From Among Books

I do not consider myself an accomplished reader, or even a good one; indeed, I have wondered more than once if claiming to be a bibliophile is not too much a stretch of the truth. After all, my range of familiarity is limited; I have little knowledge of the classics, those volumes which have played formidable roles in the development of intellectualized cultures; I possess no inherent lust for particular editions of a certain author's works, or irresistible urge to set out in search of ancient and rare books; my love affair with books stems from a kindergarten addiction to Nancy Drew novels and my subsequent immersion in all the Trixie Belden and Hardy Boy books I could locate in the seemingly vast shelves of my grandmother. Serious, thoughtful reading did not come until much later, and then I sought only the thrill of transportation, of adventure, of mystery and sparkling talent and a life so far removed from mine as to be wholly fanciful and at the same time completely gratifying. Even in ninth grade, when I deliberately — and, it must be said, with substantial and unfounded pride — hefted Tolstoy's War and Peace from the library shelf ("I am going to read the whole thing, yes, thank you for asking."), I was still indulging in indiscriminate consumption, devouring everything on which I could lay my hands, without imposition of taste, criticism, or purpose. To be sure, my preferences have matured considerably since then, and I would no sooner pick up and read anything than I would neglect to select the foods that I place in my body. That, at least, is a vast improvement. However, there is much yet lacking.

I am a child of the digital age, only rudimentarily competent among electronics, to be sure, but still shaped in habit and philosophy by the presence of technology and the constant influx of unsought and superficial information that it brings. Passion for books and all, my brain, trained by practice and environment, is loathe to subject itself to the steady pacing and quieting demands of the printed page, and now, more than ever before, I am realizing how far I have drifted from even that early, incompetent readership, in which nothing mattered but the gobbling of as many literary candies as I could in as short of a time as possible. David Ulin, author of, among other works, The Lost Art of Reading, accurately identifies books as being all-engrossing, linearly-structured narratives in an era where our minds have been accustomed to the urgency of simultaneous, rapidly-evolving presentations, fragmented attention, and cluttered, disconnected facts. There is little surprise in this dawning acknowledgement of a readjustment of interpretation; far from it; however, it is this understanding which, more than anything, raises question of personal failure as a bibliophile. To be a reader means, at least in some sense, to engage in depth of thought, making associations, allowing the words to leave the page and enter you and resonate there. Such an act requires a certain tranquility of contemplation, an ability to, while engaging in the material being read, disengage from the multiplicity of distractions demanding attention from both without and within. It is an act which is innately opposed to the fragmented modes of interpretation with which our minds are used to utilizing in cognition, and I have, as it were, been absorbed by perceiving the world through a fractured lens of frenzied and quickly-forgotten information, discarded almost as soon as it enters my thoughts. This, naturally, interferes with reading.

In the process of truly engaged reading, in which the reader both comprehends and internalises the contents of the page (or pages) before him, there is an exchange taking place, an active conversation in which the writer speaks and the reader responds. This response may be resonance, identification, or empathy, or it may be argument, a ponderously conducted debate in which the opinion of the writer and the opinion of the reader collide, forcing either reconsideration on the part of the reader or the decisive and, hopefully, thoughtful and logical construction or solidification of an opposing viewpoint. Or perhaps it may inspire further exploration of a matter to which there is no right or wrong, triggering the sounding of greater depths than had been previously investigated. Regardless of whether a writer's work meets with the agreement or appreciation of the reader, comprehension and internalisation still take place; the narrative is understood and, as it is understood, absorbed, disassembled, and interwoven with the conscious and subconscious mind, subtly affecting that person's perception of the world on both an intimate and a broad level. This adjustment of vision, adjustment of being, is, in my opinion, one of the most sacred elements of reading and a defining factor in the relationship of a true bibliophile to books, and it is this which has so often been lacking in my own readership. For in order for this process inherent to concentrated reading — true reading, and not merely what E. D. Hirsch, Jr, defines as decoding — to take place, a certain singularity of focus must be directed towards the written work in question. In this era of splintered attention and kaleidoscoped action, this is a difficult feat indeed, and one which I, born and raised in this era and self-cultivated to the oblivion of clamour, fail far too often to accomplish.

