Why Do We Read?

Welcome to my article on Why We Read. Reading has fascinated (and enchanted) me for most of my life. I love to read – started when I was three, and my sister and I eventually read (and re-read) our way through probably the best juvenile literature that 1970s American libraries had to offer. I also like to marvel at people’s ability to bury themselves in a book, entering a world through words.

I had originally intended this feature to be a paean to reading and literature. And it will be. First, though, can we meditate a bit on where reading might be heading in this Information Age? This will be a little heavy, but afterward I will include some inspiring quotations and mention some of the benefits of reading.

We read because we can, and because there are things to read. Do we appreciate our ability to read, and our access to good reading material? Of course we do. But should we stop to worry about the enormous quantities of material available to us? It is hard to explain, but even before the advent of the e-reader, I would look at all of the books being published (and the huge print runs, and the subsequent remaindered tomes) and wonder whether we were going too far. Almost everyone was writing and publishing and hoping to become The Next Big Thing, and they produced words that ranged from excellent to junky in the process. Then came the Internet, with plenty of junk to read, amid the excellence. And now that we have such spectacular access to whatever we want whenever we want it (as long as we have a computer or e-reader and a credit card, that is), I wonder what the next few decades will bring.

In his excellent book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman considered how electronic media was and is reshaping our culture. In the foreword, he discusses books through the visions of two famously prophetic authors from the first half of the 20^th century: George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932):

Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism….

Does it seem that Huxley’s vision of a world where “the truth [is] drowned in a sea of irrelevance” may be coming true, to some extent, at least at the moment?

Maybe our society is simply in the middle of finding that path between the cliffs of Huxley and Orwell, trying to negotiate the huge amounts of information that will render us passive and preoccupied with trivia (Huxley) without resorting to censorship (Orwell). This is a mammoth task!

What can we do to ensure that we take the right path?

Well, we can at least make sure that we read for all of the best possible reasons.

We read to become better communicators and to get information. Reading helps us to expand our vocabulary. Furthermore, good spelling is also associated with reading. By reading, we pick up turns of phrase and absorb rhythms and patterns of storytelling. On a basic level, we who can read can stay informed – signs, contracts, instructions all need to be read.

We read in order to think about ideas and what it means to be human. Sometimes I re-read a favorite novel (e.g., The Corrections, Olive Kitteridge, A House for Mr. Biswas), and it reminds me of ideas that are important to me – ideas that get forgotten in the petty details of daily life. Some of my pet topics are the nuclear family, modern life and its entertaining distractions (pros? cons?), the nature of spirituality, how to increase scientific literacy, etc. These ideas go with me throughout the day and give my brain something to chew on besides the trivial irritations (“Why is that person blocking the tram door?”) and opportunities for cheap, distracting opinions (“Can’t believe someone like that is wearing leggings!”). When I start to get too utopian in my thinking, though, I know I’ve gone too far; it’s time to dial back and pick up a Sue Grafton mystery or have a mundane chat with a friend about leggings and people who block tram doors….

Have you ever picked up a book that made you remember something you had completely forgotten about? Or a book where one of the characters describes an idea that you believed was yours alone? The best books are the ones that contain something true, whether that is a great idea or just a character who reminds us of how funny we humans can be.

Here is the inspiring quotation I promised earlier:

From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.
– Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner is a religious writer. I am not particularly religious, and neither is this quotation, but I do find this passage very spiritual. A book with a frog in it invites us to consider all frogs, ditto the boy, the lady, and the old man. And we might then consider their lives and points of view, and somehow our own place in the universe and our connection to all things. I think that, as individuals, we are pretty small and isolated unless we can do that.

Good writing encourages us to have empathy for others and can improve our real-life connections. It can also show us how problems can be worked out and reactions tempered. If we are fortunate, we might be drawn by chance to a book with a character who models a behavior that we need in our own lives at that very moment. It is not always enough simply to read a few sentences on empathy or instructions for solving a problem. Sometimes a slow walk through a situation, as in a novel’s narrative, is the best way to absorb an idea.

We read to relax and escape, while improving our knowledge and our brain function. Narrative is good for our brains, believe it or not. Learning to appreciate simple narrative structure of beginning, middle and end helps our brains “think in sequence, linking cause and effect” (oedb.org, see reference below). Reading stories to our children helps their brains take on this story structure.

Our present digital technology has broken the narrative technology of our lives and belief systems, according to Douglas Rushkoff in Present Shock. Some stories today are not so much narrative (beginning, middle, end) as they are open-ended. If you think about human life and the “three ages of Man” – infancy, adulthood and old age – you can see how a sense of narrative could be essential to living a decent life. Disjointed, open-ended “structure” can lead to an over-emphasis on youthfulness and urge to remain young, which is not really possible even in the age of Botox.

Reading exercises the brain more than watching TV or films does. Our brains engage in a story, providing pictures of the action. Holding plot elements and characters in memory for the duration of a story helps exercise and strengthen our capacity to remember. As Lauren Duzbow says in her O Magazine article, our brains benefit from a workout, and “reading is more neurobiologically demanding than processing images or speech.”

For all of the reasons above and more, it is important that we read and teach our children to love reading. Read books! Choose books that remind you of something that is true. Help keep humanity from sliding into that Brave New World.

By Carol McDonald

Carol reads a lot and sometimes does not know when to stop.

References:

• Duzbow, Lauren. “Watch This. No. Read It!” in O Magazine
• oedb.org, “Your Brain On Books…”
• Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Penguin, 1985, 2005.
• Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock (2013). Here is a link to the New York Times review of the book, and here is a radio interview with Mr. Rushkoff.

Other Reasons to Read collected by Joanna Koch

A collection of answers from a collection of people, including a famous author

It is the first step to enable you to analyse, understand and act. – A university professor who supervises PhD students

If you cannot read, you cannot add up. – A nine-year-old boy 

It opens your mind to things you didn’t know. – A teacher

People reading their iPads on the beach have to stay under a towel; I would rather have a book and not have to hide from the sun. – A granny

I don’t think I could sleep if I could not read in bed. – A friend

I love to read because then I can get out of doing household chores. – Young teenager

When I am bored at mealtimes, I can read my book under the table. They would see an electronic gadget. – 13-year-old boy

When my sight became so bad I could no longer read, I was devastated until I discovered “talking books.” – My mother

It’s difficult to teach languages if my students cannot read. – High school teacher

“I wish I could read – then I can choose my own books.”  – A five-year-old

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” – Mark Twain

And a question: What is the equivalent of a “bookworm” for an iPad or a Kindle?