The Loneliness of Reading

[Lumiere]

Perhaps some of you folks surround yourself with other literature-loving friends, and so you avoid this problem to a large extent. But speaking for myself, and no doubt for some of you as well, I have no such friends. In fact, many of my friends say that books can no longer captivate their attention at all and they refrain from reading whenever possible. Well, I can understand that because I am completely uninterested in many of the things they choose to spend time doing. To each their own!

But there is a certain loneliness that a reader experiences, (and I think this is something that all readers can identify with, but especially if you know virtually no one who shares your love of books.) This loneliness is especially strong when in relation to those books that you love, and it's the reason why forums like this exist, I think. It's the isolated feeling of having experienced something wonderful and wanting to share it with another but being unable to do so. I suppose there are a lot of areas of life that would provoke this feeling, but something that is continually frustrating to me is when I am reading an amazing book. It makes me think in new ways; it transports me from the mundaneness of daily life to a separate reality for a half-hour; it thrills me: makes me laugh, sometimes cry. It's a significant part of my life, but I have to refrain from talking about it to my friends. For those of you who have such friends, when you do try to express your experience when reading a book, perhaps you are unable to do so completely. Even two people reading the same books have entirely different experiences with that book.

Basically what I am getting at is this: reading books is a solitary pleasure. Do you think this is a good thing or a bad thing? Does this frustrate you or are you grateful for this?

[dfloyd]

is true. Those who read are never alone. You should feel lucky you have the intelligence to read and comport yourself to many different places and eras. Those of your friends who do not read perhaps cannot read. They may be able to do rudimentary reading, but they cannot read and absorb the great classics of literature.If you are able to do so, count yourself as lucky and quit worrying about other people. These people you refer to are one dimesional and do not have your abilities.

[Lumiere]

Hmmm, your reply made me think of something else:

The great thing about reading a book, (in this case especially a classic), is that thousands before you have enjoyed it. Even if no one you know personally appreciates reading, literature has spoken to people from every generation and in every situation imaginable. And your right, it is an amazing gift, reading. Humans need stories in their life, whether that need is satisfied through movies, television, books, or other means. But there's something about a shared story experience that enhances it. It's like watching a funny movie alone. It just needs to be shared. All this being said, there is something intangibly beautiful about the isolation of reading.

[Pryderi Agni]

Wow, what an intelligently discussed topic!

Yes, reading is inherently a loner's hobby of choice. But as for me, I feel really blessed to have people around me (excluding you guys; you're my permanent support structure:wave:) who are really receptive to my descriptions of books that I've read.

My family's discussions are usually intellectually charged (and raucous!). My friends at college also take interest in the fact that I read a lot of books and indulge me when I rant.

That said, I do subscribe to the 'intangibly beautiful' theory forwarded by Lumiere. It's an aristocracy of knowledge, a theocracy of intelligence; there is no joy that compares to reading a book alone, feeding your brain with all that intelligence--which is just about the best edge you can give yourself.

[Dirtbag]

I feel less alone when I'm reading. I'm physically by myself most of the time so naturally I don't interact with a lot of people. Anyway, reading allows me to experience someone else's thoughts and to form new ones as an outcome of the experience. It's comforting to connect with someone's ideas especially when they're ones that can be presently applied to your own life. I think I may be straying off the point though. I don't mind not having anyone I know reading the books I do... it probably wouldn't change anything if they did read them. It's a personal experience and I recommend books because I think others would enjoy them and not because I want to discuss or critique them. Like a good song, I share it for the feelings it creates.

[Helga]

I'm not a real people person, I prefer to be at home reading, alone. but I understand what you mean, no one around me reads as much as I do and those who do read only like thrillers and stuff like that, the only kind of books I hardly ever read.

but that is why I love lit-net, no matter what book you mention someone has read it and is willing to chat. and I even prefer to only read the conversations not participate at times.

I also agree with one statement above that you should just feel lucky that you have the intellect to enjoy reading alone.

[Lokasenna]

What a curious topic!

I would, in some part, attribute my love of reading to a fairly lonely childhood: being an only child with parents who worked 10 hours a day, seven days a week. Also, my school was very far from where I lived, so basically all my friends lived too far away for post-school interactions... reading a book was frequently all I had to do with myself.

That said, all my friends are prolific readers too, and I find nothing more pleasurable than talking to them about it - reading is a social activity as well! And I have to say that I find it vaguely depressing when people declare that they don't read; I usually keep quiet, but a part of me wants to start recommending books to them!

[Veva]

Yes, indeed, reading a book is solitary, but I wouldn't classify it as a negative feature. Most of the day I am surrounded by people I don't really want to talk to, plus at campus or at work, I have to deal with problems and when I get back to my flat, I just feel like yelling at everyone.... so a good book is a blessing. :banana:

[kasie]

Lumiere - don't stop talking to your non-reading friends about books. When I was in college, I was in lodgings with sixteen other students - yes, it was an hotel taken over for term-time by the college! - and I was the only one reading English there, there were Maths, Biology, Art, Music, PE, French, History and Geography students lodged there: the only things we had in common were our age, eighteen to twenty, and our surnames fell between R and W in the alphabet. We talked about everything under the sun and at some stage someone would ask 'OK, what are you reading this term? Lawrence? Joyce? The Revenge Tragedies - what? Tennyson? Updike, Bellow, Roth, Malamud - er, who??' And my enthusiasm became contagious - certain people asked to borrow books after I had finished with them (ie written the essay required) - one friend even asked if she could take a book home in the vacation because she thought her father would like it as much as she had. He did and even worked out what my essay subject had been from the passages marked in the text.

Who knows? Maybe your enthusiasm and the obvious pleasure you get from your reading will pique the interest in one of your friends and a new reader will join the ranks, thanks to you. Don't be precious or exclusive about your passion, obviously, but delight and surprise at discovery is catching and before long sheer curiosity may well drive your non-reading friends to wonder what it is about this reading business that so fires you - and before they know it, they are caught for life.

[mal4mac]

Lumiere - don't stop talking to your non-reading friends about books. When I was in college, I was in lodgings with sixteen other students - yes, it was an hotel taken over for term-time by the college! - and I was the only one reading English there, there were Maths, Biology, Art, Music, PE, French, History and Geography students lodged there: the only things we had in common were our age, eighteen to twenty, and our surnames fell between R and W in the alphabet. We talked about everything under the sun and at some stage someone would ask 'OK, what are you reading this term? Lawrence? Joyce? The Revenge Tragedies - what? Tennyson? Updike, Bellow, Roth, Malamud - er, who??' And my enthusiasm became contagious - certain people asked to borrow books after I had finished with them (ie written the essay required) - one friend even asked if she could take a book home in the vacation because she thought her father would like it as much as she had. He did and even worked out what my essay subject had been from the passages marked in the text.