There are too many tasks to perform, too many options, too many channels serving as ready providers of entertainment and fact and opinion, addicting in their superficiality, that are as distracting as the garish sight of flashing neon lights against a midnight sky. I am guilty many times over of seating myself, book in hand, and proceeding to read half a page without absorbing a word of it before turning back to my laptop to run through a pointless, absent-minded routine: check email, refresh any tabs that have the potential to have been updated in my momentary absence, click shiny links, play a game of solitaire (and another, if I don't win the first), look up a word or two or five on my dictionary tab, jot a line of input to add to the ever-growing assortment of digital conversations. And while the internet is admittedly the most prominent and absorbing distraction presenting itself, pointless diversion and mental clutter is not limited to that presented by technology. Focus can be all too swiftly redirected by household tasks, conversation, wandering thoughts, hobbies close at hand, or anything else that, by nature of its intrinsic appeal, manages to serve as a wedge between my mind and the written word. If reading requires a certain mental clarity and stillness, that is certainly not something that can be assumed at whim when one is long accustomed to unwavering frenzy of both internal and external environments.

With that in mind, I have been striving to make such contemplative, engaged reading possible. In elementary school there was no question of involvement in the books I consumed — they were thrill-oriented and absorbing, and slipping into the worlds in which their stories took place was not only easy but unavoidable. Now, however, even with inherently appealing books, I find myself plodding absently through each page, or skipping glassy-eyed and at random through the book, seeing much and registering nothing, and I do not like it. I miss the powerful engagement of the written word, miss that sense of intellectual and sometimes physical merging; the number of titles I may claim to have read provides me no pleasure if each has no meaning to me.

My efforts to correct this personal tendency are paltry, but I cannot help but think that they are, in some minuscule way, helping. One strategy for facilitating focus has been to abandon my faithful companion (also known as Kokuyoku, my laptop) when picking up a book, sometimes by the mere act of flopping onto my stomach on the floor and leaving him on the table, and sometimes by leaving the room entirely to lay claim to an empty corner or a comfortable couch. I make a point of reading slowly, taking each sentence with conscious deliberation and pausing for contemplation when the narrative induces thought that builds from the content to form independent conclusions instead of simply allowing for the reception of clearly delineated ideas. If an interlude brings awareness of wandering attention, I return to where I first diverged from the text and began decoding instead of reading, and resume from there. Then, too, I have taken to keeping a pen and notebook close at hand, for the sake of recording those lines or passages that seem particularly inspiring or profound, for the jotting of words or ideas which I should like to investigate later, without interrupting my reading to do so, and even for the purpose of reacting on paper to what the author has presented (responses which, incidentally, usually take the form of disputation; I maintain the same practice when sitting through a sermon, keeping paper close at hand for the sake of silent quarrel with those things which prove themselves objectionable). Many a person has described literature — specifically classics — as being a progression of conversation, a conversation that spans all the long ages of history. What better way to understand that it is indeed a continuation of interconnected thought and communing ideas than to engage personally in a semblance of that interaction, tracing the threads of debate with interest and formulating opinions — even if expressed only in silence, to oneself, especially when expressed in silence — in response to the substance found therein?

Apart from those adjustments to those habits that relate directly to the act of reading, I am also attempting to make mental clarity a habit, by means of consciously directing attention and vigour to tasks as I am performing them and seeking to realize in small ways, in infrequent bursts of comprehension, what it means to be fully present in any given situation, to be acutely aware of that place which I am occupying in space and time at once. An experience is most richly remembered when felt keenly, and I would have that fresh, piercing recollection more often available, and less slipping behind a clouded haze of obscured awareness. At the very least, even if it does not enable me to drastically improve my capacity to engage with books, it will allow for growth as a writer, and, if that too fails, a human who lives.