Why do you read?

[WICKES]

I am a conscientious reader and try to work my way through both the 'canon' (Homer, the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Sophocles etc etc) and books on science, religion, philosophy, history and so on. Sometimes it is a slog, at other times I feel uplifted and thrilled by ideas. I am genuinely interested in the world, but there are times when I wonder why I bother to read at all. I am no intellectual, but I am intelligent and well read enough to know how feeble and limited my intelligence really is and how mediocre I am. I know people who have literally never read anything and live an entirely unreflective, instictive life, yet are often much happier than me. They sleep well, are untroubled by the 'big questions' and certainly do find the unexamined life worth living- in fact they seem to do a better job of living than me. Reading so much has made me a bit snobbish and detached, a bit too much of an observer. At times I wish I could be more animal- like: a successful career in an office bullying and shoving myself forward, making plenty of money and filling my weekends with sex, drugs, alcohol and violence.

I don't know, I just wonder why I bother sometimes. I have zero religious faith (if there is a creator He/it is, at best, indifferent to evil and suffering, at worst a sadist) and share Schopenhauer's view of life as an unfortunate accident. If Darwin is the final word it kind of seems like generations of reflective, sensitive, hopeful people trying to make sense of this world were almost, well, wasting their time. It turns out we are no more than a naked ape with a large brain; a violent, selfish and only partly rational creature that finds it hard to live in even a moderately civilised way. We are alone in a meaningless universe, sensitive enough to be tormented by the briefness of our lives, by bereavement, evil and suffering, but not intelligent enough to find a way of being fully happy and at peace with the universe. :crash:

Why do you read? What do you get out of it beyond entertainment?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Wow! The person you describe could be me I swear. I too feel this way quite a lot and the think with reading is no matter how much you read, not matter how far you dig into a particular area, you only seem to uncover more and more. It is as if you are digging in a desert with a toothpick and getting frustrated, despite uncovering things of great interest.

I think it is just the way we are wired that makes people different from one another. Some people are happy to get by on the TV or from getting entertainment from a weekly football match or a night out. Others place making money at the centre of their lives and seem to “get off” on selling people car insurance or some such horrid thing. While a small, mad section of society, wants to learn about the world around them, which includes reading deeply and widely.

Personally, I can not understand why anyone does not read. I can’t understand how people can sit watching trash on TV for hours on end or read ‘celebrity’ magazines; when all the great literature of the world sits untouched.

The strangest thing someone once said to me was “why are you reading, if the book is any good they will make a film from it?” “I can’t understand why anyone reads books.”

It seems it is just the way people are.

[WICKES]

[QUOTE]
[QUOTE]no matter how much you read, not matter how far you dig into a particular area, you only seem to uncover more and more.


Too true! I wish someone had told me that 10 years ago. This is why I kind of envy religious people- it is all so simple for them. They have one book with all the answers. All you need to do is re read it constanty and follow what it says and bingo. I have often wondered whether it would be a good thing to know all the answers- to know for sure whether there is a God, life after death and so on, or whether life is better with a bit of mystery and debate.


I think it is just the way we are wired that makes people different from one another. Some people are happy to get by on the TV or from getting entertainment from a weekly football match or a night out. Others place making money at the centre of their lives While a small, mad section of society, wants to learn about the world around them, which includes reading deeply and widely.

:) Exactly the conclusion I have come to. If I have learnt one thing about life it's this- you can't fight your genes! I wish I had been born a loud, assertive, unthinking extravert, but I'm not and if I pretend I am I shall be miserable.




The strangest thing someone once said to me was “why are you reading, if the book is any good they will make a film from it?” “I can’t understand why anyone reads books.”

:lol: Yes, I've heard stuff like that. I once heard a grown man in a book shop say to his friend "you know, I can't bear books without pictures in". I noticed you are a Brit btw- we British are depressingly anti intellectual and proudly philistine. So different to the French and Italians. It is such a shame. This soggy little island has produced some of the world's greatest literature and science and yet the average person here is more interested in Jade Goodey than Newton, Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare. People actually resent you for reading as well- they think it is pretentious or showing off.

[John Goodman]

It's a medium of entertainment that can delve deeper than TV, movies, or video games ever could. It's been fundamental in society for hundreds of years, or at least literacy was wished for for that long. Sure expanding your knowledge seems futile when you'll never be able to use the vast majority of it and life is all too short, but if that's what you enjoy doing then who's to say you can't have fun with it in the time you have. I have a job, I volunteer, I go to parties on the weekends, I go to school and eventually I'll have a career doing almost exactly what you describe. I'll be an investment banker in a high stress position doing anything to make money. That's what drives me. Reading is a great thing but moderation must always be applied. If you worry about something as minor as not being able to know enough interesting but essentially useless knowledge, it will consume you and you'll realise how much more you could have done.

[Annamariah]

I read, because books are my friends. They always have just as much time for me as I have for them.

For me reading is mostly about escapism, really. Learning is a great plus, but not the main point.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I read, because books are my friends. They always have just as much time for me as I have for them.

For me reading is mostly about escapism, really. Learning is a great plus, but not the main point.

I started out the same way, I would read for fun only and eat popular novels for breakfast, dinner and lunch. But then I wanted more than escapism, I wanted knowledge and understanding and so I started reading "classics" and took a degree in Literature.

[Drkshadow03]

Heh. I was just discussing this topic with Stlukesguild in private messages; how ironic, but good to see other people are thinking about this question. I'll answer later as I'm still piecing together my thoughts.

[JBI]

I read to build myself, and for enjoyment. Poetry in particular has a huge effect on me, as after I read something great, I just want to read it over and over again, memorize part, or all of it, and just sit with it.

It is like asking why do you have friends. Because like a book, a friend is something that has shaped and changed the way you see yourself, the world around you, and the people around you.

I feel now, more than ever, or perhaps as much as ever, people are in need of meaning in their lives. The traditional religions, which seem to be the source of many people's meanings just don't apply the same way they did when they originated. We need, as people, something that relates, and speaks to us, in order to function properly.

This reminds me of the book Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, in which an old, misshapen priest says essentially that he is in need of a God who can speak to him, as Jesus, though he believes in him, died at age 33, and no longer functions the same way as a God of old age.

Davies's work is important, in that it deals with the question of spirituality without, or separate from religion. We all need something, but we cannot all bring ourselves to believe in a religion, or, even if we can, we cannot find all we need within one thing. That is where literature comes in, or rather, where the humanities come in.

I make no distinction of these effects on me between Visual arts, literature, music, philosophy, history, and religion/theology. They all have an impact on the way we see things.

I try to read the best that was written, and listen to the best that was written played by the best, and see the best that was created for this reason. I focus, unfortunately, on literature, as it seems the medium which I am most fit to study, beyond a hobby, yet I try my best not to neglect the rest. If one does not seek out the best, then they are depriving themselves of the best.

