Reading Slowly

Recently I was juggling four books at once: How Green Was My Valley, The King in Yellow, Leverage, and Being Henry David.
While all of them were engaging, I found myself taking my time reading them.  Particularly Valley, which I had read twenty years ago.  Coming back to Richard Llewellyn’s novel, I had the same experience as the first time.  I was fascinated by the lyrical cadence of the Welsh language which needed to seep into my thoughts.  It was not a novel I could plow through quickly, no matter how hard I tried.
The other three novels also languished on my bedside table (that’s not actually true.  All of them were e-books, so they were languishing on my iPhone).  Still, in each case, I would read a chapter or two, set it aside as I picked up the next, and over many weeks, I cycled through the stories.
Since I set myself the task of reading 50 books a year, I tend to stay focused on my reading.  Yet, every year I hit a stretch where it takes me longer than expected to get through a book.  Rarely is the book boring or slow-going; I’m simply not in the mood to read more quickly.
The benefit to reading slowly is that the stories sink into deep pools, until they permeate the subconscious.  When I was away from the novels, I found myself thinking about Huw or Henry, Kurt or Danny, or the collection of artists/painters who inhabit the surreal world of The King in Yellow.  I wound up building a relationship with these characters, thinking about the trajectory of their lives, praying that events would turn out fine.  Honestly, I worried about them, particularly in Leverage which kept escalating the tension until the very end.
As a result, reading slowly allows a deep form of engagement.  When I read a book quickly, I certainly get immersed in the experience, but it’s different.  Maybe fast reading is like Twitter, getting you right to the point of the story, and slow reading is like handwritten correspondence, like something Jane Austen might write.

Taking your time has its benefits.