Who knows? Maybe your enthusiasm and the obvious pleasure you get from your reading will pique the interest in one of your friends and a new reader will join the ranks, thanks to you. Don't be precious or exclusive about your passion, obviously, but delight and surprise at discovery is catching and before long sheer curiosity may well drive your non-reading friends to wonder what it is about this reading business that so fires you - and before they know it, they are caught for life.

Glancing at your profile I'm guessing you went to Oxford, so all your friends were likely to have a *serious and rounded* interest in matters intellectual. Although your infectious enthusiasm is to be applauded, you had a captive audience that few others will find. I went to a slightly less prestigious university and hoped to have many of these kinds of discussions -- but they were thin on the ground. Now, outside university, they are not to be found at all -- except on the web.

[Red-Headed]

'A blessed companion is a book, - a book that, fitly chosen, is a lifelong friend,... a book that, at a touch, pours its heart into our own.'

~ Douglas Jerrold

[LitNetIsGreat]

Glancing at your profile I'm guessing you went to Oxford, so all your friends were likely to have a *serious and rounded* interest in matters intellectual. Although your infectious enthusiasm is to be applauded, you had a captive audience that few others will find. I went to a slightly less prestigious university and hoped to have many of these kinds of discussions -- but they were thin on the ground. Now, outside university, they are not to be found at all -- except on the web.

Yes I think you have a good point. Unfortunately with being a mature student and studying part-time you tend to miss out on the collective experience. Not only is face-to-face discussion fun and engaging, it is also a massive benefit to your learning experience. The opportunity to be able to bounce ideas from each other is a valuable thing. It is also an advantage to have people around who are studying different subjects - let's face it there is a great deal of over-lapping at university level and to have someone around studying a different discipline in-depth can be very handy at times. I've had an odd university experience, yes I know a few full-timers and post graduates, as well as other mature students, but I can't shake of the feeling that I've missed out on a lot.

Of course it is not just a matter to those who are studying literature. At times it can be a little frustrating when few people around you read, and your efforts to enthuse settle on deaf and unwilling ears.

[stlukesguild]

My degree is in art and my career is in teaching and in these two fields I have plenty with whom to talk about art and teaching... and even music (considering that most of my artist friends are also quite knowledgeable and passionate about classical music and jazz (in one instance). Books are something else all together. Most of my family rarely ever read. My co-workers largely read popular fiction and biographies, if anything. My artist friends do read some quality literature and we can sometimes talk about a single book or writer... but their reading is in no way as obsessive as mine and it is near impossible to get into an in-depth discussion about William Blake, Baudelaire, Proust, or Kafka... let alone J.L. Borges, Italo Calvino, Walter Pater, or Lawrence Sterne. This is the primary reason I return to such a forum as Lit Net. If not for such a venue I would probably need to sign up for a college course or seek out a quality book discussion group as a way to share my passion for reading. The actual process of reading may certainly be solitary... and in a world in which i-pods and blaring music, and cell phones, and TV screens are ever-present... less people have a moment to themselves without external stimuli and actual learn how to think... reading in public can surely make you seem like a weirdo. Still, I don't find the actual process of reading to be lonely. I am communicating continually with other minds. The "loneliness" comes after the fact when I am excited about something I have just read I wish to share my experience with others... and no one's listening.

[Lumiere]

Still, I don't find the actual process of reading to be lonely. I am communicating continually with other minds. The "loneliness" comes after the fact when I am excited about something I have just read I wish to share my experience with others... and no one's listening.

YES! You've articulated what I apparently failed to. When I'm actually engaged in the act of reading, I don't experience any loneliness. In fact, it's quite the contrary. But I can't tell you how many times I'll read one of those passages or sentences that makes you stop, smile/frown/nod/ect, re-read, repeat throughout a good book. Of course, my natural response is "Wow, that was amazing! Look at that! I have to tell someone!" But I usually don't tell anyone, unless there happens to be someone in the near vicinity that would actually care. I have the same dilemma with quality films. Everybody watches movies, but most people aren't well acquainted with the classics of film. The other day I couldn't help myself and actually blurted out to a friend, "I know you don't care, but I watched Incubus today and it was awesome. It's from 1965 and entirely in Esperanto, and the filming style is really......"

I think part of the reason I miss this interaction is because last year I was in a great literature class in which we would all be reading the same book, and basically every class period we simply formed a circle and discussed what we had read for an hour and a half. The cool thing about that class, was that it wasn't solely composed of literature junkies. I watched people who had no previous interest in books become captivated by the art form. That being said, I don't think literature is necessarily for everyone today. Books are for everyone, but not literature, and that's perfectly OK. To each their own.

[JBI]

My degree is in art and my career is in teaching and in these two fields I have plenty with whom to talk about art and teaching... and even music (considering that most of my artist friends are also quite knowledgeable and passionate about classical music and jazz (in one instance). Books are something else all together. Most of my family rarely ever read. My co-workers largely read popular fiction and biographies, if anything. My artist friends do read some quality literature and we can sometimes talk about a single book or writer... but their reading is in no way as obsessive as mine and it is near impossible to get into an in-depth discussion about William Blake, Baudelaire, Proust, or Kafka... let alone J.L. Borges, Italo Calvino, Walter Pater, or Lawrence Sterne. This is the primary reason I return to such a forum as Lit Net. If not for such a venue I would probably need to sign up for a college course or seek out a quality book discussion group as a way to share my passion for reading. The actual process of reading may certainly be solitary... and in a world in which i-pods and blaring music, and cell phones, and TV screens are ever-present... less people have a moment to themselves without external stimuli and actual learn how to think... reading in public can surely make you seem like a weirdo. Still, I don't find the actual process of reading to be lonely. I am communicating continually with other minds. The "loneliness" comes after the fact when I am excited about something I have just read I wish to share my experience with others... and no one's listening.

I don't know - reading seems a personal thing anyway - literary culture, if it ever existed in the US in the sense that you seem to imagine it (it surely didn't in Canada), is long dead. Then again, humanism has been out here for quite a while, and there are too many books to begin discussing anyway. My question is, was it ever here to begin with?

I can see a sort of intensively literary culture elsewhere - China, for instance, put the writing of improvisational poems and prose on its Exam system in the 7th century, which essentially created a whole middle-class of literary people, writing occasion poems whenever events happened, and such, but in the West? Well, perhaps the fame of Byron and Longfellow say something - but I am unsure if people actually discussed them - the nature of English writing in particular doesn't have the same sort of educational necessity as other languages, like Latin do.

