “fine” edition. So, not only does the volume sit on the shelf for a very long time beckoning to be read, but it also looks very attractive while doing it. I’m not sure what the psychology is here: maybe I think I will be more likely to read a book if it is beautiful to look at and hold and smell. At any rate, if this IS the modus operandi at play here, it hasn’t worked especially well up to this point. The books beckon, they look nice, and they remain on the shelf.
What I’m saying is that I don’t have to look very far and hard for a book I have not read.
You might be thinking, okay, it’s one thing to watch a video blogger react to a song or a video clip, but there’s no way I’m sitting through a video in which some guy reads out loud while reacting in real time to an entire novel. Let me set your mind at ease: I would not do that. Under only one condition would I do that: if I was being paid. Nope, not my job. My job is primarily to amuse myself, get some exposure to some texts that I have long wished to dive into, and hopefully, provide some entertainment, hilarity, and a light dose of instruction for any willing viewer. I have set for myself a certain number of ground rules:
1. I will select books I have never read, promise.
2. I will only read and react to short passages: the opening page or paragraph, a single poem, a section of a long poem, an excerpt from an essay.
3. I will not choose pieces by my contemporaries, unless one of them requests that I do so.
4. I will focus primarily on texts that are considered “classics.” And by that I mean works that have been widely read and revered, works that remain so to this day, and perhaps, works that were published pre-21st century.
5. None of the above is written in stone.
6. If this is a train wreck, which is a strong possibility, I will stop doing it immediately.
I would be amenable to suggestions or requests, although it would have to be a book that I already have in the collection (I’m not buying any more books, I’ve decided, at least in the short term, unless it is a book written by a friend). But I think I have my sights set (to begin with) on a famous German novel of the early 20th century, The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann. It is a book on the “should read” list and has been nearly at the top of that list for many, many years, a novel that, for some reason, has come across the radar as a seminal text for many writers that I admire. We’ll see how this goes. Onward and upward. Wish me luck. I hope you are amused and at least a little bit edified!
*Just learned that there is a word for this disorder. It’s called Tsundoku, a Japanese word for people who buy more books than they can read!
michael jarmer 