Reading and its Discontents:
Last week, author Zadie Smith gave a fantastic interview on KCRW’s Bookworm which has been on my mind since…
"I think of reading as a skill and an art. The model of a reader we’re given is a person watching a film or watching television so the greatest principle is ‘I should sit here and be entertained’ and the more classical model is something that’s been completely taken away, the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician sits at the piano with a piece of music which is the work made by somebody they don’t know, or probably couldn’t comprehend entirely and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift you give the artist and the artist gives you. That’s an incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you pracitce reading and work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it."
In principle I love this idea. I’m drawn to people who can dig deep into an author’s bibliography and look up to writers (Cynthia Ozick, A.S. Byatt, John Barth) who have based some part of their career on this digging. Part of my attraction comes from how inadequate I feel next to this kind of reader.
Ms. Smith’s remarks leave me though with two difficulties:
I. How do we as readers determine who is worth reading deeply and who is not without becoming slaves to some crusty idea of canonical literature? Do we give Curtis Sittenfeld the same deep read we give Edith Wharton? Or do we create a literary apartheid by with older, deader authors get better treatment that younger living ones?
II. Should we commit ourselves to reading deeply, what are we willing to sacrifice? Television, movies and video games may seem easy to dispose of but how about time with friends and family? Exercise and health? Spiritual development? Working for a living? I’m saddened that the very people who argue for "reading deeply" are people whose lifestyles or social economic standing have granted them the privilege.
Question then: Where is the place of "reading deeply" in a modern busy life?
I have no answers yet to these questions. I ask to hear what you think.