What You Read Matters, But What Really Matters Is That You Read

Since coming up with my newest segment, Tough to Tackle Reads, I’ve been thinking about the act of reading quite a lot lately. While this is a blog devoted to writers and writing, the plain truth is that you cannot be a writer without being a reader.

Here on Anxiety, the three of us represent very different kinds of readers. Even the members of our audience represent an array of different kinds of readers, which I think is awesome. There are little things about reading that bridge us all together and let us connect as writers –obviously, or we wouldn’t have been able to come up with this blog together and we wouldn’t have an audience.

A while back, this article, “What you read matters more than you might think”, was scheduled on our Facebook and Twitter queues. It’s definitely worth a read, and hits a nail on the head.

What you read affects your brain like nothing else. Getting deep into a book and delving into the language and history and culture makes your brain work. And your brain loves to work. However, what this article fails to mention is how you read is just as important.

Yes, it goes into the differences between how your brain processes a complex literary novel versus a blog post (I had to poke fun at myself there), which they’re equating as deep reading versus light reading. But you can easily skim a literary novel, especially if you find the language alienating.

Their point itself is sound, what you read matters, but they also need to focus on how a person is reading. I don’t think the genre of a book is particularly significant, it’s reader engagement that makes the most impact. This is because one’s engagement with a text is going to alter how they feel about what lessons are being imparted to them.

Take for instance Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This was assigned reading in a course I took, so the entire class read it. I adored it. The layers introduced as each speaker took us further into the construction of the novella as a series of stories within stories was totally compelling for me, because each speaker was closer to the heart of the tale itself, and the point it was trying to make. I found it nuanced and rather frightening. The majority of my class didn’t even understand what had happened.

Because I was engaged as a reader from the start, I took a lot more away from Heart of Darkness than anyone else did before our class-analysis. The other students were held at arm’s length by the language and construction of the narrative so they took away nothing.

Heart of Darkness is in the cannon, it easily classifies as literary fiction, it requires deep reading, but it obviously sparked more regions of my brain than that of other people I know. And I’m not saying this so that I sound like a smarty pants, I’m saying this because the act itself is slightly more important than what people are devoting themselves to reading.

As much as I love literary fiction, it’s given far too much credit. There are fantasy, romance, science fiction, and mystery books out there that require just as much deep reading as any literary piece and some that will impart more empathy development. My best example: anything by Ursula K. Le Guin. Or say, Jane Austen.

And, as far as poetry goes, I can take it or leave it. I appreciate poetry because I know its history and understand how difficult it is to write good poetry, but I still don’t really like it. There are exceptions, obviously, because there is classic poetry I adore, mostly epics, but how on earth am I going to have a strong emotional response to something I usually just want to be over? And that goes for any reading material out there.

While I think it’s essential to be integrated in the popular culture around you, which means reading those “dreadful” magazine articles, news headlines, and the latest “online nonfiction reporting,” it’s important to divide your time. You can’t write without having any idea of what’s going on in the world around you, at the same time you can’t write without having some fantastic stories to teach and inspire you, and you can’t write without actually writing.

Balance is the key. So read lots! Read good stuff, bad stuff, and everything in between.

What do you think of the article and/or my counter response?

 

*Please note that this post contains an affiliate link. Should you click on Heart of Darkness and purchase the book from Amazon I will get a small commission, which goes right back to supporting the efforts of Anxiety Ink.

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