As with many other literature-based discussions, the issue of who is or isn’t a ‘real’ reader has been reinvigorated by the advent of BookTok and the proliferation of people who opt to read more modern books – often romance or fantasy – over classics. Some have become dismissive of those who don’t read the classics as lesser intellectuals, deeming them less worthy of the title of ‘reader’.
However, in accordance with Oxford Language’s definition of a reader as ‘a person who reads or who is fond of reading’, it is very difficult to argue that someone who prefers to read solely recent romance novels is not a reader. Whilst it may be true that reading a Colleen Hoover novel is perhaps a less academically rigorous exercise than reading Frankenstein, the difference in the manner of reading does not take away from the truth that to consume either text involves the physical act of reading.
The issue then becomes not whether you need to read the classics to be a reader, but what people really mean when they say a ‘real’ reader. Is it that you have to read a certain number of the literary canon each year, or consider the texts from an analytical approach? If either of these are the defining criteria, the vast majority of ‘readers’ would be people undertaking some form of academic study, be it secondary school or higher education, which feels rather restrictive.
Additionally, even if your definition of a ‘reader’ does require intellectual diligence, it doesn’t necessarily follow that a reader of Crime and Punishment is exerting themselves more than a reader of a piece of more recent literary fiction. There are plenty of non-classic novels that contain plenty of depth, and there are a huge variety of novels in between the literary canon and the often-derided TikTok romances, many of them modern and many of them mentally stimulating. Further still, someone reading a classic does not guarantee that they are engaging with it intellectually, or gaining any enjoyment from it.
That said, there is a definite benefit to reading at least some of the classics – so much of literature is built upon its predecessors, and so to say that there is not a value in reading classical literature would be untrue. However, the decision to not read the classics does not mean that you are not a ‘real’ reader – if you are reading, you are a reader.
“365-102 – The Classic Novel-” by Ruth_W is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0