No offense but…
When I hear the phrase “No offense but…” I know that something offensive is about to come out of the speaker’s mouth. The phrase is one of those passive-aggressive mechanisms that most people use in order to air their opinions while instantly putting their listeners or subjects on the defensive.
No offense, but that stuff is just trash.
A total stranger said this to me last week on the bus. I was reading Sunshine and Shadow by Sharon and Tom Curtis. I’m not even sure how she could tell what I was reading or to which genre it belonged, since the cover is fairly worn and was angled propped on the back of the seat in front of me. The cover itself is quite mild — gold-toned, with what looks like a stepback cover but isn’t. The romantic couple are visible, hiding behind the gold stuff, but there is no Man-Titty (TM to the Smart Bitches, I think), no mullet, nothing to mock or to cause offense. The only way my neighbor could possibly have known that I was reading a romance novel was by -gasp- reading over my shoulder.
She had to repeat herself before she had my attention. I surfaced from the book, looked at her, smiled and went back to my reading. Since I didn’t pay her any more attention, she turned up her iPod and stared out the window.
After the fact, I’ve been wishing I hadn’t just ignored her. I could have explained that the primary conflict in the book (IMO) is the heroine’s struggle with strict adherence to religious tenets and her desire for personal freedom. I could have told her about the romance genre’s position in the publishing industry. I could have talked about the growing scholarship surrounding the genre, ranging from popular culture to feminist studies.
What would you have done? Engage or ignore?
Since then, I’ve been wondering once again why people, total strangers, feel entitled to approach me about my reading material. While eating lunch in the park. On the bus. On the train. While standing in line at the MVA. (I carry books everywhere. You never know when you’ll need one.) They would likely not comment on any music or audiobooks I listened to on a portable player. Or any magazine. Why do books invite the observation and judgment of strangers? I don’t mean just romance either. I’ve gotten similar comments while reading urban fantasy (from a traditional fantasy reader even) and science fiction.
A great deal of the cover art for genre novels has been, historically, rather gaudy. But is that really it?
Or are the comments the result of non-reader curiousity? I wrote last week about Steven Schwartzman’s books by the yard, purchased from The Strand, and marveled about books as decoration rather than ideas. One commenter noted that she felt sorry for people who see books as mere decorations. Now I’m wondering if non-readers feel some sort of equivalent thing for us bibliophiles. Is the curiousity and the commentary that readers receive the result of non-readers simply trying to grasp the appeal?
How do you handle comments from the peanut gallery about your reading material? Do you have a theory about the source of the comments?
