Where is he?

November 13th, 2009

“She is finding escape from routine in the pages of a novel.’

To me, she looks like she’s put the book down and thought ‘bloody hell, why do I get to sit and read a book about other people doing all the exciting things?’ Finding escape from routine is just a genteel way of putting it. She could even be thinking ‘why doesn’t this sodding painter bugger off, or at least cast me in bronze atop a rearing stallion having done something meaning full like conquering somewhere?’

The quote is taken from the back of a calendar entitled ‘Women Reading’. I bought the calendar today at my local (independent) bookshop. I rummaged through the shelves of calendars looking for those with images I knew I could look at all year. I’ve had a Gaudi year, two years of Chagall, a Waterhouse year, a year of old archaeological photos of digs, and a year of medieval women. This year I just couldn’t pick the one I wanted, and I didn’t want to go hunting in other shops.

I came away with the aforementioned calendar decorated with twelve images of women reading, all collected from various American museums. As I paid for it I wondered why there wasn’t a calendar of men reading. Is it because it is seen to be too … un-manly? Would the equivalent be photos of men with power tools, or lying on the couch scratching their balls or watching the footy? In other words something active, not the seemingly passive pursuit of reading.

Those of us who read know that that it is far from a passive pursuit. And I know very few men who don’t read books. So I decided to go on an image scrounge and find the equivalent images - men in an interior (a feminine space) pictured reading a novel – not a scroll or a business paper or proclaiming a law or reading a map –but whiling away the hours reading for pleasure as women are always shown to be doing. Lazy bints.

I went into Google Image and typed in ‘men reading books’ and by the third line on the first page the search engine has given up and showed women reading. This called for advanced searching skills … I type in ‘Victorian paintings men reading books’ – but Google queried me with ‘did you mean women reading books?’ I know what I meant, and I meant men reading books, images of. How presumptuous!

I soldiered on, trying every combination I could think of, I scoured various galleries and art sites, and to keep it fair, I confined it to the first third of the twentieth century, the same era my calendar images are from. But images of men in those days were to do with action and acquisition – of land, property, dogs horses, family. I guess to be painted lolling about with a book could send the wrong message. It could say ‘I wish my life was as interesting as this book’.

I’ve no doubt lots of them did read novels, as they still do today and I would like to see more representations of men reading for leisure, and not the newspaper, their iPhone or Blackberry’s or a screen, or a fishing guide or a cook book, but a novel - for pleasure.

If anyone reading this has such an image they can send it to me and I’ll gather them up for a post.

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Categories: culture, on reading | Tags: culture, reading