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callunavI'm reading a lot of DW posts where people are discussing things they're reading (And rachelmanija's recent post encouraging people to join her in reviewing everything they read), and it makes me want to do likewise.
And at the same time, it makes me not want to.
The problem is how much there is. That doesn't seem like something to feel embarrassed about, but to me it seems terribly obvious that it's not possible to read as fast as I do and read well, and, in fact, I know that I do not read well- by which I mean that I generally do not manage to read more than about 2/3 of what's on the page, my first time through any book, and I worry that may be an overestimate. So I feel embarrassed to be reviewing stuff that deserves much better reading than I'm giving it.
I will say, this inability to read thoroughly the first time is what makes rereading such a wonderful and rich experience for me. Not only am I having the experience many people have upon rereading, of being able to perceive how the story fits together, I am also seeing a lot of lovely things for the first time.
I spent from age 6 to 18 or so being told over and over what a good reader I was, and what a fast reader. Since I plowed through libraries and I read before, during, and after school, when I was supposed to be doing homework, when I was supposed to be sleeping, and even while walking from place to place - though not, I'm glad to say, while biking - I suppose it was understandable. And of course I believed it. It was only when I was 17 that I discovered for myself that, in fact, I was a slow and not very good reader: I tended to skip to short paragraphs and particularly dialogue, as I had an easier time getting my eyes to focus on them, and then if I didn't understand what was going on, backtracking until I did.
I discovered this because we were assigned Faulkner's Go Down, Moses in senior English, and, as some of you may have discovered for yourselves, a great deal of Faulkner has no paragraph breaks at all. Faced with a spread of two solid pages with no indentations, I found that I literally could not make my eyes track from one end of a line to the other unless I held an index card over the page and lowered it line by line. What I had, I realized, was not amazing speed at reading, it was good (if not amazing) reading comprehension. Anyone could have finished a book as quickly as I did if they were reading fewer than half the words, but I was able to describe the plot and character dynamics pretty accurately afterwards. It was a weird thing to take pride in, but you take what you can get.
(Ironically, I write in big blocks of words all the time.)
Anyway. I will try out the idea of noting and at least briefly reviewing (or describing my experience of) the books I'm reading, and see how it feels.
rachelmanija's recent post encouraging people to join her in reviewing everything they read), and it makes me want to do likewise. And at the same time, it makes me not want to.
The problem is how much there is. That doesn't seem like something to feel embarrassed about, but to me it seems terribly obvious that it's not possible to read as fast as I do and read well, and, in fact, I know that I do not read well- by which I mean that I generally do not manage to read more than about 2/3 of what's on the page, my first time through any book, and I worry that may be an overestimate. So I feel embarrassed to be reviewing stuff that deserves much better reading than I'm giving it.
I will say, this inability to read thoroughly the first time is what makes rereading such a wonderful and rich experience for me. Not only am I having the experience many people have upon rereading, of being able to perceive how the story fits together, I am also seeing a lot of lovely things for the first time.
I spent from age 6 to 18 or so being told over and over what a good reader I was, and what a fast reader. Since I plowed through libraries and I read before, during, and after school, when I was supposed to be doing homework, when I was supposed to be sleeping, and even while walking from place to place - though not, I'm glad to say, while biking - I suppose it was understandable. And of course I believed it. It was only when I was 17 that I discovered for myself that, in fact, I was a slow and not very good reader: I tended to skip to short paragraphs and particularly dialogue, as I had an easier time getting my eyes to focus on them, and then if I didn't understand what was going on, backtracking until I did.
I discovered this because we were assigned Faulkner's Go Down, Moses in senior English, and, as some of you may have discovered for yourselves, a great deal of Faulkner has no paragraph breaks at all. Faced with a spread of two solid pages with no indentations, I found that I literally could not make my eyes track from one end of a line to the other unless I held an index card over the page and lowered it line by line. What I had, I realized, was not amazing speed at reading, it was good (if not amazing) reading comprehension. Anyone could have finished a book as quickly as I did if they were reading fewer than half the words, but I was able to describe the plot and character dynamics pretty accurately afterwards. It was a weird thing to take pride in, but you take what you can get.
(Ironically, I write in big blocks of words all the time.)
Anyway. I will try out the idea of noting and at least briefly reviewing (or describing my experience of) the books I'm reading, and see how it feels.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 10:13 pm (UTC)(Lately, when I want to slow myself down so I *do* read details, I start by read-muttering out loud to myself.)
no subject
Date: 2019-08-24 04:24 am (UTC)Even though I don't exactly remember why I made that decision. Hmmm.