[kasie]

Why do I read? Unashamed curiosity! I can't bring myself to ask direct questions of people (it may surprise you to know I am rather shy!) but 'By indirection, find direction out', I read to find out about people. Apparently, when I was about four years of age, I floored my mother by asking her 'What do people do?' I suppose I might have been precociously asking her what was the meaning of life but I rather think I was asking what went on in people's houses once they went inside and shut the door. Reading is a way of finding out what goes on behind the closed doors, not just those on their houses but the shutters they pull down on their minds. I suppose my interest in history rose out of the extension to the question, 'How did we get where we are today?' and my interest in the Natural World by asking 'How does that work then?' Psychology: 'Why did he do that?' Ethics: 'What should I do?'

The fascinating thing about being curious is that the more you ask, the more there is to ask - and somebody, somewhere has at least some of the answer and had probably written a book about it. No one will ever know everything though some people like to con you and themselves that they do - they just haven't realised how long a piece of string is.

But as to 'Why are we here?' - no one has ever given me a satisfactory answer. We just are - enjoy it! :)

[Etienne]

Well I could get in what some may call my "philosophy of life" but I'll stay out of it and simply say that, other than being very pleasing to me, reading offers me the opportunity to relax, constantly improve myself by new knowledge and mental exercise, and offers a good contrast - and I would say completes very well my other main intellectual activity which is playing chess by being fundamentally different in terms of mental process, allowing me to exercise my brain in a more universal manner.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Well I could get in what some may call my "philosophy of life" but I'll stay out of it and simply say that, other than being very pleasing to me, reading offers me the opportunity to relax, constantly improve myself by new knowledge and mental exercise, and offers a good contrast - and I would say completes very well my other main intellectual activity which is playing chess by being fundamentally different in terms of mental process, allowing me to exercise my brain in a more universal manner.

Ah chess is a great game. A fine balance between calculation and creativity. I enjoy it, though I tend to make silly mistakes sometimes which means I am just an average average I think.

[integrity]

I read to assure myself I'm not illiterate.

[DapperDrake]

Why do I read? its a complex issue I'm sure, part escapism, part education, and part entertainment.
I think the main reason is escapism, there is great comfort in being an observer, safe from all that goes on in the world of the book and yet involved in every aspect of it... So unlike life. plus of course its very stimulating to be able to absorb a part of someone else's experience and ideas, to touch their genius as if it were your own.

[stlukesguild]

I was indeed just discussing this very topic with Drkshadow03 in a PM. To give a shortened version of my thoughts I would say that I fully agree with Harold Bloom's statement that the attainment of aesthetic pleasure is the only legitimate reason for reading. I agree... but would expand upon this. I believe that Anna Quindlen has written one of the best descriptions of why we read... (or why we spend time with art or music, etc...):

Books are the means to immortality. Through them we all experience other times, other places, other lives. We manage to become much more than our own selves. The only dead are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives and into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.

I don't read or experience art to reinforce my own thoughts... beliefs... prejudices... but to enter into the thoughts of endless others... to engage in dialog... a conversation... or an intercourse with endless other human spirits. The only question then is with whom do I most wish to spend this time? Obviously, I wish the engage in this dialog... conversation... with those who bring me the most pleasure. Here, I must again quote Walter Pater's closing words from the Conclusion to his collection of essays, The Renaissance:

Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us, --for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?

To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes two persons, things, situations, seem alike. While all melts under our feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the sense, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odours, or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening...

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. An undefinable taint of death had clung always about him, and now in early manhood he believed himself smitten by mortal disease. He asked himself how he might make as much as possible of the interval that remained; and he was not biased by anything in his previous life when he decided that it must be by intellectual excitement, which he found just then in the clear, fresh writings of Voltaire. Well! we are all condamnés, as Victor Hugo says: we are all under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve --les hommes sont tous condamnés à mort avec des sursis indéfinis: we have an interval, and then our place knows no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passion, the wisest, at least among "the children of the world", in art and song. For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us a quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which comes naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion --that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake.

[JacobF]

I read for two main reasons. My first reason is to escape from reality, to be immersed in a world and embrace all the characters, the plot, the setting, et cetera. Reading something can sometimes be more tactile and more entertaining than video games, movies and TV, because when you read the text you are forced to use your imagination to mold the authour's words into a living, breathing experience for yourself. I admit it takes a bit of work sometimes, particularly with fiction like Brave New World and Heart of Darkness, but it's generally very rewarding.

My second reason is to observe the world around me in a different way, to see things from a perspective I would have never thought of. While I haven't attempted to read philosophy yet, some books just hit me in a sense that for the rest of the week, everything I do and see reminds me of a book I have recently read.

Admittedly, I'm generally more interested in writing rather than reading, simply because writing comes more easily to me and I tend to enjoy it more. Still, I love reading.

[book_jones]

I don't know why I read! I think it's because I like the way books smell.

[Leabhar]

At times I wish I could be more animal- like: a successful career in an office bullying and shoving myself forward, making plenty of money and filling my weekends with sex, drugs, alcohol and violence.

This is not like an animal, but like a human. Animals engage in sex to reproduce, and they don't do drugs and fight only to defend themselves, or defend their territory. Anyway, I think the general population is unhappy because they live these kinds of lives.


I'll be an investment banker in a high stress position doing anything to make money. That's what drives me.

What a horrible life that would be. You haven't gotten anything out of literature and wisdom if you think that soul killing life would be worth it. Also, saying you must take things in moderation is a contradiction to "doing anything to make money".

[ClaesGefvenberg]

Why I read? It is part of my nature to such an extent that I find it difficult to explain "the obvious", but basically it is curiosity. I have this insatiable craving for something to read. I just need it, and get very jittery when I deplete my book stash to much. As you can see I describe it like an addiction, and it is... One I intend to keep.
The strangest thing someone once said to me was “why are you reading, if the book is any good they will make a film from it?” “I can’t understand why anyone reads books.".Yes... A coworker once asked what I do in my free time. When I told her that I (among many other things) read an awful lot, she looked at me in a strange way and said: "-My, you must have a boring life..". She actually pitied me... :lol::lol::lol: I immediately realized that there was no way I could possibly make her understand what books has to offer me, and that I could not possibly understand her outlook. We were quite literally worlds apart, and had to accept that.

/Claes

[John Goodman]

What a horrible life that would be. You haven't gotten anything out of literature and wisdom if you think that soul killing life would be worth it. Also, saying you must take things in moderation is a contradiction to "doing anything to make money".


I seem to have mashed two of my ideas into one post and left it contradictory. I was going to make a point revolving around that but I seem to have forgetten. I am studying finance but have no plans to be an investment banker. My other post is a bit of a mess.

[WICKES]

... A coworker once asked what I do in my free time. When I told her that I (among many other things) read an awful lot, she looked at me in a strange way and said: "-My, you must have a boring life..". She actually pitied me... :lol::lol::lol: I immediately realized that there was no way I could possibly make her understand what books has to offer me, and that I could not possibly understand her outlook. We were quite literally worlds apart, and had to accept that.


:flare: It really annoys me when people say that kind of thing. They have no idea how unbearably boring, petty and predictable people who never read anything of merit often seem to people who do.

[muhsin]

I cannot either directly or indirectly say why I read. Yet I can vindicate a single reason, I think, and thats to say; reading is just my hobby, yeah hobby as everyone has his/her, e.g soccer/football, tennis, listening to music, etc as hobby. Thus, I do read for that and for many other reasons.