For instance, Latin was, for centuries upon centuries a literary style, as much as language. People study the forms, and learn to emulate them - with that, what Erasmus called "Abundant form" emerged as a communication between people - letters, speeches, books, conversations even all were bent toward classical models, and as such, for the classics, time didn't effect them as it does today.

The same could be said of China, Japan, and, for a long time, India. China and Japan are perhaps more interesting, in that the language was able to evolve with the literary language, without the meanings being altered as much as lets say, vernaculars or Latin even. The religious nature of many Indic texts also created a situation where Sanskrit seems to have held a place similar to Latin in Europe.

But what becomes of things when people write in the idiom of the moment, and at such a rate. Benedict Anderson, for instance, argues that our sense of nation evolved out of printed forms, and each person reading the same things, notably newspapers and serialized novels - but now, are people reading the same things? Is there a shared literary heritage.

In point of fact, I personally don't consider myself Western. I am Canadian, and know much about that tradition, but who else does, even here? I am inclined to poetry more than prose, another idiosyncrasy against me. And then there is the "what exactly am I reading" that goes with that.

Take these boards for example - about 100 or so texts seem to float around as general knowledge reading - Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Fitzgerald, Orwell, Austen, Borges, the Brontes, and a few others - much of the discussion would seem built around those texts as examples - those function, it would seem, as the shared interest zone of the board. Beyond that their are niches, for instance, the poetry board itself seems a niche, the Twilight thread, and so on - And even then, there are personal niches.

St. Lukes, you for instance seem inclined toward Spanish language materials, and a little bit of German. Drkshadow would seem inclined toward speculative fiction, Mortalterror toward classical writing, and Neely toward predominantly English Classics. I myself, I confess, have a somewhat eccentric taste - but where is the connection there?

In the end, the examples used seem to be the same 100 or so texts that float around everywhere - the same conversation on Joyce is repeated over and over again; Borges pops his head up every now and then, and so forth. The actual connection is rather minimal, as everybody is off in their own solitary world of reading - as Woolf put it, the joy is increased when you know people who read the same books, but how many people here are actually reading the same books? And even then, when a new book is introduced, even if it is good, unless people have really already had it pedestaled for them by Harold Bloom or whomever, the suggestion is essentially laughed at, even if people vote it in for the Book Club readings.



Lets say, for instance, I were to here start a discussion on T. S. Eliot - I could probably guess, unless we were discussing Prufrock, which most people read in high school, how many people would post, and their names, and I could probably guess how long the thread would go on for. Even if people are reading the same story, when it comes down to close reading, there is still another division, that of interpretation. Again another divide occurs as cause, without an answer. The joke is, when understanding things, everyone again uses comparison to indicate how they are interpreting - so again other sources are pulled in that only some people know, or that nobody but the poster or speaker knows, and another division occurs.


The whole concept of sharing literature seems problematic for prose, to me at least, especially. I can share a poem pretty easily - especially if I am sharing poems I am grabbing from Chinese or Japanese or even French, which seem to be rather short, so anybody can read them quickly. When you get to novels, you hit a wall essentially. 300 pages is for me 3-5 hours, for others perhaps longer, and, quite simply, I am backlogged to the point where I don't even do my own pleasure reading anymore. How am I to run around and read everything people mention?


Poetry to me seems the only tradition that right now can actually work - but alas, the pile of good stuff being written isn't being sifted fast enough. Elizabeth Alexander makes a super-public reading, and she assumes the shelf at the general bookstore, conquering all the other third rates, and pushing Angelou and Giovanni over slightly to make room. Where is the place for others though - poetry to me seems now limited to people who are connected somehow, through periodicals, universities, or perhaps the internet, and get their texts in that way - the better the periodical, probably, the better the poetry somebody will be exposed to - quality reviews again are hard to find, especially for free or in mass number. It's all so messy.


Now I just find myself running along the shelves of the Academic bookstore near campus (not a pop-fiction book in site :)) and writing down everything that seems a little bit interesting - but even that is futile - the store is only so big, and a great deal of it is already full with the Penguins and Oxford World Classics, and other already established books.


Who knows what becomes of this - literature itself is becoming more and more a niche discipline - poetry is resisting somewhat, but only slightly, and only because of the difficulty of making money as a poet. I sincerely doubt that coherency will remain for long, especially now that the world of poetry is essentially bursting. The amount of translation being done from countries outside of Western Europe is surely shaking things, but also the vast amount of great stuff being written shakes things. Even reading poetry is changing, to the point where Frye's Great Code is essentially useless, and one seems to need to train themselves how to read every poet. The emergence of the anthology as the dominant form (my hypothesis) seems to make each book into its own kind of puzzle, where the reader needs to rethink poetry as a whole, and its conventions every time they finish a text.



I see the desire for interaction, but, in terms of "literary reading", unless you are reading classics, and by that I mean cliché classics, chiefly in English if you are in an English speaking country, you probably aren't going to be discussing anything with very many people. And even then, your genre selection is limited - poetry is a no-go, novels or nothing. Quite simply, Victorian fiction is fun and all, but it isn't all that. Hardy was a great novelist, but his poetry is even better.

[Annamariah]

I have one friend who has pretty similar taste in books than I do. Okay, maybe I should rephrase that one. We don't always like the same books, but I know what she likes, and there are certain books that I know whe both love. So whenever I come across one of those books, I recommend it to her or buy it her for a birthday or Christmas present and then I've got someone to talk about it with :D

Then again, there are many wonderful books I can't talk about with anyone, partly because none of my friends have read them or even if they have, they haven't experienced it the same way I have. In that sense reading is a very solitary pastime.

Sometimes reading a book can have a great effect on me, but I'm not only unable but also unwilling to share that experience with anyone. Perhaps if a book had a great impression on me, I don't want to share it with others because I'm afraid they won't like it as much as I do, or perhaps I'm a selfish person and don't want them to like it too much, because I found the book first :D

[stlukesguild]

I don't know - reading seems a personal thing anyway - literary culture, if it ever existed in the US in the sense that you seem to imagine it (it surely didn't in Canada), is long dead. Then again, humanism has been out here for quite a while, and there are too many books to begin discussing anyway. My question is, was it ever here to begin with?

