On Reading

I've just finished reading Alan Jacobs' book "The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction", which is a book about books , so I have been reading about reading, and now I will write about reading about reading, so you will be three levels deep.

Jacobs' book is difficult to summarise, because it takes the form of an extended meditation on reading, and is discursive in nature. It resists summary. So rather than offering that, I should offer some personal reflections with his as a launch point.

I think all Christians ought to be readers , or more precisely they ought to be more of a reader than they naturally would be left to their own devices. Insofar as we are people of the Book, and an inscripturated, I.e. a written, revelation stands at the centre of our faith, literacy and litterae are attendants of Christian cultures. Where Christians dwell, they cultivate words. Of course, some of us are not great readers, barely readers at all,  which is precisely why I say we should be a little bit more of a reader than we would otherwise. And for believers who are illiterate, the Scriptures provide a powerful reason to learn to read, at any age.

Photo by Ioann-Mark Kuznietsov on Unsplash

Reading should be commonplace, but it is both a luxury and a difficulty. A luxury because reading requires books, which even when as abundant as never before in our age, are still nevertheless not universal; it also requires time, space, and at least a measure of quiet (even if only the discipline of mind to shut out the noise around us).

It is also difficult. This is true generally, in that reading well requires habits of mind that we need to cultivate over time, and through thoughtful reading. It is also true more particularly in our age, where attention is so hard to secure.

Jacobs, like others and certainly like me, has had the experience of having been a reader, and then suffering under the demands of the attention economy, losing to some degree the ability simply to sit and focus on a  single task. We do live in an age of distraction. It might then be surprising that a Kindle device offers a reading experience that facilitates reading. Jacobs makes the salient point that Kindles, whatever else they can do, make reading in a linear fashion the path of least resistance. Certainly I have found the twin convenience of a library in a device , and a device designed for reading, has helped me get back on track.

Lastly, Jacobs advocates for Whim. Read what you enjoy. Perhaps not only what you enjoy, but reading should often be a joy when it doesn't have other, more utilitarian ends. There's a liberty to simply reading what interests you, that ought to be followed. As I write this, I have just started again for about the 5th time in my life Umberto Eco's classic The Name of the Rose. A book about signs (and signs of signs), it never fails to delight me, and I understand it far better this time through than before.

The pleasure of reading comes at a price, and that price is the cultivation of reading as a habit. It is, however, a pleasure worth the price of admission.