[Annamariah]

I started out the same way, I would read for fun only and eat popular novels for breakfast, dinner and lunch. But then I wanted more than escapism, I wanted knowledge and understanding and so I started reading "classics" and took a degree in Literature.

Don't you think that reading classics can be entertaining and a form of escapism too? :D Just joking, I get your point, and I don't always read just for fun either :)

[blazeofglory]

This is really interesting question and I read for a variety of reasons and of course one of the reasons why I read is self gratification. I enjoy reading and there is no other specific reasons than the love of reading. Reading in itself or onto it is a reason. For by reading we reach domains which otherwise not reachable.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

:flare: It really annoys me when people say that kind of thing.I can live with it: As long as nobody tries to force their views on me I am quite willing to accept our differences. If they do, I get a bit cranky. :brow:

/Claes

[caesar]

Made a mistake. Please see post #27

[Drkshadow03]

Literature, movies, visual art, and music are first and foremost entertainment. I don’t go to the movies or read a book or visit a museum because I want to improve my soul. If that was my goal I would be better off consulting a rabbi or spending my hours working in a soup kitchen or volunteering for the Peace Corps. No, I do these activities first and foremost because I want to keep occupied during the day in a way that gives me pleasure and prevents boredom from seeping into my life. I read to be entertained. Period.

But what do I mean by entertainment? Well since most of my words and ideas have thus far been ripped off from an essay by Michael Chabon introducing The Best American Short Stories of 2005 anthology perhaps he can explain better in his own words:

“Here is a sample, chosen at random from my career as a reader, of encounters that would be covered under my new definition of entertainment: the engagement of the interior ear by the rhythm and pitch of an original prose style; the dawning awareness that giant mutant rat people dwell in the walls of a ruined abbey in England; two hours spent bushwhacking through a densely packed argument about the structures of power as embodied in nineteenth-century prison architecture; the consummation of a great love aboard a lost Amazonian riverboat or in Elizabethan slang; the intricate fractal patterning of motif and metaphor in Nabokov and Neil Gaiman; stories of pirates, zeppelins, sinister children; a thousand-word-long sentence comparing homosexuals to the Jews in a page of Proust; a duel to the death with broadswords on the seacoast of ancient Zingara; the outrageousness of whale slaughter or mule slaughter in Melville or Cormac McCarthy. . .”

Chabon’s entertainment would cover the absorbing fascination of aesthetics that traditionalists harp on, while still finding enjoyment in the pure imagination often displayed in genre works of the fantastic, despite such works occasional weakness on a prose level. The beauty of Chabon’s essay is that a fantasy writer like Gaiman can sit side by side with Nabokov; Robert E. Howard’s barbarians prove just as interesting as the obsessive chase of Ahab and his Pequod hunting after Moby Dick.

Where a lot of people around here seem to take their page from Harold Bloom, I have more affinity with Bloom’s student, Camille Paglia. Like her I am unimpressed with the elitist attitude that implies one can only enjoy Madonna or Beethoven, Shakespeare or China Mieville, Citizen Kane or American Pie, classical music or punk rock. What I love about Paglia is that she can discuss the originality and importance she finds in the aesthetics of Madonna with the same acuity and depth she is able discuss traditional poetry.

For me it’s not about whether rock n’ roll is better than classical music, but rather simply recognizing they are different styles of music which produce different sounds and have depth in their own unique ways. So far this hasn’t overturned judging by aesthetics, but it does call into question whether there really are universal aesthetic qualities.

As a reader I began with genre fiction. Before I ever experienced the unforgettable poetry and characters of Shakespeare, before I ever read the playful tone of Philip Roth, before I ever knew the desperation of seeking true love with Jane Austen, there were spaceships and monsters and demons and chosen ones and the vast coldness of space stretching out with all its terrible mysteries and uncharted territories. Science fiction and fantasy taught me that the quality of prose is not the end all and be all of fiction—certainly I learned later in my life to enjoy aesthetics, to understand what it is that makes Shakespeare the best, to appreciate the rapture of reading a sentence by Hawthorne that epitomizes the very essence of good writing. However, I also learned that a great deal of fiction is about the imagination itself, whose quality cannot be entirely assessed by limiting oneself to focusing on aesthetics.

Of course the problem with using abstract terms like “aesthetics” is that everyone will have a slightly different understanding of what that term means. One could convincingly argue that the author’s imagination is intimately attached to their aesthetics. In the case of someone like Borges it isn’t a fault or a deficiency that his characters generally remain underdeveloped because that wasn’t the point of his work or what he was trying to do; the term as it is being used here implies that a writer’s goals and how they shape their art, the overall floor plan so to speak, is their aesthetics. However, if I defended the mediocre writing of many science fiction writers on the grounds of their imaginative vision most traditionalists would probably call foul. It seems then that by aesthetics we still in fact mean first and foremost good prose. I was fascinated by a conversation I had with a pal of mine from a different online forum who said what he liked about Rowling’s Harry Potter and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was the same quality he enjoyed in Borges’s writing—the evocative worlds where so much hangs off the edge in limbo and lives in the language and the reader’s imagination.

I was very struck by one of JBI’s recent comments where he pointed out that it is not WHAT is said, but HOW it is said. This is some great insight, and yet I am not sure it ultimately works for me and my reasons for reading. The problem I have with emphasizing the "how" over the "what" is I feel it transforms the written word into a kind of visual art, in my opinion. The written word can transmit ideas in a way that static visual art with a character, figure or scene perpetually suspended in time cannot. It ignores precisely what is inherently and uniquely different between these art forms. The amount of time we spent trying to figure out what an author meant, what issues concerned him or her, what a symbol meant in a story, the historical background in a work, during my formal academic training has convinced me there are serious problems with overemphasizing aesthetics as the major criteria for judging the written word.

My formal training is in American Literature, I have a Masters in English, and I will soon be finished with an additional Masters in Library Science. I found in my literature classes that talking about an author’s aesthetics was devalued; students and professors hardly ever bothered to make aesthetic judgments. There was very little of Ring Cycle > Tolkien arguments. People studied Canonical figures, non-Canonical figures, pop culture, genres, and everyone respected each other's interests; you didn't fundamentally adopt a new methodology when discussing Science Fiction versus Melville. The same basic rules of exegesis applied.

That’s why I am always bemused when people seem to think what literary critics primarily do is sit around and make aesthetic judgments. Discussion in my classes revolved around deciphering the texts and making an interpretation of a work’s meaning and central ideas. Discussion of a work’s aesthetics only mattered in so far as it could help reveal the author’s meaning. Perhaps it is my training then, or perhaps it is my honest to G-d feelings on the subject, that makes me believe that ultimately the writing is but a means to an end, not the end in itself. This not to say the aesthetics of a writer should never be appreciated, but I ultimately get more out of literature by focusing on the exegesis. As I discussed briefly with Jozanny on a different thread, literature is like putting puzzle-pieces together where nothing less is at stake but the possible meaning of life itself.

