What we mean when we say, “I am not reading enough.”
It’s not about consumption
Remember Summer reading?
Whether it was a straight up assignment or simply the stern and less-than-subtle suggestion of the local librarian, it was for sure a convention in my time of schooling. So much so, that current cultural media still harkens to it- a la the ‘Beach Read’ we are to be sunnily absorbed in this Season.
Oh, excuse that – not just ‘one’ but many- the Romance, the Mystery, the True Crime page turner, topical History, some ancient retelling of an overlooked topic, a how-to, something self-improving, a Classic, a book (or seven) beyond one’s own cultural, and perhaps another that speaks to some kinds of trend like the Graphic Novel, Speculative Fiction, a post-apocalyptic approach something and so forth.
Good luck. I mean that, really. I need it for sure because I still try, well sorta. I try-ish. In that I start each season, let us say summer as so it is – with the best aims of digesting words and varying topics, etc. Rather than reading the books, or rather first I read about the reading of the books. In that, I have come to be a voracious consumer of reviews. I review reviews. I can and do go on and on about how something was discussed or how a person does or tends to either read or write about reading or write about reading and read – whatever order those go and come in.
Perhaps good party fodder (for the parties I rarely attend, but if I was to and could, perhaps there the above could be charming), but in terms of readership I feel fraudulent. From the ‘reading list’ model I had the frame of thought that I was to up my literary and nonfiction metabolic burn ratio and quit forking around the garnish but eat with the hearty enthusiasm of a truly and justly hungry eater. A body and a mind who knows what they want, vs my approach (and judgement of it) of ‘shopping’ as the days and weeks pass and new books I was to be reading came forth while the previous ones went unread. Older, less literary and so it goes.
If all of that is relatable – sorry and also great, as I am again amongst friends. What do we think thou, what is my problem? What I am to do? Why am I finding myself here and why is it not improving? And WHY am I not reading?!
Funny thing, and this is the older (as just forementioned) place of much improved contentment around my readership, I was reading. I am.
What is not discussed in academia so much is that there are two equal sides to living-lit. Both the linear consumption of the written word, the other being participating in a discourse of books and literature in general. The reasons are many – see, we cannot and never will get through or even touch the volume of books we aim to. Not the ones the persons whose opinions we care about say we should, not those of our friends, parents, mentors, teachers, and heroes do and are. To aim for those goals exclusively set up a pretty shitty and, so I say, inaccurate understanding of what we are to gain from reading at all.
Try this: We think of Film as being part of culture, just as if each movie/film is in a kind of dialogue with the community, history, present tense of film and film making itself. Books are the same way. To either specifically read a given volume or read ‘about’ a book, author, approach, genre etc. is to gain – like via a ‘tour guide’ – an appreciation and aptitude in books (or a book) both specifically and in general.
Adding on to that, what makes us think we have read ‘it all’ is less desire or time, or anything at all luxurious or interesting in the least, is that we think of books, each book that is, as an island. A rock in a sea we are to travel to [‘discover’] and thus report back on. Bullshit. Reviewers don’t do that, and they read a lot more than any of us as they don’t do so in between the spaces of all the other things that seem to prevent us from reading at all. Also, they don’t choose the books they digest – like with any job, that and those are given from ‘above’. You don’t think or feel you are reading enough or at all because we, too, are not sitting with a community of readers. It can feel isolating, with the choices, even which book, and the themes, words all of it are supposed to offer a something.
I think of reading and book choices sometimes like masturbating. We have baggage around it – how could one not?! – going there we like to, we can do so to escape, enjoy, settle down, and distract. Kill time, even. We know everyone is, but most of us think of many as either doing so too much, a measurable amount, or not at all. Sometimes - if are feeling extra frisky - we do it together, in a couple or a group, take a class, even. We could do it differently or perhaps even better than we are and do, and we think that might be a very good idea, but time gets away and habits are just that - habitual - and instead we go alone. Assuming that the road has already been mapped and it is simply not worth any more time than we have invested so far. Learning is for the young, and so inspirations become dejections.
Pish posh, dear pal. You are not as route as you like to think and the words written and those yet to be created are here for you and trust me, chomping your teeth into every novel (or non-novel) is not needed or helpful. Rather, dive between islands with me, in the waters of the words that readers and writers are peer swimmers in. Unbind discoveries to be had within and so far below none of us will likely ever touch the bottom of. And yet, together we shall so buoy and bob together. How super is that? That we can get wrinkly in the waves and you take in what you do and I so for myself- all depths being well in their ways.
In short, and less prettily so: come to book club. We have books we ‘read’ and if you are interested, you may do so, too. But more than that, you are welcome to hear and talk over the ideas of books themselves. That is all, truly, that is needed. May reading be more a cultural commitment vs a race, a fun run instead. Where walking or sitting or multi-lapping are all very encouraged because we care not for speed, coming to the track is all that matters.