I can see a sort of intensively literary culture elsewhere - China, for instance, put the writing of improvisational poems and prose on its Exam system in the 7th century, which essentially created a whole middle-class of literary people, writing occasion poems whenever events happened, and such, but in the West? Well, perhaps the fame of Byron and Longfellow say something - but I am unsure if people actually discussed them -

{edit} There is undoubtedly no less of a literary world than there is an art world or a music world. The fact that there are more works of art or of music than any of us can possibly ever digest does not prevent artists or art lovers or musicians or music lovers (or film lovers, chess lovers, theater lovers, history buffs, etc...) from discovering gatherings of individuals who share common interests and from engaging in a dialog and discussion of those art forms. I do not assume that every passionate art lover or music lover has seen or heard every single work of art or piece of music that I have. They do, however, have enough of a shared experience of certain artists and composers that we can engage in a dialog within a common frame-work. We can reference certain artists or composers or styles by way of comparison; we can talk about forms with a degree of assuredness that we will not be facing blank and confused stares. {edit}

Certainly the literary world has similar venues for shared dialog on literature as might be found for nearly any other obsession. I know of several independent book stores which sponsor literature discussion groups that are far more interesting than the common Oprah recommended book groups. Not long ago there was an attempt locally at resuscitating the concept of the Salons ala those held by Mallarme and Gertrude Stein... intimate gatherings of those interested in discussing the arts in general. By the same token I have come across any number of individuals within an academic setting who have been more than thrilled to discuss the love of books.

St. Lukes, you for instance seem inclined toward Spanish language materials, and a little bit of German. Drkshadow would seem inclined toward speculative fiction, Mortalterror toward classical writing, and Neely toward predominantly English Classics. I myself, I confess, have a somewhat eccentric taste - but where is the connection there?

Everyone of us has our own favorite niches... although I somewhat think you simplify matters far too much. Mortalterror certainly reads the Roman texts more than I... but he is also experienced in Hemingway, science fiction, Shakespeare and any number of other areas. My own reading tends to focus upon poetry and prose of the more "fantastic" nature (as opposed to the realistic novel) and draws as much from French, English, American, and Classical literature as it does from Spanish and German... with a healthy dose of Italian, Russian, Middle-Eastern/Arabic, and Japanese thrown in. The same breadth of interest and experience might be found in a great many here. While certainly none of us share the same exact experiences... in literature of otherwise (and it would seem that would actually be quite boring) we do share enough of a common basis to be able to discuss a work of literature which we have read and and loved with another who may not have read the same.

Again... you have fallen too much for your beloved post-Modernist theories that we... humanity as a whole... cannot even begin to speak to each other because we do not share these common experiences. Certainly, there are aspects of art... and certain works of art in particular... that are largely a learned vocabulary... that cannot be appreciated without putting forth a specialized effort. There would seem to be much more in art that can be quite well understood by those who simply share the experience of being human as well as a degree of understanding of literature... music... art as a whole. If the dialog we have here is worthless as we all are products of different experiences (literary and otherwise) then what is the point of your participation? {edit}

Then again, there are many wonderful books I can't talk about with anyone, partly because none of my friends have read them or even if they have, they haven't experienced it the same way I have. In that sense reading is a very solitary pastime.

Can you only discuss a book with someone who shares your experience of the work? It would seem to me that someone with a different experience might bring a different perspective... come at the book from an angle fully new and unexpected by you. That would seem to be far more valuable than someone who merely parrots or reinforces your own experiences.

[IceM]

Surely reading has a loneliness factor, especially for a 16 year old teenager. At my age I'm expected to party, maybe drink on some occasions, be playing sports, or chasing after girls. So, in a sense, reading does have it's loneliness characteristics.

But in other ways, it doesn't. Reading the Inferno, while you aren't bonding with friends in a physical sense, you're connecting to Virgil and Dante as they journey into Hell. Reading Crime and Punishment, you don't connect with your school/work/sports/whatever else goes here friends, but you bond with Raskolnikov as he has emotional and mental dilemmas.

So, while you're not hanging out with tangible friends, you're still building literary ones. So, to benefit the thread, I guess literature does have a loneliness attached to it, but you could also argue the contrary.

[JBI]

You make much sense St. Lukes, perhaps that is why your Spanish Poetry thread, and German Poetry thread have both died. In truth, I doubt we read the same books - as you say, I am obsessed with my beloved post-modernists (kind of silly, since I am quite un-postmodern, in terms of literary taste), that means I am not reading the same book - I have moved into a niche. Everyone is trapped in niches - there are too many texts.


Maybe if people just read limited selections - only American novels, for instance - they could get beyond that, but lets be honest, serious readers are solitary, because reading is a solitary act, and navigating through Borges' library is a solitary pursuit.


It doesn't matter though - I stopped reading novels a while ago, and doubt if I will have time for more than one or two a month for the next few years. As of now, my day is spent writing out little characters and sentences, and the world of literature seems like a distant glitter, beckoning me to learn faster as to enter it - but well I know that once I get there, everything will just as empty and uphill.


I can't really see myself discussing novels anyway though - perhaps poetry, which is something I do on occasion, but novels are just too freaking plot heavy - you need to research, and read through all of them to write about them, and when you do, it all seems so trivial and pointless. That's probably the reason for this so called "loneliness". The novel, as a form, is a lonely form, where hundreds of pages are required before discussion starts, and even then, the name dropping requires thousands of other pages.

Then again, that is kind of the point of novels, or the original idea at any rate - a sentimental sort of bourgeois pass-time for women with too much time, and too little liberty. Now it seems to have converted to anybody with a little free time.

Don't get me wrong, there are good novels, but novels don't work the same way as Drama or Poetry - they are solitary forms. Drama encourages audience - big audiences, and poetry has a knack of being far more openly connected with both the reader, and other poets than novels. It also works better at creating a relationship where things can be shared.

[mortalterror]

St. Lukes, you for instance seem inclined toward Spanish language materials, and a little bit of German. Drkshadow would seem inclined toward speculative fiction, Mortalterror toward classical writing, and Neely toward predominantly English Classics. I myself, I confess, have a somewhat eccentric taste - but where is the connection there?

Everyone of us has our own favorite niches... although I somewhat think you simplify matters far too much. Mortalterror certainly reads the Roman texts more than I... but he is also experienced in Hemingway, science fiction, Shakespeare and any number of other areas. My own reading tends to focus upon poetry and prose of the more "fantastic" nature (as opposed to the realistic novel) and draws as much from French, English, American, and Classical literature as it does from Spanish and German... with a healthy dose of Italian, Russian, Middle-Eastern/Arabic, and Japanese thrown in.
Thank you StLukes. I wouldn't want to get a reputation as a one trick pony. In addition to my usual suspects: Ovid, Horace, Statius, and Anacreon, I've been hitting up Firdawsi, Anwari, Hafiz, Rumi, Nizami, Jami, Vyasa, Kalidasa, Jayadeva, Po Chu-i, Xueqin, Halevi, Shelley, Pope, and Boswell. Though I did refresh my memory with a little Hemingway this week as well. My point is, I have diverse interests, but why read new books when I haven't read the old? I leave that stuff to JBI, and when he mentions somebody I give 'em a peep, same as I do with you. Like how you put me onto Miguel Hernandez a while back.