I could have began my essay by saying art begins with meaning. We don’t tell ourselves oral myths to appreciate the texture of words in a story, we didn’t start drawing pretty cave paintings for the sake of aesthetic pleasure but rather to enchant the animal with magic and be able to eat that night (to draw on one theory); certainly, these things might have aesthetic qualities, but that wasn’t their primary purpose. The primary purpose was to convey meaning, to transmit truths, to accomplish something useful in this world. The only real major difference in my mind between myth and the contemporary novel is that the former generally transmitted societal truths and concerns, while the latter has since adopted the additional function of being able to harshly critique our accepted truths. I find Oscar Wilde's art for art's sake problematic to say the least.

To return to Chabon, I agree with him that literature is a way of bridging the gap between human beings by connecting the experiences we all share through what we call universal themes; it’s finding those experiences, fears, concerns, and frustrations we can all relate to. It’s a way of experiencing other continents, other time periods, other worlds, other possibilities, while always having some truth to offer about the here and now, a truth that may in fact teach us something new about ourselves and the world in which we live, but can also simply confirm what we already knew in an emotionally satisfying way; it seems in this last point we have come full circle and returned back to aesthetics. May I suggest we’re also back to entertainment. Entertainment can be escaping the mundane world through fantastical adventures, while it can also be sitting alone for hours considering the symbolism of whales in Moby Dick; entertainment can be the rapture of Shakespeare’s beautiful language or it can be the fantastical image of an Arthurian Knight riding down the street in a modern milieu to serve as a counterpoint to an Old woman having an existential crisis over her old age who must overcome the temptation of youth in a Neil Gaiman short story; entertainment can be watching Tony Soprano kick the snot out of some guy who gave him lip and it can also be watching a dying man whispering the words, “rose bud.” Maybe literature and art is for the good of improving your soul because entertainment itself is good for the soul.

[caesar]

WICKES, reading your post made me feel glad that I became a member of Lit-Net. This is the only place I know of where I can find sensible people, though, since one year, due to work pressure, I've not been a very active member.

My reasons for being an avid reader are more or less the same as yours. I read anything and everything. Books have been my best friends and teachers all along. It must have been at the age of 7 that I developed an appetite for reading. There is a photo of me taken on my 7th birthday, deeply engrossed in a book someone had presented, unmindful of the birthday party and the kids playing around me. When a child, to me, books were merely a source of entertainment; during adolescence, they became a means of escape from reality (which I thought was not so pleasant. Now I don't know, and don't care, if any thing is good or bad, for I am as disenchanted and dejected by the thought of futility of life as you seem to be from what you have said. However, a new, but still inchoate, thought seems to be reviving my hope). It was only on the threshold of adulthood, when I was around 18, that I began to read to find answers to the many questions that were tormenting me. I'm fascinated by the skillful use of language in literature. I'm thrilled by the ideas of great thinkers. I am intrigued by mathematical concepts and the natural world so I read books on science. I read autobiographies, biographies and history to find out what made someone behave or think in a particular manner because, I believe, experience is the ultimate source of all knowledge and the definer of ones disposition. Today, reading is a integral part my calling. I read to earn a livelihood. They said, "Law is a jealous mistress." Three years into legal practice, I have now fully apprehended import of the aphorism. If I had one more hour in a day I will (for I have to) devout it to the service of the jealous mistress. I love my job, so I have no complaints.

I want to say more, but have little time. I want to end by saying that I can relate to what you have said in post # 20. Also, I think I can fully understand what you mean when you speak about people living an "unreflective and instinctive life" and about your not wanting to lead a mere "animal-like" existence. The expression "animal-like" strikes to me as having been used in a sense more profound than that in clichéd usage. Recently, in a online discussion with an old friend I remarked, "Some humans, I think, are more human than others and, hence, have a greater aesthetic sense than the latter. In other words, though, basically, humans are also animals, some humans are less animal than others who, owing to the preponderance of instinct over intellect, are more animal." However, I also share your sense of humility which flows from wisdom itself - as very beautifully put by someone - "The older and wiser I become, the more ignorant I know I am."

[armenian]

it rips my life away, but it's a great escape

[coolestnerdever]

I read to challenge myself intellectually, mostly. Until university I'm stuck in English class with people who complain about reading a chapter of The Catcher in the Rye. I've always been a bit smarter than everyone else- in grade 4 my teacher called my parents and told them I had a behaviour problem, because I was reading a high school level book behind the book my classmates were struggling with. I'm not happy unless I'm challenged.

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=Neely;614684][QUOTE]



Too true! I wish someone had told me that 10 years ago. This is why I kind of envy religious people- it is all so simple for them. They have one book with all the answers. All you need to do is re read it constanty and follow what it says and bingo. I have often wondered whether it would be a good thing to know all the answers- to know for sure whether there is a God, life after death and so on, or whether life is better with a bit of mystery and debate.



:) Exactly the conclusion I have come to. If I have learnt one thing about life it's this- you can't fight your genes! I wish I had been born a loud, assertive, unthinking extravert, but I'm not and if I pretend I am I shall be miserable.





:lol: Yes, I've heard stuff like that. I once heard a grown man in a book shop say to his friend "you know, I can't bear books without pictures in". I noticed you are a Brit btw- we British are depressingly anti intellectual and proudly philistine. So different to the French and Italians. It is such a shame. This soggy little island has produced some of the world's greatest literature and science and yet the average person here is more interested in Jade Goodey than Newton, Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare. People actually resent you for reading as well- they think it is pretentious or showing off.

It was ever thus, only much more so now. At least you know you are not alone, thanks to this wonderful website.

[Hank Stamper]

I have never thought too deeply about my love of reading, only that the more I read the more I want to read.

I am only thankful that my circumstances in the lottery of life are such that my addiction is books and not crack.

[nathank]

Thanks so much for vocalizing my life so well. It's nice to know I'm not alone. I often think of these feelings as nostalgia for childhood, when things seemed simpler and people gave you simple explanations about life. Maybe these feeling are about growing out of those simple childhood ideals. Perhaps, it's not about age, I didn't get here until my mid 20's, but about realizing that those childhood beliefs are too simplistic and fray at the edges and eventually collapse under the weight of conflicting views when you start seeing (and acknowledging) the world from other viewpoints.

[stlukesguild]

Yes... A coworker once asked what I do in my free time. When I told her that I (among many other things) read an awful lot, she looked at me in a strange way and said: "-My, you must have a boring life..". She actually pitied me... I immediately realized that there was no way I could possibly make her understand what books has to offer me, and that I could not possibly understand her outlook. We were quite literally worlds apart, and had to accept that.

I forgot another great quote about why we read which might provide an answer to your co-worker (but then she's need to read it:rolleyes:)

Yet who reads to bring about an end, however desirable? Are there not some pursuits that we practise because they are good in themselves, and some pleasures that are final? And is not this among them? I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards—their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.”

Virginia Woolf- from: "How Should One Read a Book?", The Second Common Reader

[Joreads]

Yes... A coworker once asked what I do in my free time. When I told her that I (among many other things) read an awful lot, she looked at me in a strange way and said: "-My, you must have a boring life..". She actually pitied me... :lol::lol::lol: I immediately realized that there was no way I could possibly make her understand what books has to offer me, and that I could not possibly understand her outlook. We were quite literally worlds apart, and had to accept that.

