Reading the Zeitgeist
On the book that everyone’s talking about.
Zeitgeist is a fantastic word. Zeitgeist! It’s the only word I’ve come across that accurately qualifies the “it factor” of a particular period. Zeitgeist is jazz in the 1920s and rock ‘n roll in the ’50s. It’s the French Revolution and tales of medieval chivalry. It’s the spirit of a time. In essence, it’s popular culture.
Zeitgeist books capture that spirit and, in doing so, give us a picture of where our culture is and how it’s changing…or, conversely how it’s failing to change. What are some examples of “zeitgeist books”? To really illustrate what I mean, I’ll give you a few from different zeitgeists.
Black Lives Matter:
White Fragility by Robin diAngelo
How to be Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Anything by Toni Morrison and Alice Walker
The #MeToo Movement:
Shrill and The Witches are Coming by Lindy West
Not That Bad by Roxane Gay
Rage Becomes Her by Chemaly Soraya
The Great Depression:
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The 2010s:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Any and all thrillers with the word “girl” in the title
So, what do all of these books have in common? Superficially, not much. You have everything from serious works of popular nonfiction grappling with America’s overdue racial reckoning to Margaret Mitchell’s wildly nostalgic longing for the Old South in States post-Depression. What they share, however, is a large community of people who have read, discussed, opined, agreed, and disagreed about them. In other words, they create and promote cultural engagement.
When I was a bookseller, I read zeitgeist books all the time. This was in the early 2010s, so I read pretty much all the psychological thrillers with female protagonists as the eponymous girls. At the time, I wondered why they were so popular, but looking back on it, it kind of makes sense. #MeToo hadn’t happened yet, but we were on the cusp of Fourth Wave feminism. We wanted to see complex, strong, sometimes unlikable female protagonists that broke the virgin/whore binary BUT we needed them to have critical psychological weaknesses, as well — to balance all that strength out.
That’s the thing about the zeitgeists. Sometimes they’re pretty easy to see, (I’m looking at you flappers), but sometimes they’re not quantifiable without the benefit of hindsight.
There’s a value in the media of a zeitgeist that tends to fly under the radar, and that’s cultural engagement. These books tap a social nerve, which makes them bankable IPs (inellectual properties) ripe for film and TV. Book adaptations are great way for self-described “non-readers” to join the coversation, as are audio books. The wider the media footprint, the bigger the conversation, and these are conversations we need to be having.
A consersation about Game of Thrones could cover sexual violence, enslavement, loss of family, marginalization and bigotry — and that’s just in the first book (or season). Zeitgeist books are the cultural now. Whether you read the book, listened to it on audio or watched the film doesn’t matter. If you’ve consumed it, you’re invited.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is a little strange in that it was first published in 2015, so it’s technically backlist. It did well enough when it first released, but its impact was minimal and mostly confined to people and therapists treating PTSD. In the wake of Covid-19, as well as innumerable areas of social, cultural, and political change, The Body Keeps the Score hiked up out of the backlist basement and on to bestseller lists in 2021, six years after its initial publication.
It’s a book about trauma and how chronic trauma negatively affects the mind and body, so it’s little wonder that people have gravitated to it. The fact that it deals with triggering subjects in clear, non-threatening prose definitely helps. I’ve had an advanced reader’s copy sitting on my shelf for years, but never got around to reading it. Given its recent resurrection, I decided to pick it up.
Once I’d finished it, I discussed it with a friend, who had also recently read it, as well as a neighbor and a lady who was buying her own copy at a big box store. Lo and behold, the book did exactly what zeitgeist books do — promote conversations about the spirit of the times, whether it’s the stress of a prolonged pandemic or the summer of love.
There’s a community in the zeitgeist, therein lies the value of popular culture. Popular culture brings books like The Body Keeps the Score to Walmart and Target. It gives people a way to confront or escape the realities of war, uncertainty, and cultural pain. Popular culture isn’t something to shake your fist at. It’s something to engage.
Whether you loved the book (or film or show or game) or threw it across the room. Give it a chance, especially if the subject is out of your wheelhouse. If nothing else, you’ll have earned the pleasure of expressing your opinion and seeing what other people think.