"Nobody puts Baby in the corner" and I wouldn't put StLukes in just one category either. Spanish and German seem to be just his temporary focuses of the moment. For instance, he's been talking a lot about Walton, Boswell, and De Quincey lately too. Drkshadow may have a preference for sci-fi, but don't forget my boy's got two masta's and that reading program of his is pretty spread out.

Can you only discuss a book with someone who shares your experience of the work? It would seem to me that someone with a different experience might bring a different perspective... come at the book from an angle fully new and unexpected by you. That would seem to be far more valuable than someone who merely parrots or reinforces your own experiences.
True dat, 'swhat I like 'bout JBI. We never agree on anything, but he knows how to play and he always brings his game. There's more to conversation than just agreeing on stuff. I learn from all of my friends and ignore those fools that got nothin' to teach.

[Lumiere]

There would seem to be much more in art that can be quite well understood by those who simply share the experience of being human as well as a degree of understanding of literature... music... art as a whole. If the dialog we have here is worthless as we all are products of different experiences (literary and otherwise) then what is the point of your participation?

Very true! To be human is to crave art, so while you may not share a love of Literature with another, you DO share a love of story, and beyond that....a love of art. Stories, which are created by humans, manifest themselves partly from imagination and partly from experience, and all experience at it's deepest root is akin to any other experience known to man. Based on this, is there really any experience in life, let alone the experience of reading a book, that can't be shared and understood by all humans on SOME level? (I can feel this discussion veering more and more towards the Philosophy section....)

[stlukesguild]

You make much sense St. Lukes, perhaps that is why your Spanish Poetry thread, and German Poetry thread have both died.

Don't forget the French thread or the several started on non-Western writers. Seriously, it seems difficult to sustain any discussion upon poetry and those that do continue are the ones that are sustained by one or two interested parties such as Quasi has achieved with his poetry threads, or Dark Muse with her posts on Sappho. Honestly, I've been too involved with the musical threads recently and not up to the efforts needed to sustain the poetry threads as well... but it something I will eventually address.

Certainly, I agree with you that the act of reading itself may be a solitary one. I don't know that I'd often like to engage in a group reading. The discussion of literature with other interested parties, however, does not seem to be something as rare or impossible as you suggest. Again... I can't imagine that persons obsessed with re-enacting the American Civil War or the Middle Ages can find enough like minded individuals to engage in not merely a dialog but an entire re-staging of Gettysburg or a medieval joust while finding someone who might have read something more than Harry Potter and might actually be interested in discussing Dante, Borges, or Tu Fu should be an impossibility. Again... if you insist upon wishing to lead the discussions and are only interested in obscure Chinese Modernist poets or Canadian novelists then you might have a far greater challenge lying ahead. On the other hand, if you are truly passionate about a given author or poet and offer up some examples and a bit of discussion of their work (not laden in the pretentious language of academia) I have little doubt that you would be more than likely to inspire a response and dialog.

Now I must set about reviving my French, German, and Spanish poetry threads.:wave:

[Jozanny]

I do not see why every new topic has to devolve around a log jam between luke and JBI with mortal doing his finest boast in the tradition of Beowulf. The act of reading has little to do with literary theory as a construct. Reading is an activity involving a series of skills, inclusive of literacy. I might be able to get through 30% of Jama with a good medical dictionary, whereas I could probably teach a decent survey course on Henry James and 19th century realism.

Is reading lonely? I dunno -- being that I am a cripple -- it filled that vast arena of my youth where I did not have the opportunity of going to the prom and getting laid by the captain of the football team, who I had a lust crush on, so it could be that lonely people read and grow up to be teachers, or successful drug addicts.

Reading is certainly an intimate activity, and I'd take Proust over Joyce any day and luke the opposite, and we'd entrench, and this is why some people make a living in the humanities.

But reading is also communal, which is why English lit departments and forums and book clubs exist. We may each have our foibles, but we all pretty much have the same body cavities, which is why certain areas of consensus develops when we discuss texts of mutual interests.

And as to German poets luke, it was never my field of study, and after reading the overwrought Werther, I'm glad.

[Scheherazade85]

Setting aside the supreme and consummate pleasure of indulging oneself in a good book, nothing compares to the pleasure of getting into a discussion, dialogue, or even a heated argument with someone (especially ones you care about) about a book, its characters, author, et cetera. It’s like carnal knowledge that becomes gratifying and fulfilling, sometimes poignant an experience if you are in the same exact rhythm and progression.

Your raw sentiments so eloquently and fluently brought to light are exactly what I am personally subjected to all this time. On second thought, well, not that much anymore, I guess. It’s like a certain kind of pain that has miserably lost its power to hurt.

In one of those unfortunate attempts to “share” a good book with a friend, I asked, with a helplessly translucent eagerness, “So which part of the book are you in now?” The answer I got was a goddam “I’m on page 26.” Dang it, she knows I hate numbers.

How dismal, I thought. But then I pondered and weighed whether isolation is bad. If you do, then you should take comfort in the thought that each of us has his own isolated side. Reading, extremely significant it may be to you, to me and to all of us who share the same passion, is only one aspect of our scheme of things and I think it wouldn’t hurt at all to make it that one thing that only you can take pleasure in. In my case, you have brilliantly spelled out the thought that I have taken comfort in, all this time: there is something intangibly beautiful about the isolation of reading. Moreover, I think it is unjust to expect, even to hope, for people to appreciate and grasp the act of reading the way you do, not to mention unachievable.

However, we do encounter people that possess a certain level of congruence and compatibility in terms of enjoying this curious passion that we so dearly treasure. I have found one—she’s a confidante, a rival, a critic and a timeless friend. I couldn’t be any luckier.

[mal4mac]

Glancing at your profile I'm guessing you went to Oxford, so all your friends were likely to have a *serious and rounded* interest in matters intellectual. Although your infectious enthusiasm is to be applauded, you had a captive audience that few others will find. I went to a slightly less prestigious university and hoped to have many of these kinds of discussions -- but they were thin on the ground. Now, outside university, they are not to be found at all -- except on the web.

I'd like to add, I don't mind this. I'd much rather read another tale by Tolstoy than talk to someone else about books. Tolstoy is more interesting than any 'someone else' I could find...