I have had that said to me also. I told my co worker that I have a really full like, I visit a new place and make new friends everytime I start a new book and that she must have a dull life if she didn't read/:p She wasn't too sure how to respond to that and she never bothered me again about reading

[cipherdecoy]

As a student in a secondary school I must say the world of literature is very much estranged from today's education, or at least where I'm from. I see no point in the rote learning we are forced to engage in and I feel what I read of my own volition is really a breath of fresh air. So reading to me is extremely important for the survival of my creative juices and intellect.


:flare: It really annoys me when people say that kind of thing. They have no idea how unbearably boring, petty and predictable people who never read anything of merit often seem to people who do.

I get that a lot too, but to each his own. I do feel irritated but if we think about it, sometimes by spending too much time on reading we are really robbing ourselves of the opportunities to just go out there and live.

[integrity]

it rips my life away, but it's a great escape

heh, heh :D

I caught the reference.

It's almost as clever as your "playboy" comment. But that was genius. :thumbs_up

*******

I think "heh heh" is an appropriate comment for the last thing I post on this forum.

For the record, I was never a "mate" or a "he."

Heh, heh.

[Jozanny]

As I discussed briefly with Jozanny on a different thread, literature is like putting puzzle-pieces together where nothing less is at stake but the possible meaning of life itself.

I don't really remember Drk posting this to me, but, I am also not interested in the primary question posed by Wickes. It is like asking my brother why he took a degree in computer science and freelances in graphic design.

My concern is more about whether literacy is still a mutually exclusive concern, even if we do not have monks and rabbi's running around safe-guarding secret texts along with their Arabic colleagues. I am thinking about this because of where I live, and having gotten cursed out by an old woman down the hall while I was emptying the trash. In terms of social status I'm nothing pretty much, crap--but I used disability laws on the books to get an education at fairly expensive universities--yet I have to endure inner city social norms that are anathema to me. I am not even sure I'd want this woman who hates me for being in a wheelchair to read my work (although some of my neighbors have caught my byline and said some polite things).

Let me push this a little further--what concerns me is the education level of my audience even though I may bemoan (especially after posting with JBI and some others) the glaring gaps of my own continuing ignorance.

I think the monks and rabbi's are still riding around on donkeys, reading The New Republic, while I press my fingers on the looking glass, cursing that I am in between welfare class trash and at least able to hold my own with humanist scholars.

To simplify, for the purposes of Wickes question though, I mostly read today for Joanne the writer, for what I can steal, illuminate, imitate, and continue to learn thereby. To relax I watch tv, mostly House. Some of you can parse that as you will.:crash::)

[kainso]

I haven't read a book until I came to uni studying literature. It is a shame to say that. In Hong Kong, we have to finish two English books a year and write a book report, but usually, I would just flip through the books' back and introduction and search for their synopsis on the internet. Can you imagine a student like that. I have no discrimation. I treat chinese book and English the same way.

The reason I start to read a decent book is because the courses require me to do so. Heart of darkness, Wuthering Height, Secret Garden, you name it, the canon . Despite my poor language foundation and ignorance about reading before, I start to enjoy reading a book. That enjoyment is like an epipthany which is unexpected.

I like the way my profosser dissect a book for us and explain alll those funny facts about the authors. The most interesting thing is to finish a book. It is like a kind of trophy and I thought those are the reasons.

It is great to share your thoughts and it is important to strike a balance. Sorry for my little history of schooling.

[i3aby]

I read because it's away to escape to a differant place and is educational aswell as entertaining. Why do I insist on buying and keeping books that I will never read again? ~ thats a better question for me that I am unable to answer.

[kilted exile]

For the same reason I watch sport or do anything else - mindless escapism

[cipherdecoy]

I haven't read a book until I came to uni studying literature.

That's interesting. Why did you choose to study literature when you had never read a book?

[kainso]

That's interesting. Why did you choose to study literature when you had never read a book?

Firstly, I didn't know what exactly I have chosen. I thought it is just something related to studying a foreign language which is desirable and competitive in Hong Kong. You know students do go in Art programmes when they are not sure of what to do next.

Apart from that reason, I want to know more about semantics. That means I do have some interest in linguistics. Things like what consists of a word and how one is different or related to one another , is facinated to a foreign learner.

[Leabhar]

For the same reason I watch sport or do anything else - mindless escapism

Mindless escapism? Reading isn't mindless at all. It is the least mindless escapism there is. Watching sports though is like watching grass grow.

[kilted exile]

Mindless escapism? Reading isn't mindless at all. It is the least mindless escapism there is. Watching sports though is like watching grass grow.

Depends on how you read. I dont read to examine the techniques used or any of that stuff. I read for the story, I have no thoughts about "high" and "low" literature. I will as happily read Grisham as Dickens (shocking as the thought may be to some). I am reading to escape into another place from my life & hassles contained therein - It distracts me for a couple of hours just like watching sports, which I also thoroughly enjoy, possibly (nah scratch that probably) more than I enjoy reading

[Scheherazade]

Why not?

[stlukesguild]

Literature, movies, visual art, and music are first and foremost entertainment. I don’t go to the movies or read a book or visit a museum because I want to improve my soul. If that was my goal I would be better off consulting a rabbi or spending my hours working in a soup kitchen or volunteering for the Peace Corps. No, I do these activities first and foremost because I want to keep occupied during the day in a way that gives me pleasure and prevents boredom from seeping into my life. I read to be entertained.

Drkshadow03... Interesting post. I don't see that your description of reading differs all that greatly from my own. I read for aesthetic pleasure. This would seemingly be merely another way of saying I read for entertainment. I don't read to improve my soul or make myself into a better person. I doubt art can do that. Perhaps reading can broaden my perspectives... make me aware of other persons, other cultures, other beliefs... but if I am honest, that is not why I read. I read because I enjoy it... because engaging in a dialog with other minds through their writings gives me pleasure.

Where a lot of people around here seem to take their page from Harold Bloom, I have more affinity with Bloom’s student, Camille Paglia. Like her I am unimpressed with the elitist attitude that implies one can only enjoy Madonna or Beethoven... classical music or punk rock. What I love about Paglia is that she can discuss the originality and importance she finds in the aesthetics of Madonna with the same acuity and depth she is able discuss traditional poetry.
For me it’s not about whether rock n’ roll is better than classical music, but rather simply recognizing they are different styles of music which produce different sounds and have depth in their own unique ways. So far this hasn’t overturned judging by aesthetics, but it does call into question whether there really are universal aesthetic qualities.

The "elitist" stance isn't taking a position suggesting that one style or genre is better than another, but rather it is simply admitting that some art and some artists are better than others... that we find them more worthy of expending time and effort upon... that ultimately they are more entertaining... or we derive more pleasure from them. As one becomes more experienced in reading... or in the experience of any art form... one often finds that there is a far greater pleasure to be found in certain works which once seemed difficult... even incomprehensible... and conversely, one may discover that there is less pleasure to be derived from works which are cliche... commonplace... or lacking in other areas that one has come to appreciate: language, originality of metaphor or narrative, the development of character.

