“What are you reading?”

by Rebecca Hyde Rowan Public Library

                “What are you reading?” can be the beginning of a good conversation, especially if it’s “now” and you have the book in hand.  “Recently” might require the prompting of a list, since exact titles and authors seem to slip away. 

                “Have you (ever) read . . . ?” is the start of a memory journey:   when and where are closely bound with the book.  There’s the summertime reading of older titles (“War and Peace” and “Bleak House”) stored in a grandparents’  house.  “Pride and Prejudice?”  That was a loan from an older sister’s boyfriend.  Penelope Fitzgerald and Barbara Pym were authors discovered through personal copies given in trust by friends and gratefully returned.   A copy of Knut Hamsun’s “Hunger” was found on a shelf in a room rented to students in a Paris apartment (double disorientation).  The print book can be a wonderful prompt.

                A question I often ask myself these days is “Why read?”  It has become a favorite topic because of all the good books on the subject.   And here is one.

 Wendy Lesser, critic, novelist and editor, spends a lot of time reading and writing.  Her recent book, “Why I Read:  The Serious Pleasure of Books,” is an exploration of her passion for reading literature.  Her one-word answer to “why” is “pleasure”:  the kind of pleasure you can get from reading is like no other in the world.  It’s based on a paradox, offering detachment and connection.  The relationship between reader and book is one-to-one, but then there’s that vast community of readers and writers, past and present.  The reader can be fully engaged with another mind (an author’s or character’s) and at the same time aware of personal tastes, memories, and associations.  Reading is a highly individual act: “No one will ever do it precisely the way you do.”

Lesser is aware of her own changes of reading behavior.  She speaks of being in greater need of one author over another:  different books speak to you at different times in your life, and the kinds of problems that invite you into a literary work do not remain the same over time. 

Pleasure reading is “a hungry activity.”  But you need to slow down to savor a literary work.  A novel consists equally of the small and the large (sentence and structure).  Lesser finds her interest in the sentence has grown over time.  The linearity of the written word, the pattern of sequenced pages set by the author - these offer the pleasures of close attention.

Lesser is very serious about her reading, but she is broad-minded.   People enjoy bad books.  She reads some books one time.  Those she values as literature, she’ll be reading again.   Her models of good books may not be for everyone, but her observations are engrossing and instructive.