[Petrarch's Love]

Lumiere--Welcome to Lit. Net. As you can see, you have at least found yourself some virtual people to discuss books with. :)

As to the loneliness of reading, I would say that clearly it can be a solitary experience in that one does detatch one's self from others in order to read, but I've never thought of reading in and of itself as a lonely experience. One always has the company of the author and characters to stave off a sense of the loneliness. If anything, I would say that reading can help when one is going through a lonely period. To be lonely in terms of not having friends to discuss what you love with is a different thing, of course. I am very fortunate in being a graduate student in a literature department with lots of fellow book lovers to talk to. I've sought a career in literary study partly because I don't see reading as a lonely experience at all, but one that ideally involves engaging in conversation with fellow scholars, sharing and conversing with students, and also sharing a love of poetry and other literature with many other people I meet, some of whom may be readers themselves, but many who are not.

I can certainly see, however, how not being able to talk about your reading experiences with others could be lonely. I still don't think it's true, though, that being a reader means you have to be a lonely person. It can make you a richer and more interesting person socially in that it gives you stories to share, insights that may be interesting to others, etc. You may not be able to get the kind of shared enthusiasm for reading from your friends if it's not an interest of theirs, but that doesn't mean that little things you pick up or learn from reading can't enter into the conversation in a less direct way. It's true that if you are craving a deep conversation with fellow reading enthusiasts, then that is something you may have to seek out in terms of taking more classes, joining a book group, or logging on to lit. net. :)


I have moved into a niche. Everyone is trapped in niches - there are too many texts.

Help! I'm trapped in a niche and I can't get out!!! :lol: For goodness sake, JBI, of course we all read different things and in different ways, but that doesn't mean we can never talk with one another. As an academic I've taken on a very narrow specialization, Medieval and Renaissance Poetry, for the focus of my career, but that doesn't mean I have nothing to talk about with my colleagues who study the modern African American novel. If anything, having different "niches" encourages conversation. I'm curious about what someone else knows a great deal about and how that may or may not relate to the field I have read most deeply in. Or perhaps I just want to learn about something that bears no relationship to my field of specialty at all. It's the fact that we've all read different things that often encourages conversation because we're interested in finding out what we don't already know. You may be right that it is helpful if there are certain shared texts both parties have read when they engage in a conversation, but isn't it conversation itself that helps to establish and expand these shared texts? I know there are lots of books I would never have thought of reading if it wasn't that I was engaged in conversation with someone who recommended them, or simply enthused about them. If there's a certain kind of book you love that no one else seems to be reading then saying that it's your own little niche and no one else could possibly be interested will ensure that this is the case.



It doesn't matter though - I stopped reading novels a while ago, and doubt if I will have time for more than one or two a month for the next few years. As of now, my day is spent writing out little characters and sentences, and the world of literature seems like a distant glitter, beckoning me to learn faster as to enter it - but well I know that once I get there, everything will just as empty and uphill.

Is this implying that you're going in for an academic career? Or simply that you're studying literature intensely for its own sake? Don't go into anything that's truly going to be nothing but "empty and uphill" for you. "Uphill" may be inevitable for any pursuit taken up seriously and passionately, but if you're pursuing the right thing it should be full and rich and satisfying for you, and, even if it is true that the process of intensive reading and thinking does involve much solitary time, anything you pursue should ultimately help you feel productive and connected to others and to the world around you.


I can't really see myself discussing novels anyway though - perhaps poetry, which is something I do on occasion, but novels are just too freaking plot heavy - you need to research, and read through all of them to write about them, and when you do, it all seems so trivial and pointless. That's probably the reason for this so called "loneliness". The novel, as a form, is a lonely form, where hundreds of pages are required before discussion starts...

Whereas The Faerie Queene requires hardly any reading at all, and any first time reader of Donne can start parsing him right off the cuff?


Don't get me wrong, there are good novels, but novels don't work the same way as Drama or Poetry - they are solitary forms. Drama encourages audience - big audiences, and poetry has a knack of being far more openly connected with both the reader, and other poets than novels. It also works better at creating a relationship where things can be shared.

Well, you won't get too much argument from me about a defense of poetry and drama. I certainly think they're the forms most worthy of study. :)


I do not see why every new topic has to devolve around a log jam between luke and JBI with mortal doing his finest boast in the tradition of Beowulf.

:lol: Are you by any chance trying to draw any parallels between our ever pacific SLG and JBI and such characters as these::argue: ? But then we always get one of your no nonsense, sensible responses as antidote, Jozanny. :)


Setting aside the supreme and consummate pleasure of indulging oneself in a good book, nothing compares to the pleasure of getting into a discussion, dialogue, or even a heated argument with someone (especially ones you care about) about a book, its characters, author, et cetera. It’s like carnal knowledge that becomes gratifying and fulfilling, sometimes poignant an experience if you are in the same exact rhythm and progression.

Wow. Clearly I've been joining the wrong book groups. :lol:

[kasie]

Oxford? I wish, m4m! I guess you have gleaned that I know a bit about the city - it's the Town, not the Gown bit that I know, from having family there and visiting frequently over the last twenty and more years. No, it was Red Brick followed by Ultra Modern (at the time) training for teaching. I was just lucky to find a group of people that liked talking - I learned a lot about their subjects from them, the exchange of enthusiasms was mutual. I learned a lot about engineering from my spouse and he once told me he read differently for having listened to me talking about the books that fired me. We had widely different tastes in books: by listening to him talking about his favourite authors, I broadened my own reading base. I can't say I converted him to Austen or Joyce but he was interested enough to listen to what I had to say about them and possibly go on to apply the criteria for assessing his own reading.

I guess I just like talking - and listening: no conversation is ever wasted, you learn something every time someone opens their mouth.

[Lumiere]

Aha! This whole discussion is making me realize something. I think I've been very silly. I think I've mixed up the cause and effect.

I proposed that immersing yourself constantly in stories provokes a certain loneliness. But now I'm beginning to think otherwise. Perhaps the loneliness is not the effect of reading, but rather part of the cause. I don't think I would read half as much if I didn't experience loneliness. Experiencing stories through the artistic venue of Literature is something that, like many of you are suggesting, alleviates, maybe even distracts loneliness. That being said, I don't think one has to be chronically lonely to really enjoy a good book. But there is a difference between enjoying books, and craving them as a thirsting man craves water; feeling that you need them.

Loneliness, by the way, is part of the human condition, and as everyone knows too well, you don't have to be alone to be lonely. Why everyone is lonely on some level, I don't know. Maybe it's because you can only be so close with another human, and when you lay your head on your pillow at night, you're still you, and not another soul can ever experience what you experience.