I agree that in some ways Harold Bloom represents an older entrenched approach to criticism and aesthetics. As an artist I have long held with Picasso's declaration that great art is produced in the same manner as the Renaissance princes produced their children... by a merger of the aristocratic and the peasant. To a degree, I suspect that had Bloom been alive during the age of his beloved Shakespeare he may have rejected him along with all the other playwrights... for certainly the theater of Shakespeare's age was almost as suspect in terms of aesthetics as today's TV and Hollywood movies. But what we term "high art" (just like culture itself) has always benefited from the influx of fresh blood... "peasant stock"... outside or "low" influences. I agree that the ability to discern great classic rock, jazz, bluegrass, science fiction, horror... or any other genre involves the same sort of aesthetic judgments that one uses with classical music or classic literature. Does this call into question universal aesthetic values? I am not sure I would go that far. T.S. Eliot spoke of all the works of art forming a sort of ideal order or dialog which each new work of genuine merit alters to some degree... however slight. Whether I like it or not I am always making comparisons. certainly I will look at the Rolling Stones or the Stanley Brothers first within their own genres... but then I will also compare them within the whole of music. Of course such judgments are not the same as personal preferences. I can freely admit that in many instances works of art that are less important... less innovative... less brilliant in pure aesthetic terms... may actually give me greater pleasure. I would admittedly rather listen to Puccini... or even the Stones or Johnny Cash... over Stravinsky. By the same token there are any number of writers who have given me far more pleasure than James Joyce... but I'm not about to confuse that personal pleasure with actual artistic merit. That is what I have a problem with when I am confronted by declarations that Proust or Milton or Goethe, etc... are overrated... or lacking is any aesthetic merit... such seems to confuse personal preference with artistic worth.

As a reader I began with genre fiction. Before I ever experienced the unforgettable poetry and characters of Shakespeare, before I ever read the playful tone of Philip Roth, before I ever knew the desperation of seeking true love with Jane Austen, there were spaceships and monsters and demons and chosen ones and the vast coldness of space stretching out with all its terrible mysteries and uncharted territories. Science fiction and fantasy taught me that the quality of prose is not the end all and be all of fiction—certainly I learned later in my life to enjoy aesthetics, to understand what it is that makes Shakespeare the best, to appreciate the rapture of reading a sentence by Hawthorne that epitomizes the very essence of good writing. However, I also learned that a great deal of fiction is about the imagination itself, whose quality cannot be entirely assessed by limiting oneself to focusing on aesthetics.

I surely do not disagree. I cut my own teeth upon science fiction and fantasy and ghost stories... and simple childhood poetry... nursery rhymes... etc... surely led to an appreciation of the flow and the cadence and the music... and the sound of language itself.

Of course the problem with using abstract terms like “aesthetics” is that everyone will have a slightly different understanding of what that term means. One could convincingly argue that the author’s imagination is intimately attached to their aesthetics. In the case of someone like Borges it isn’t a fault or a deficiency that his characters generally remain underdeveloped because that wasn’t the point of his work or what he was trying to do; the term as it is being used here implies that a writer’s goals and how they shape their art, the overall floor plan so to speak, is their aesthetics. However, if I defended the mediocre writing of many science fiction writers on the grounds of their imaginative vision most traditionalists would probably call foul... It seems then that by aesthetics we still in fact mean first and foremost good prose.

Intriguing argument. I would counter by suggesting that the language is the form through which the artist conveys ideas... feeling... thoughts... A marvelous, innovative, imaginative vision poorly presented... given a flawed or stilted form would strike me a quite different from a work of art in which a more commonplace idea or image is conveyed through a marvelous form. Conveying an expression of love...presenting one more image of a landscape or still life or nude... are not the most original visions... but may certainly result in the most brilliant works of art when given a form of true genius. In the visual arts there are artists working within the genre of science fiction illustration who you might argue present imagery that is quite "imaginative"... but the mundane, cliche manner in which this imagery is presented strikes me as seriously flawed where a painter who focuses repeatedly upon a a simple still life motif but does so brilliantly is not necessarily flawed... although certainly "limited" in scope.

I was very struck by one of JBI’s recent comments where he pointed out that it is not WHAT is said, but HOW it is said. This is some great insight, and yet I am not sure it ultimately works for me and my reasons for reading. The problem I have with emphasizing the "how" over the "what" is I feel it transforms the written word into a kind of visual art, in my opinion. The written word can transmit ideas in a way that static visual art with a character, figure or scene perpetually suspended in time cannot. It ignores precisely what is inherently and uniquely different between these art forms. The amount of time we spent trying to figure out what an author meant, what issues concerned him or her, what a symbol meant in a story, the historical background in a work, during my formal academic training has convinced me there are serious problems with overemphasizing aesthetics as the major criteria for judging the written word.

I somewhat suspect you are reducing the notion of aesthetics merit to signify only the beauty of the language. That in itself varies from artist to artist. There is a huge difference between the beauty of Shakespeare's English and Kafka's almost dry, matter-of-fact prose, Hemingway's crisp, minimalism, or Calvino's crystalline prose... but all are clearly "beautiful" and perfectly attuned to what the writer's intentions were. But surely character development, metaphor, symbolism, the narrative... all of this and more are part of the experience of reading... and part of what is taken into consideration in forming a critical opinion. The same is no less true of a work of visual art. Abstract formal elements such as color, texture, composition, line, etc... are all imminently important in that they are the language through which the artist speaks... but this does not negate the image, narrative, emotional impact, etc...

My formal training is in American Literature, I have a Masters in English, and I will soon be finished with an additional Masters in Library Science. I found in my literature classes that talking about an author’s aesthetics was devalued; students and professors hardly ever bothered to make aesthetic judgments.

Arguably, this is much due to the fact that aesthetic judgments are imagined as somewhat "elitist" in many academic schools of thought. It also owes to the idea that in many of these same schools of thought art is not to be appreciated as art... for the pleasure that it gives... but rather is a means to an end... a way of illustrating certain appropriate and inappropriate ways of thinking. The content... the WHAT is far more important than questions of form or HOW. My own formal "training" or education was in visual art... in creating artistic works. It was accepted that everybody has their own vision... their own concerns that are important to them. In discussing the art of others one did not ignore the content... WHAT was being expressed... but neither was it open to criticism that might suggest that "I don't like what you have to say; I don't like what you find important" or "I don't like the way you think." The goal was to develop the artist... not to remake them in the teachers' or student's own image of what is acceptable or valued... and as such the focus was upon developing the formal language through which anything must be conveyed... the form/HOW.

That’s why I am always bemused when people seem to think what literary critics primarily do is sit around and make aesthetic judgments. Discussion in my classes revolved around deciphering the texts and making an interpretation of a work’s meaning and central ideas.

There is certainly something to be said about an excess of discussions about who is better that whom. By and large these are pointless. On the other hand, when someone has asked why Shakespeare is a great writer or Tolkein is mediocre I have seen a good deal of discussion centering upon far more than the aesthetic merits of the prose. My initial introduction to criticism was through art criticism. The classic form of art criticism involved 1.description, 2. interpretation, 3. judgment.

Discussion of a work’s aesthetics only mattered in so far as it could help reveal the author’s meaning.

