Bibliophobia: A Memoir by
Sarah Chihaya
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
To be entirely fair, I shouldn't rate this book at all. Parts were easily a 5 star and parts were an unequivocal 1 star. To split it right down the middle does an injustice to both the parts I hated and the parts I loved.
Let me explain:
I picked this up because of the obvious. Fear of Books sounds delightfully perverse for someone like me who loves them. And by all accounts, it's a book lover's book. The author posits that she's a professional deep reader, interpreter, and critic, and I won't gainsay her because I saw all of myself in the things she wrote about. And when she turned her analysis on herself, on the very idea of making her life one deserving of (or, as we quickly learn, of ERASING herself from) an overarching narrative, it suddenly hit too close to home.
Sure, the idea is cool, but there ARE limits, whether for personal sanity or simple reality--and the direction that this then takes in the memoir suddenly takes a downturn.
So, wait, what? Brad, do you mean it becomes a poorly-written self-narratization akin to navel-gazing and labyrinthizing of one's self?
Well, it's not poorly-written. But I WILL say that it's a dangerous book.
There are a lot of memoirs about major depression, plopping any reader face-first in the downward spirals of self-harm and suicidal ideation--and if you have a tendency to susceptibility, the point is to AVOID SUCH WORKS.
This one is VERY much a book about suicide, about finding that final narrative end.
On the one hand, it's expressive about all such downward spirals, but it takes the form of pretty much seeing ALL of it through the lens of bibliomania, for all the good and ill, and making sure you follow her down into this pit--perhaps making doubly-sure that you pick up the poison, yourself, and ingest just enough of it to make you question why YOU love reading.
Do you read to efface yourself, to make your ego disappear in the face of a character's more-real presence? Do you silence yourself repeatedly by throwing yourself in somebody else's world? Are you, in effect, committing suicide by degrees?
These are the questions being asked. And honestly, I think they're disingenuous. A major depressive episode, especially when paired with a bright mind, can transform ANYTHING into another of its dark, death-seeking kind. Books, in this case, are merely a lens to see the world--darkly.
So, I say this is a dangerous book. A poisoner's tome, with the poison painted at the corners of every page. Of course, the author may not have INTENDED this, consciously or not, but the effects are clear.
So, reader beware.
My synesthesia smells insecticide with an old paper smell, one like chocolate.
Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.
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