When you read you essentially experience life as someone else knows it. For me, I can get more into a book than is probably healthy. I feel what the main character feels, I begin to think how they think, even develop similar character traits for a short period of time. The strange thing is: why am I not satisfied with just experiencing my own life? Books, after all, are just artistic representations of reality as someone else knows it. If I were someone else, for example, I could read a book about Lumiere's life and find it a satiating and beautiful story. But as I am not someone else, I need to experience alternate versions of reality. I don't know why, but I do, and so do you.

In short: humans are strange and wonderful creatures.

[JBI]

Is this implying that you're going in for an academic career? Or simply that you're studying literature intensely for its own sake? Don't go into anything that's truly going to be nothing but "empty and uphill" for you. "Uphill" may be inevitable for any pursuit taken up seriously and passionately, but if you're pursuing the right thing it should be full and rich and satisfying for you, and, even if it is true that the process of intensive reading and thinking does involve much solitary time, anything you pursue should ultimately help you feel productive and connected to others and to the world around you.


Oh, I actually meant that quite literally. I study Chinese now, so don't have time to read through thousands of pages of text a week - I was referring to the Chinese literary world - which seems a distant glitter beckoning - but alas - I am at about 1000 of 4000 or so characters I need, and know none of the compound meanings, so it is an uphill drive, as I have stated, but it doesn't mean anything.

As for me taking an academic route - I still toy with the notion - I knew after my first year really that I needed to get away from English, and run as far as possible if I wanted to get anywhere in Academia. It seems English as a discipline has become a unwanted appendage, and is slowly being cut off by the knives of more "useful" subjects, so, ultimately, I picked up and ran. Of course, I toyed with Italian for a while, but that too seems to be a dying world - U of Toronto has the largest Italian department outside of Italy, but even that is being cut down severely. Alas, I landed on East Asian Studies (essentially Chinese Studies) and that seems to work - at least it is an expanding field, as apposed to a dying one. But will I go to Academia? Perhaps, perhaps not. I have the language requirements for several disciplines, but ultimately, whether I pursue anything related to my current education is debatable. At least, I think, by the end, I will have at least read something a little bit interesting, and be able to speak a few languages comfortably.


I wasn't exactly talking about discussing "literature" in the sense that I was talking about discussing "works" - in the sense of close reading. When it comes down to it, it comes down to only a few commonplace texts that people discuss, the rest is solitary. OK, we can discuss theoretical aspects perhaps, but when it comes to close reading - the world is too vast that only people with specific interests who fit into one's niche begin to be of any interest in that regard - in short, barely anybody.


For instance, I couldn't go to a dinner party, and discuss Spenser's Faerie Queene with many people - in short, if people ask me what I study now, I simply just respond with languages - it is far easier and less painful then explaining that in class we sit there and discuss different forms of allegory in Spenser, or sit there counting out substitutions in Astrophil and Stella - quite simply, nobody cares, and nobody, outside of a small niche, really knows what that means anyway.

Now that is a common place thing - try doing that with something like Gascoigne and where is one left with? Nobody particularly cares. Even someone like Tennyson seems like a niche, despite the fact that he is misquoted over and over again. The world is too fragmentary for a sustainable conversation on one text anyway - it always just points toward "text" in general, before people look at each other and ask, "why are we discussing this?"

[Hansfelter]

Lumiere, Great topic and I identify with much of what you say. I went for years wanting to have someone to discuss my readings with and feeling a bit lonely about that absence.
Finally, I connected with a group of 5 or 6 in our small town who had a "Great Books" group. None of us had literary-academic credentials so there was virtually no feeling of intimidation and a real comfort level in saying whatever you felt and analyzing each others remarks. It was great and I occasionally got some very ecstatic feelings during the discussion, probably because it was a dream come true to be with people who got excited about the books and short stories that moved me so much. I'm new here and have really enjoyed the posts. I feel a little out of my league with some but there seems to be a friendly respect given to everyone.

[Jozanny]

JBI, my critique would be, so what? I am working on an essay about Italian modernism, going through Lampedusa, about its difference from other high-end modernism works post Joyce and Proust. I do not expect anyone to care, except those in Italian studies, like Dr. Coletta, on whose work I am relying as a guide post. I am not a professional, and do not intend to exhaust myself running to Italy to read every paper written on Sicily's last play boy prince, and I have no opportunity of peer review so perhaps my efforts will be summarily dismissed, but I am doing it, and will do the best I can, as a labor of love, to say something that is important to me while I still have the energy and the mind to pursue and struggle with a thesis of my own.

This does not mean I cannot enjoy book clubs at Barnes & Noble, or come here and trash McCarthy for not working a little harder to please me if I feel like it ;). Individual experience and alienation need not always be a barrier to sharing with each other. Last year, in another discussion, kasie made some comments about Joseph Conrad which illuminated his work for me which I had not yet put together.

When you stay on topic, your knowledge too has the capacity to teach, as opposed to upending every convention you see. Maybe you should try it some time.

[mortalterror]

As for me taking an academic route - I still toy with the notion - I knew after my first year really that I needed to get away from English, and run as far as possible if I wanted to get anywhere in Academia. It seems English as a discipline has become a unwanted appendage, and is slowly being cut off by the knives of more "useful" subjects, so, ultimately, I picked up and ran.
It little profits that an idle grad,
By this full shelf, among these dusty tomes,
Matched with an aged prof, I mete and dole
unequal grades unto a savage class,
That cram, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

[stlukesguild]

I'd take Proust over Joyce any day and luke the opposite...

JoZ... I believe you've mistaken me for someone else. As much as I love the genres of meta-fiction, magic realism, and the rest in which Joyce would seemingly follow as opposed to the grand realistic novel (ala James, Tolstoy, etc...) I far prefer Proust to Joyce and have repeatedly stated that to my mind he is THE great 20th century novelist. (Although without the qualifier "novelist" my favorite writer would almost certainly be J.L. Borges:D)

Is reading lonely? I dunno -- being that I am a cripple -- it filled that vast arena of my youth where I did not have the opportunity of going to the prom and getting laid by the captain of the football team, who I had a lust crush on, so it could be that lonely people read and grow up to be teachers, or successful drug addicts.

Your idea... that those lonely individuals become passionate readers... is not without merit and would certainly echo my own thoughts that reading is something of an elective affinity... something we either make the choice to do because it is worth it... or not. On the other hand, while I was never the captain of the football team I was quite active in sports myself and regularly the captain of the baseball team... so who can tell?:goof:

Aha! This whole discussion is making me realize something. I think I've been very silly. I think I've mixed up the cause and effect.