By "aesthetics" I presume I might substitute "form". Different schools of thought emphasize form/how over content/what, or the inverse. My experience in art school was almost purely "formalist". My experience when attaining my license for teaching was quite the opposite. Content was everything, and to even make a suggestion that a work was formally weak or flawed was considered close-minded. Personally, I feel that there must be a balance between both content and form because content is inherent in form. The experience we gain from reading Shakespeare or listening to Mozart or looking at Giotto can not be reduced to a simple meaning or definition divorced from the form because the content... the experience is part of the whole... is engaged through the form.

I could have began my essay by saying art begins with meaning. We don’t tell ourselves oral myths to appreciate the texture of words in a story, we didn’t start drawing pretty cave paintings for the sake of aesthetic pleasure but rather to enchant the animal with magic and be able to eat that night (to draw on one theory); certainly, these things might have aesthetic qualities, but that wasn’t their primary purpose. The primary purpose was to convey meaning, to transmit truths...

Perhaps... but then there comes a point at which one recognizes that there are multiple works of art where the intention... on the surface... is the same... and yet some works resonate more... longer. Why? Because they offer a greater or more lasting form of pleasure. They convey a story... enchant with magic... present a beautiful image... they do so though a marvelous form. Yes, Michelangelo may have wanted initially to merely tell the narrative of the Biblical creation... to convey an admiration for the beauty of the human body... but those abstract elements... the texture, the value, the line, the artist's touch, the seductive colors, the anatomical mastery... and distortions... all of these became just as important to the artist... and just as important to the experienced audience.

I find Oscar Wilde's art for art's sake problematic to say the least.

I've always found that Oscar Wilde was right about everything... and said it with greater wit than most:D. Seriously, I don't imagine art-for-art's-sake as meaning that the content is irrelevant... but rather that it is irrelevant in offering a judgment upon artistic merits. The alternative is a criticism based upon external or non-artistic values... where one can devalue a work of art because it doesn't fit into the accepted religious values, social values, political values, etc... To my mind this leads to a false art... an art that gives form not to what the artist really believes, but what he or she has been told to believe... or has been told is acceptable. To my mind this leads to the death of art.

Maybe literature and art is for the good of improving your soul because entertainment itself is good for the soul.

One can only hope.:)
__________________
"Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not easy." - Aristotle

[clumsy angelle]

I guess reading not only entertanis me, it enlightens me and makes me more knowledgeable...

[LitNetIsGreat]

I find Oscar Wilde's art for art's sake problematic to say the least.

I've always found that Oscar Wilde was right about everything... and said it with greater wit than most.
__________________


This is so true. You can look at the sayings of Wilde and question them, but in the end you will find that he is right and with that brilliant at the same time. I love Stephen Fry's thoughts on Wilde, he said that "his opinions on art were so high that most people thought he was joking" which of course he wasn't.

[princesspoppi]

Why do I read?.......
Escapism? Partly.
To gain knowledge? Sure.
For the sheer joy of it? Absolutely!!

[Jozanny]

I hate to be a scuttle butt, but I just don't find our individual motives all that interesting, whether we read for pleasure or for our careers. I would narrow the scope, and ask what makes a literate reader? Why are some readers more discerning, more insightful? Will reading itself actually survive as the technology changes? Boards like these and online communities of other kinds have already changed how we interact, and not always for the better.

[Scheherazade]

I hate to be a scuttle butt, but I just don't find our individual motives all that interesting, whether we read for pleasure or for our careers. I would narrow the scope, and ask what makes a literate reader? Why are some readers more discerning, more insightful? Will reading itself actually survive as the technology changes? Boards like these and online communities of other kinds have already changed how we interact, and not always for the better.The OP is:



Why do you read? What do you get out of it beyond entertainment?So, if you would like to discuss another aspect of reading, please start another thread addressing that issue. :)

[Jozanny]

The OP is:
So, if you would like to discuss another aspect of reading, please start another thread addressing that issue. :)

No thank you. I am not all that interested in additional inconclusiveness and the usual alliances over various theories.:wave:

[Scheherazade]

Will reading itself actually survive as the technology changes? http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/6609/portabletvtg9.gif (http://imageshack.us)

[Drkshadow03]

I am not going to quote your response, Stluke, because it's extremely long and I don't necessarily want to go through it point by point.

1) I should note that my response, while certainly containing critiqueable points as I went beyond the basics to why I read, was still very much my own answer to why I personally read, and should not be construed as everyone else = wrong.

2) I accept that aesthetics in and of themselves can be pleasurable. I also mentioned that a few times in my original post in case that wasn't clear.

3) I agree that form and content are closely linked as both a writer and a reader and a scholar (?). With that said it seems to me one of the major differences between our viewpoints is which side do we emphasize or lean towards a little bit more.

Certainly if you skip down to the last three paragraphs of this blog post on The Great Gatsby (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/book-9-the-great-gatsby-by-f-scott-fitzgerald-re-read/) that I did, starting with the quoted section, there is no denying that I am discussing aesthetic construction of the sentence and the artistry of using a particular piece of punctuation, yet I think it also shows that am still centrally concerned with how that aesthetic decision creates meaning and what it has to say to us.

I mean I get what you're saying. Content and form are interlinked. When discussing one you'll inevitably be discussing the other. Even what makes one theme origin in comparison to a different writer dealing with that same theme often comes down to differences in aesthetics and HOW they say it.

However, this still doesn't solve all the problems for me that I hinted at, part of it is my own fault because I never brought up specific examples. Certainly a book like Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke doesn't epitomize good prose and certainly not the best that fiction has to offer in the way of purely aesthetic pleasure; I've made that arguement quite explicitly myself right here (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/appearance-is-everything-in-fiction-strike-a-prose/). On the other hand, I think the novel is extremely deep, with frightening conclusions, and thought-provoking themes that could fill multiple class discussions without ever getting boring (http://ofblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-guess-im-not-true-sff-fan-now.html).

[Jozanny]

Content and form are interlinked.

I know what this means Drk, but I am going to quibble and press you on it, especially since you and luke are interlinking why and how.

There are not too many *forms* prose can take on a printed page. Fiction and non-fiction are styled more than formed, and I'd hesitate to use the word form about plays, as well, because plays are scripts which are nearly always adapted to a visual mode--the classic plays only became textually centered because New Critics had to eat.

Poetry is really the only genre which owns *form*, but even here, poetry is a dialectical tension between lyric (singing, singing related to ritual) and narrative, and can never be truly appreciated unless it is spoken and listened to, as well as read. Even in the 21st century, with its post-structural anxiety, poetry still needs to be spoken--so I'd be cautious about tying form to content without pinning down what form actually means and how conscious readers are of its affectation.

[Etienne]

There are not too many *forms* prose can take on a printed page. Fiction and non-fiction are styled more than formed

Fiction and non-fiction would be more a difference in content, than form or style.


and I'd hesitate to use the word form about plays, as well, because plays are scripts which are nearly always adapted to a visual mode--the classic plays only became textually centered because New Critics had to eat.

