It's so easy, in a time of total self-exposure, to get obsessed with all sorts of numbers. How many followers you have, how many likes you get, how many words you write. How many books you read.
And while it is all quite understandable, to choose something real and tangible to measure your success, all these numbers and figures don’t say a word about what you feel.
Let’s take the example of books. Not the least expected choice here, right? How many books you read per year, surely, shows your dedication to reading, your determination to read no matter how many shiny distractions come on your path.
But what about the question of how you read?
Let’s be honest here.
We can devour books and savor them. We can gobble up words – without even sometimes chewing them! – and take small bites, letting our palate feel all the richness of the taste. Of course, the third way to read a book is to let your meal grow cold on the plate so that it loses all its flavors.
Last year, when I beat my own record, I was a speedy eater. Sorry, I wanted to say "reader." I know why it happened, it’s not a secret.
The one and only reason – is it, though, the only reason?? – was that I had been bookishly starving myself for many, many years. And when I finally reached my oasis, I wasn't there to limit myself anymore.
Books, books, books, and more books. Even at our wedding party, we got an enormous pile of books as a gift. For the first time, since God only knows when, I didn’t feel guilty about reveling in reading.
My inner critic wasn’t hissing anything about the waste of time and doing something useful instead. Reading books itself was useful, for it made me feel alive. And finally myself.
But you know how it works. When you satisfy your survival needs – my bookish hunger was satiated to the fullest – you move up, toward the top of Maslow’s pyramid where your self-actualization lives. And that was the moment when I asked myself how I was reading books. And whether I was getting everything I could from texts.
Now, another question that naturally arises here is what actually we can get from the text. Here’s what I think.
Plot
This is the basement of our reading palace. We want to know whodunit and what will happen at the end. Some books seem plotless, but anyway, there is always someone who does something, and we, as readers, follow their actions.
Themes and ideas
When our reading palace is built, it’s time to put some furniture there. What did the author want to say? What was his message? What are the main themes? Forbidden love? Or is it about freedom? Jealousy? Dreams? Friendship?
These are the chairs and sofas in your palace. Without them, your reading experience will be all about looking at white-washed walls and walking in the empty rooms that echo your steps – which is also cool, by the way, but not as enriching as it could be.
Style
The furniture is settled. Now what? And here we ask ourselves what type of decoration we want. Because any palace needs some decoration!
Do we want to put a metaphor in the kitchen or parlor? Will we enjoy alliterations in the garden or bedroom? What textures of our texts will we prefer? Are we here for long, ornate sentences or short, sober ones? Are we looking for an intricate pattern of wallpapers, or do we want a simple and plain text?
I do believe that the devil is in the details, and these details create the whole mood. Give us some taste. Provide us with all the sensory experience we can get.
Context
We can actually stop here. Our palace is built, all equipped, and even decorated. We have everything we want. Don’t we? But what about the view from its windows? Wouldn’t it be nice to look at the evening sky from time to time? Or to ponder over mundane things, observing cows grazing in endless fields?
Of course, it would be. And that’s what learning about cultural and historical contexts is. We open the window of the book we read and see when it was written and what events may have impacted its creation.
Books are not written in a vacuum. Writers, as we all do, absorb everything that happens around them. So, why shouldn’t we expand our horizons a little bit and not only read between the lines but also read about these lines?
Now, it does sound like there is a lot of reading work ahead of us. A lot of thinking, a lot of extra reading. Where to start? How? Especially if our reading muscles haven’t been trained for it?
I would recommend one book that will set you in a general direction: How to Read Literature Like a Professor.
It is a fun read, not burdened with academic terms and unreadable sentences. But it gives you an idea of what things we should pay attention to and what questions we should ask ourselves while reading a fiction book.
Another one that I love a lot is Reading like a Writer. (Don’t worry, I don’t want you to become a professor or writer. On the other hand, why the heck not?)
This book will show you what close reading is and how to look at words, sentences, paragraphs, and understand where magic comes from.
And the last thing. (Well, two last things, if I’m completely honest with you.) If we give it a thought, slow reading is an ideal type of reading when our lives are packed with duties and chores and whatnot.
We cease to feel guilty because we've only read one paragraph this week, and, instead of beating ourselves up for this slowness, we can actually use this energy to think over what we read. What we felt, and why.
What may also come in handy, if you set off on a slow-reading journey, is to get yourself a notebook where you will jot down the questions and ideas that come to your mind while reading. Like this, whenever you have a spare minute or two, you can get back to them and, muffling all the outward noises, focus on your reading palace.
(You can find an example of my slow reading here.)