Porcelain muse

The art of reading in the toilet is an ancient and highly recommended one

Lord Chesterfield, in his invaluable diaries, once wrote of “a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the call of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets, in those moments”. I found myself actually sympathising, because poetry is something I still carry along with me, even though it makes certain literary friends of mine wince.

Not that any of this would be surprising to those who do use the loo to catch up with the newspaper and a smoke. Or even to those Indian maharajahs whom history has documented as holding discussions with ministers while perched on the other kind of throne. A New York Times correspondent was so enthralled by Chesterfield’s account of precision that he started on a survey of what people actually read in the toilet by mailing 72 friends and colleagues.

There is definitely a differentiation between what people keep in their own bathrooms and the ones that are open to guests. Literature in guest bathrooms tends to be the kind that you want people to be impressed by — weighty tomes of political non-fiction piled high on the toilet tank. Yashwant Sinha’s would probably be a good bet right now. Not that anyone, under usual circumstances, is going to be long enough to do more than riffle through the text. Private bathrooms, in contrast, tend to be more prosaic: the latest magazines are kept in a handy rack to be flipped through. Alternatively, the paperback that you don’t have time to read, so you catch up with it first thing in the morning.

Story continues below this ad

I’m trying to get my nephews into the habit but it doesn’t seem to be succeeding since they think the whole thing is an interruption in their daily lives anyway and try to avoid the bathroom as long as possible. To combine THAT with reading is too much for a sensible eight-year-old to bear!

Scholars believe that bathroom reading is relatively new, since most outhouses did not have the space to permit the inhabitants to read in comfort. However the Roman baths did have libraries so that senators could exercise their minds. Then there’s the Life of St Gregory which recommends the solitude of a garderobe in a medieval monastery where one can read about higher things without fear of interruption and so rise above crude bodily functions.

A collection of abridged literary works which had been published in 1991 under the title ‘Compact Classics’ didn’t raise a stir until it was reissued under a new title, The Great American Bathroom Book, whereupon it promptly sold a million copies. Which proves how successful the concept of loo literature actually is — even though few people get down to talking about it!