Lightweight?

Am I a lightweight, figuratively and literarily speaking? I went to the doctor earlier last week, one I hadn't seen in several years, one who knows what I do, my interest in genealogy & history & the origin of names, one I like a lot. As I waited for him, I was reading "New Moon," the second book in the Twilight series. I had resisted reading the series because: 1) Sookie Stackhouse notwithstanding, I am not a big vampire fan; 2) I know it's mainly aimed at the young adult market; and 3) I generally resist reading anything that everyone else drools over (Bridges of Madison County pops to mind). I expected him to chew me out for not having this particular check-up for three years, but when Doc came in and saw what I was reading, he surprised me by wanting to know why I was "wasting" my time reading part of the Twilight saga. He started telling me about a book he thought would be worthy of my time.

So I found the book my doctor prescribed and checked it out. It is "Pillars of the Earth" a 900+ page tome ("tome" is fancy-speak for "ton," which the book weighs) by Ken Follett, set in medieval times, about the people surrounding the building of a church. It started with a hanging, but slowed after the beginning, as we began to laboriously learn about all of the characters. I understand this was/is a very popular book, and Doc had even told me it was an Oprah book (see #3 above). "Pillars" is populated with kindly priors and wicked priests, illegitimate children and forced marriages, spousal abuse and betrayal, impotence and rape, Moorish scholars, flying buttresses, and what passes for celebrities intertwined into the story. Very exciting, but I am really not interested. It sounds and reads like a mini-series, like the John Jakes Patriot books from the 1970s and 1980s, which I, at first, gobbled up but got tired of the way Jakes kept name-dropping. (Two characters reminiscing about seeing "little Abe" in the wilds of Kentucky and "wasn't he cute?" was the breaking point for me on that series. It just strained my credulity that they might have run across Lincoln as a child as they fled from, IIRC, Canada to Tennessee.) Plus "Pillars" is set in medieval times: poor sanitation, death, poor sanitation, torture, poor sanitation, corruption, poor ... well, you get the drift.

I could finish wading through it, but, like wading through the sewers of Paris, I really am not interested. So my question to myself: Am I a lightweight reader? Have I limited myself in my reading habits reading unworthy material? Or, since I have read so much over the years, am I just pickier about what I want to take the time to read? I've read plenty of classics and plenty of cr*p in my time, both for pleasure or class or work, but I don't wish and don't need to read to impress anyone else. I've read non-fiction but prefer fiction. I've read "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Animal Farm," "Doctor Zhivago," "Moby Dick," "The Great Gatsby," "Madeline," much of Vonnegut and Heinlein, and all of Bujold and the Harry Potter books. I have read Georgette Heyer and Sylvia Plath, and although Plath was a fine writer, I'd rather read Heyer because one doesn't contemplate suicide when reading her. So I must have already made my decision as to what I want to read, regardless of how anyone else sees me.

And then the next question is does anyone have the right to ask someone else why they are "wasting time" reading something? I personally don't care what others read. I've heard all of the stereotypical criticisms: westerns are dime novel shoot 'em ups; mysteries are formulaic; science fiction is just Buck Rogers adventure; romance is just ignorant women's fantasies. All of these statements ignore the fact that all of these genres host some very fine writing with well-developed plots and imaginative characters, while each genre also produces garbage. I've been talked into reading books by all sorts of people, and was disappointed at times, but hit enough paydirt that I keep following suggestions. The same person that nagged me into trying Charlaine Harris also suggested another series that I didn't like. But she was right about Sookie, so I will listen when she suggests something else. So no matter what it is, if you like it and, knowing me, think I will, too, go ahead and suggest it. I might or might not read it. Like "Pillars," I might take and look and decide to not read it now, or at all. But my decision doesn't make me a literary lightweight. It just makes me me.

And by the way, "New Moon" keeps my attention, flows well and I don't want to kill myself when I am reading it.

Bella, now, is another matter.