LITMIR.BIZ

       Dear AA,

       I haven’t read a book since I left university in 1994. Am I missing out?

       Alex, Northampton

      I don’t know. What else haven’t you done since you left university? Had a whipped cream fight? Jumped off a bridge? Talked about French films for five hours? Slept with a friend and remained just friends? Been so happy to see your mates on a Friday night you thought you’d burst? Spent a whole term in a wife-beater trying to flick cards into a bin and smoke Gitanes at the same time? Woken up under a tree? Broken up over politics? You see, Alex, when people write about things they’re not doing it’s usually a symptom of a greater malaise, a deeper depression. If you want to know if you’ve missed out on reading books, go to a fucking bookshop and try a few. They won’t mind, promise. If you left university in ’94, my guess is you’re just about hitting your 10,000-mile reality check. You’re doing an inventory of what you’ve achieved. And comparing it with the to-do list you had when you turned 20. And it’s a shock. There have been quite a lot of breakages. And pilfering. And it’s way past its sell-by date. You either feel trapped or let down. And you realise it’s not all still in front of you. It’s not all to play for. Half of it’s already been used up. And you’ll be lucky if you grab a draw. And the pattern for what the next 35 years is going to be like is already set. The horizon is closer, the panorama narrower, the goal smaller, the rewards prosaic. My guess is you didn’t read a lot of books at university. And the degree you took was not much more than a label to get you three years of brilliant fun. And the further from it you get the more brilliantly it shines, and by contrast how much dimmer and more predictable your current life seems. But don’t despair. There’s an answer – it’s not complicated. It’s: suck in your gut and get on with it. This is the human condition. Live with it. In particular, it’s the male human condition. When you were 20 you were a twat: insufferable, arrogant, thoughtless, boastful. You imagined all sorts of shit. You thought you’d be mates forever. You thought making money was about charm and being in the right place at the right time. You thought a plastic tube with a squeezy bulb would make your willy bigger and that being good in bed was a trick you did with your fingers, like shadow puppets. You thought England would win the World Cup before you were 30 and Salt-N-Pepa were the coolest hip-hop combo ever. So why should your post A-level wish list be any more reliable? The one thing you didn’t have then was this paunch of self-pity. My advice is, whatever it is you think is holding you back or conspiring against you, embrace it. Do more of it. If it’s responsibility you hate, take on more of it. If it’s work, stay later. That’s counterintuitive, but, trust me, without exception, the escape plans men make for themselves are all risible, pathetic, callow, selfish and destructive. Live with it. This is what you’re supposed to feel. This is being a man. Actually, on second thoughts, yes, you are missing out. Books, novels, are a great consolation. That’s why they were invented, why they’re written.