Perhaps this is true for the classic plays, but plays are (at least now) as much a literary form than a theatrical one, so I have some doubts about your objection... but it in facts all comes down to semantics here. But in the end I think this is all pointless because I believe you have simply misinterpreted what (I believe) was meant:


Poetry is really the only genre which owns *form*, but even here, poetry is a dialectical tension between lyric (singing, singing related to ritual) and narrative, and can never be truly appreciated unless it is spoken and listened to, as well as read. Even in the 21st century, with its post-structural anxiety, poetry still needs to be spoken--so I'd be cautious about tying form to content without pinning down what form actually means and how conscious readers are of its affectation.

From what I understood from the discussion is not what you imply here. Content would be the "denotation" (as in Russell's denotation) of the words. Form again is the term used by Russel to express what I think was meant in this context (see Russel's On denotation) which is basically the linguistic vehicle to the denotation. And therefore form could be described as the "physical" aesthetics while content as the "platonic" (for lack of a better term?) aesthetics. And while we can divide in such way aesthetics, the point is that it implies that one should see aesthetics as an unified notion, and that the divisions are mostly analytical in nature.

But others can correct me as to what they meant, as I don't want to put words in one's mouth.

[blazeofglory]

I am a conscientious reader and try to work my way through both the 'canon' (Homer, the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Sophocles etc etc) and books on science, religion, philosophy, history and so on. Sometimes it is a slog, at other times I feel uplifted and thrilled by ideas. I am genuinely interested in the world, but there are times when I wonder why I bother to read at all. I am no intellectual, but I am intelligent and well read enough to know how feeble and limited my intelligence really is and how mediocre I am. I know people who have literally never read anything and live an entirely unreflective, instictive life, yet are often much happier than me. They sleep well, are untroubled by the 'big questions' and certainly do find the unexamined life worth living- in fact they seem to do a better job of living than me. Reading so much has made me a bit snobbish and detached, a bit too much of an observer. At times I wish I could be more animal- like: a successful career in an office bullying and shoving myself forward, making plenty of money and filling my weekends with sex, drugs, alcohol and violence.

I don't know, I just wonder why I bother sometimes. I have zero religious faith (if there is a creator He/it is, at best, indifferent to evil and suffering, at worst a sadist) and share Schopenhauer's view of life as an unfortunate accident. If Darwin is the final word it kind of seems like generations of reflective, sensitive, hopeful people trying to make sense of this world were almost, well, wasting their time. It turns out we are no more than a naked ape with a large brain; a violent, selfish and only partly rational creature that finds it hard to live in even a moderately civilised way. We are alone in a meaningless universe, sensitive enough to be tormented by the briefness of our lives, by bereavement, evil and suffering, but not intelligent enough to find a way of being fully happy and at peace with the universe. :crash:

Why do you read? What do you get out of it beyond entertainment?

You are absolutely right and I too subscribe to your ideas, and life at times becomes meaningless and we have nothing to value in life, not even god, for there are people suffering ad infinitum and some are famished. If really god is kind they must be helped. They are not helped in anyway. Do they have to suffer because of Karma? What else otherwise?

[mangueken]

I read because it means something to me and without it I would be lost. I find that many of the questions I have about life are the same ones writer's have been dealing with for centuries. I have felt love, betrayal, the need for revenge, the need to escape from..., the uselessness of breathing, fear, curiosity and through books, my feelings are shared and interacted with. While reading I am having a dialogue with writer. Sometimes I am confirmed, many times contradicted and very often enlightened.
I would not be able to separate or say which I like more, poetry or prose both are fundamental to me. I need the force of poetry as much as I need the story.

[bounty]

I am a conscientious reader and try to work my way through both the 'canon' (Homer, the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Sophocles etc etc)...

I don't know, I just wonder why I bother sometimes. I have zero religious faith (if there is a creator He/it is, at best, indifferent to evil and suffering, at worst a sadist) and share Schopenhauer's view of life as an unfortunate accident. If Darwin is the final word it kind of seems like generations of reflective, sensitive, hopeful people trying to make sense of this world were almost, well, wasting their time. It turns out we are no more than a naked ape with a large brain; a violent, selfish and only partly rational creature that finds it hard to live in even a moderately civilised way. We are alone in a meaningless universe, sensitive enough to be tormented by the briefness of our lives, by bereavement, evil and suffering, but not intelligent enough to find a way of being fully happy and at peace with the universe. :crash:

Why do you read? What do you get out of it beyond entertainment?


wickes...i do empathize with a lot of what youre saying...but if you have indeed read the bible, your second paragraph is most unfortunate...

[blazeofglory]

Not reading is not possible in today's context, and of course every day can not go without reading something, and of course without engaged ourselves in books, for it has been an integral part of life and we can not do away with this habit, and this is really an important habit. If a good engages us we will have so many advantages, and we can keep ourselves from indulgences in baser elements.

I can not pass a single day, and always am occupied by books. Whenever I feel down as it is not unique to myself but to all that we feel down at times, and when I do feel I take to books, and of course in books I can find solace.

All I can find in books is a storehouse of imagination and a reservoir of inspiration and something to describe that I run short of words.

Today, I live with ideas, and of course without them it is difficult to go ahead commercially and also in our interaction in society. We need to be updated with social phenomena and it is indeed books that help us in every aspect and without books we are nowhere and we will have to trail behind. As such the role of a good book in shaping our minds, directing us is not calculable at all.

[JBI]

Not reading is not possible in today's context, and of course every day can not go without reading something, and of course without engaged ourselves in books, for it has been an integral part of life and we can not do away with this habit, and this is really an important habit. If a good engages us we will have so many advantages, and we can keep ourselves from indulgences in baser elements.

I can not pass a single day, and always am occupied by books. Whenever I feel down as it is not unique to myself but to all that we feel down at times, and when I do feel I take to books, and of course in books I can find solace.

All I can find in books is a storehouse of imagination and a reservoir of inspiration and something to describe that I run short of words.

Today, I live with ideas, and of course without them it is difficult to go ahead commercially and also in our interaction in society. We need to be updated with social phenomena and it is indeed books that help us in every aspect and without books we are nowhere and we will have to trail behind. As such the role of a good book in shaping our minds, directing us is not calculable at all.

I was actually working in a grocery store when I was approached by someone, who by accent, and appearance appeared to be a native English speaker, approached me because he couldn't read what was written on a milk carton, and couldn't even get through the date, to find when it could be consumed by. In truth, it is possible to function without reading, but boy is it tiring/boring/strenuous. Better off learning to read in a few months than spending your life illiterate.

[mortalterror]

Better off learning to read in a few months than spending your life illiterate.

My naivete meter on that remark puts you somewhere between "If they don't have any bread, let them eat cake." and "Why don't all of these foreigners just learn to speak English?" You've been singularly blessed with educational opportunities, and as an educated man ought to realize that the rest of the world might not share in the same level of resources both human and financial which would allow them to pick up languages or skills the way you do. If a man has reached adulthood without learning to read, then he probably has mental or learning deficiencies coupled with extreme poverty. Besides the fact that language skills are best developed in early childhood and harder to acquire as we age, there's still the fact that if a person is illiterate then they will not have learned how to learn effectively thus prolonging the teaching process.