Ian McMillan: The war of words that readaholics can never win

Right, I’ll just finish this chip sarnie then I’ll get on with reading that book of poems I’m writing a review of. I’ve read it once but I feel that when I’m writing about a book I need to reread all the poems at least once. I’ll just open the chip sarnie like I’m opening a soft white book (because it has to be white bread for chip sarnies, in my opinion) and put some more brown sauce on the chips. And then I’ll get on with my reading and writing job.
By The Newsroom
Published 15th Oct 2022, 06:00 BST

I pick up the sauce bottle and I make the fundamental error of reading the label. Well, both labels, the front and the back. I marvel at the ingredients. I read the address of the manufacturer. I read the little bit at the bottom of the label that tells you the history of the sauce. Then, like somebody listening to one note on the piano over and over again, I read the word ‘sauce’ on the label until, like any word that your eyes or ears are overexposed to, it loses all meaning and becomes a jumble of squiggles. And still I carry on reading it.

Let’s face it: My name’s Ian McMillan and I’m a readaholic. I can’t stop reading and, not only can I not stop reading but I’m completely indiscriminate about the things I read. It could be War and Peace or it could be a bus ticket. Show me them both and I’ll read them both. This can be a problem, as fellow readaholics will testify, because it means that you can never pass any words on any surface without running your eyes over them.

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I finish off the chip sarnie and take the plate to the sink. I turn the plate upside down and read the information that the plate is dishwasher and microwave safe. I look at the calendar on the kitchen wall and I read the description of the photograph. I tell myself to stop it and I walk into the other room to carry on reading the book of poems I’m reviewing because a deadline is looming like the use-by date on a sauce bottle.

Ian McMillanIan McMillan
Ian McMillan

I sit down and open the book of poems with a ceremonial flourish. I begin to read the first poem. The letterbox flaps: the postman’s been! I rush through to the front door and it’s not the postman, it’s a flyer for a new takeaway and yes, I sit on the bottom step and read the menu for the takeaway as though it’s a thriller and I need to know who the chief suspect is. I put the flyer down and go back to the book of poems. To be perfectly honest, this is a really good book of poems. Put it this way: it’s more profound than the label on a sauce bottle. Put it another way: it has more depth than a takeaway menu. I make my way slowly down the poem, taking in the words and the images and the metaphors.

The letterbox flaps: the postman’s been! And this time it really is the postman. There’s a catalogue from a firm I bought a shirt from once, years ago. There’s a bank statement. And there’s a magazine; a magazine full of new poems and prose.

I won’t read them now. I’ll be strong. I can do this. I need to read the book in front of me, the words in front of me, not the new words that have just arrived. I’ll just read the shirt catalogue; that won’t take long. Then I’ll go back to the poems. I promise.