Anti-Climacus

Everyone else has been discussing the NYT article on literary dealbreakers, so I will, too. I'd mostly like to associate myself with Helen ("The idea that taste in books can be a relationship-killer is uncontroversial..."), but will disagree with her, flagging one comment in particular:

124. Children’s writer E.L. Konigsburg talks in a speech about how to truly know someone, you should ask what children’s books they’ve read. It’s a good idea. When you’re a kid, you don’t know enough to try to impress anyone with what you’re reading.

True enough, but if it's taste in books you're after, this seems a dead end. Taste, at least in the Eliot-ian scheme to which I subscribe, is a development that takes place over time. A child may read well, but almost by definition reads indiscriminately (I would hate to be judged by what I read in, oh, 6th grade). When you're an adult, especially once you're done with college, your reading habits become a reflection of your underlying personality. To illustrate the point in a different way: I loved Susan Cooper's books when I was young, and for more than a few years they were my absolute favorites. If they were still my favorites after attempting my way through world literature, my inclination would be that something has gone terribly wrong.*

The two comments that leaped out at me were number 81:

There aren’t really any deal-breakers, although I generally find that people who have very limited interests in genre have limited interests in many areas, and less to say. I also find it disturbing when people say that they ‘hate’ reading. You’re out of school. It’s not mandatory (but you are losing out)!

and 107:

I met and fell in love with a handsome, funny, hard working, intelligent man twenty years ago. I almost, quite ignorantly, dismissed him because he doesn’t read.
I learned throughout our marriage that my perfect fit came with a man willing to jump out of bed to change the baby, even when he had am early flight, or, who used his vacation time to fix up our house, or any one of a million other generous, supportive things he’s done for us.
I’m the one with the ivy league degrees, I’m the English teacher who reads Richard Ford and Zadie Smith and tosses off essays in minutes. But you ask any one of our kids who is smarter and they’ll always pick their dad.

Which is to say, I have sympathy for both the notion that tastes in reading signal an important piece of information about an individual, and for the idea that there are many other more-important qualities in a potential spouse. I'd order my list in the following manner:

Reading is better than not reading

Better to occasionally read books that challenge you than to consistently read things of middling quality (I am fortunate that other requirements, i.e. being Christian, screen out a good deal of the pop-'metaphysics' that many commenters worry about)

Better to occasionally read lowbrow books, or do other things with your time, than to only read books of 'high quality' (I enjoy movies of all kinds, sports, music, doing things with my friends, and will likely not turn off an episode of Friends if it's on and I don't have work to do--people who can only get enjoyment from a limited number of activities are kind of boring, and people who rule out certain forms of activity have already limited themselves.)

But, of course, Norm captures the absurdity of the discussion better than anyone.

*Some exceptions, of course: Dickens has literary merit, despite the fact he's almost universally left to younger children nowadays; Robinson Crusoe and Rudyard Kipling amongst books for boys; I'm sure there are girl equivalents. I like all of those, but I recognize Dante's working on another, higher level.