I spend a lot of time with my nose in a book. Last year, I read 61 books, and I’m on track to read that many again in 2021. Yet, as fast as I read, I can’t seem to make a dent in my To-Be-Read pile. So many books, so little time. Sometimes it feels like I’m running on a treadmill with an ever-increasing speed.
Lately, I’ve been questioning whether this strategy of gulping down so many books is wise after all. When I scan down the list of the books I’ve read so far this year, a few stand out, but many are already a blur. I hover over a few on the list — wait, did I actually read that?
I’m pretty good at taking notes and highlighting favorite passages for most of the books I read. I subscribe to ReadWise, which provides a terrific way to resurface the best parts of past books I’ve enjoyed. That review process, along with the ability to automatically import those highlights into Obsidian, prompted me to switch my reading notes over from Craft. And while I do see benefits of these daily reviews and the curation of my reading notes and quotes into a personal knowledge management system, I still feel like I’m somehow not getting the most out of all these hours of reading.
Maybe reading more books isn’t the right answer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson taught us to shoot for big goals with his advice to “aim above the mark to hit the mark,” though I’m sure he didn’t mean that for a reading quota. In Experience, he finds himself drawn to just “the commonest books, — the Bible, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton.” Gustave Flaubert seemed to agree: “What a scholar one might be if one knew well only some half a dozen books.”
Could deeply reading (and rereading) a few classic books be better than my shotgun approach of inhaling a book or two every week?
In his Lectures on Literature, Vladimir Nabokov said: “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.” In a series of university lectures, Nabokov shared his take on a half-dozen classics from Marcel Proust, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and others. I’ve read most of these, but after reviewing Nabokov’s deep analysis of these books, I realized I had merely skated over the icy surface of these great works. I did not probe deep enough into the book’s structure and writing techniques, did not discover, in Nabokov’s words, that “shiver of artistic satisfaction” when a reader truly communes with the author.
Is this kind of deep, analytical reading necessary? I mean, can’t we just enjoy the books in the way the author intended them? Life is short; why read the same books again and again? I imagine Vladimir looking at me over his reading glasses as he delivers his judgment:
If a person thinks he cannot evolve the capacity of pleasure in reading the great artists, then he should not read them at all. After all, there are other thrills in other domains: the thrill of pure science is just as pleasurable as the pleasure of pure art. The main thing is to experience that tingle in any department of thought or emotion. We are liable to miss the best of life if we do not know how to tingle, if we do not learn to hoist ourselves just a little higher than we generally are in order to sample the rarest and ripest fruit of art which human thought has to offer.
— Vladimir Nabokov
I slink a little lower in my chair under Nabokov’s withering gaze. I know he’s right. If I’m going to spend all this time reading, why not aim a little higher?
Last year, I joined a group of like-minded readers on #BookTwitter to read In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I had a few false starts over the years with this six-volume masterpiece, known for its pages-long sentences and intricate narrative style. Reading just ten pages a day with a cohort of distinguished readers helped me stay on track and enjoy it more. During the hard going parts, I felt better after seeing tweets from others who shared my exasperation. Misery loves company. We finished the final volume together in June — a voyage of more than 4,000 pages — and I was glad to be done with it. Few tingles, and even fewer shivers, I’m afraid. But, I wonder now if that first reading of Proust wasn’t simply the preamble to a second, more profound reading? Could I start again, now knowing the storyline and themes, and burrow deeper under the skin of this recognized classic?
I’ll be honest: I’m not ready to dive back into Proust. But, I do believe I need to change my approach in reading these classics.
I’ve joined another #BookTwitter group this month to read George Eliot’s Middlemarch, considered one of the greatest novels of all time. I read this a long time ago but remember little about it. With Nabokov’s advice fresh in my mind, I’ve decided to use this book as an experiment in deep, focused reading. For Middlemarch, I’m making some pronounced changes in my reading style:
- I’m reading the physical book. I read many books on Kindle, and I love its light form factor and ability to easily highlight passages and look up words. But writing notes in the margins is iffy, and it’s harder to flip around in the book. I bought the Penguin Classics Deluxe edition of Middlemarch even though I own George Eliot’s complete works in a nice leather-bound set. I want the freedom to mark this book up without remorse, to make it my own.
- I’m keeping a book journal. I’m dedicating a Field Notes notebook for this reading with sections for themes, character sketches, chapter notes, and unique vocabulary. These little notebooks are the perfect size to fill with a single meaty book and are slim enough to tuck inside the cover when I’m finished. I will ultimately transcribe the notes I take into Obsidian, but for this reading, I want to keep a physical, handwritten ledger for better synthesis and retention. If I reread Middlemarch (which Nabokov suggests I should), I can review and append to the journal.
- I’m reading with focus and attention. I always read a book in bed before sleep, but not this one. I’m setting aside time in my reading room with the book propped up on a lap desk, a pen in hand, and an iPad nearby for tracking down literary and historical references.
- I’m going down the rabbit holes. To finish this 900-page book in a month, we’re reading 30 pages a day, which translates to about 30 minutes at my usual pace. I’m doubling or tripling that time with this book. Instead of guessing at uncertain historical figures or literary allusions, I’m looking each one up and noting it in the margins. I’m recording new words and their definitions in the back pages of my journal. I’m keeping a running log for each character and a list of themes that recur throughout the novel. I’m writing a summary of each chapter, which forces me to stand back and review what happened, how it moved the story forward, what new questions arose, etc., to gain a better sense of the novel’s structure and story arc.
After finishing Middlemarch, I’ll have a better sense of whether this deep reading approach provides the kind of return I expect. If it does, I’m very tempted to change my approach to reading in 2022. Forget the pressure of a sixty-book GoodReads challenge or an unending “To Be Read” pile to tackle. Instead, I’ll spend the year reading just a few great books, deeply, with fun reads thrown in at bedtime.
We can’t slow the race of time, but we can choose to be more discerning and diligent in making use of the time we have. Augustus had the right of it: Festina lente. Make haste, slowly.
