The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes

by C.S. Lewis

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

This fellowship is not one of merely sharing a hobby but of people whose worlds have been enlarged and deepened by books.

“Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. . . . In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.

Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.”

We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.

Not only nor chiefly in order to see what they are like but in order to see what they see, to occupy, for a while, their seat in the great theatre, to use their spectacles and be made free of whatever insights, joys, terrors, wonders or merriment those spectacles reveal.

Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors.

My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others.

How to Know If You Are a True Reader

1. Loves to re-read books.

2. Highly values reading as an activity (versus as a last resort).

3. Lists the reading of particular books as a life-changing experience.

4. Continuously reflects and recalls what one has read.

Men do not long continue to think what they have forgotten how to say.