I proposed that immersing yourself constantly in stories provokes a certain loneliness. But now I'm beginning to think otherwise. Perhaps the loneliness is not the effect of reading, but rather part of the cause. I don't think I would read half as much if I didn't experience loneliness. Experiencing stories through the artistic venue of Literature is something that, like many of you are suggesting, alleviates, maybe even distracts loneliness.

The strange thing is: why am I not satisfied with just experiencing my own life? Books, after all, are just artistic representations of reality as someone else knows it... I need to experience alternate versions of reality.

Again... I don't think it is as simple as this. I am in no way lonely. My career demands that I virtually take the stage before a less than appreciative audience every day. when the work day ends I frequently rush to my art studio where I work upon my paintings (an experience certainly as solitary as reading... except that I have several studio mates with whom I frequently banter upon art... and once I have finished I have any number of other artist friends with whom I can toss ideas back and forth). I then return home after some few hours to dinner and conversation with the wife at which time I read, putter about the computer discussing reading, and listen to music... anything but watch TV... until I go to bed at around 2 AM. I don't look to books as an alternative reality to one that I have somehow missed out on. I do see them as a means of getting even more experiences... engaging in a dialog with individuals of varying cultures, eras, beliefs, etc... that are often quite removed from my own. In art there is a famous quote by Cezanne to the effect of "The route to the Louvre is through nature, the route to nature is through the Louvre". The idea is that the road to art demands that we live... we experience all that nature has to give... yet to make sense of this... to give an artistic form to nature demands more than the mythical natural inspiration... it demands that we spend time looking and studying art.

JBI, my critique would be, so what?

When you stay on topic, your knowledge too has the capacity to teach, as opposed to upending every convention you see. Maybe you should try it some time.

Where is the "I just spit my drink on the computer screen while laughing" icon?:goof::lol::goof:

[Jozanny]

Petrarch: I did not mean to ignore your question, I just needed a moment. I took a peek at your travel blog and you appear to look much younger than your posts would indicate, so I am going to borrow from James in the imperative: "Live! Live all that you can!"

Savior what your gifts, and lively intelligence have given you and burn these experiences into your memory. It could be that I was never meant to be a professor; I cannot say, because my pain interfered with my self-discipline. It took me years even to work up the nerve to query editors regularly and make a nuisance of myself, and I don't use Coletta's nearly scientific diction, so I have an intimation of how well my little project will fare, perhaps, at the end of the day -- but I regret many of my choices, cannot undo them, and feel like I am in a race against the clock just to get to the level I want to be as an author.

I was, however, where you are now, in a sense, and never made the most of it. I hope you do.

luke: I think I was trying to make the distinction thus: People may be lonely, and I am, but reading is not necessarily a lonely activity. I don't mean to gush, btw, but I have all of Proust and the Joyce I never read on my beloved device. As a practical matter, ereaders make my condition irrelevant, and with many apologies mon ami, that is not always the case even when I have the book as a physical object in my possession. It is too convenient for me not to be in love with it, and I hope I will finish all of ISLT within the next two years. I have, however, calmed down and stopped feeding Amazon my inheritance, or what remains of it ;)

[Petrarch's Love]

Aha! This whole discussion is making me realize something. I think I've been very silly. I think I've mixed up the cause and effect.

I proposed that immersing yourself constantly in stories provokes a certain loneliness. But now I'm beginning to think otherwise. Perhaps the loneliness is not the effect of reading, but rather part of the cause. I don't think I would read half as much if I didn't experience loneliness. Experiencing stories through the artistic venue of Literature is something that, like many of you are suggesting, alleviates, maybe even distracts loneliness. That being said, I don't think one has to be chronically lonely to really enjoy a good book. But there is a difference between enjoying books, and craving them as a thirsting man craves water; feeling that you need them.

Loneliness, by the way, is part of the human condition, and as everyone knows too well, you don't have to be alone to be lonely. Why everyone is lonely on some level, I don't know. Maybe it's because you can only be so close with another human, and when you lay your head on your pillow at night, you're still you, and not another soul can ever experience what you experience.

Nicely put, Lumiere. I think you're right regarding the cause vs. the effect. Reading doesn't cause loneliness, but it can sometimes help to read when lonely. I would hasten to add, however, that there are many other reasons to read apart from being lonely. As regards our in/ability to experience another's condition, I suppose it depends upon how you look at it. I agree that sometimes there is something poignantly sad about the thought that I will never fully know what it is to be anyone but myself, that there is a limit to what I can know of another person. Most of the time, however, I can't help but think how amazing it is that we are able to know as much of one another as we can. I may not ever have had the entire experience of another, but there is no doubt that pieces of other people have become a part of me. If I began to try to sort out what parts of myself are only myself and what parts I owe to my interactions, both great and small, brief and longstanding with other people, and even with the works of other people in the form of books, paintings, music etc., I don't even know how I would begin to unravel the many threads of influence that are tightly woven within me. The ability for one soul to make a lasting impression, to help shape or colour another's soul is an absolutely incredible thing. It may be that one of the reasons that not only literature, but art in general are appealing is that it gives you instant gratification when it comes to getting that kind of intimate glance into a piece of another person because the writer/artist often sets out to open up an experience outside our own. Of course, this is not something offered by art alone, but by our relationships with others. In the deepest relationships, the people we share love and friendship with most truly, the line between one person and another does sometimes become, if not erased, then less distinct.


When you read you essentially experience life as someone else knows it. For me, I can get more into a book than is probably healthy. I feel what the main character feels, I begin to think how they think, even develop similar character traits for a short period of time. The strange thing is: why am I not satisfied with just experiencing my own life? Books, after all, are just artistic representations of reality as someone else knows it. If I were someone else, for example, I could read a book about Lumiere's life and find it a satiating and beautiful story. But as I am not someone else, I need to experience alternate versions of reality. I don't know why, but I do, and so do you.

Yes, I'm sure that every avid reader has felt him/herself thinking, feeling, even acting a little like a certain character. I've always figured that sort of intense reader identification is a little like the way a method actor feels when in a role. As long as it doesn't get out of hand (I am reminded of an old Ronald Coleman film in which he plays an actor who gets a bit too into his role as Othello) then it can be a fun and fascinating experience. Enjoying and learning from alternate versions of reality is perfectly fine, so long as you aren't escaping so much that you're missing your own life. It's always important to remind ourselves once in awhile that if we take from the experiences of others then we owe it to others in their lonely times to give a part of ourselves in return. Don't let the world miss out on Lumiere because you are taking for granted what another might find wonderful. :nod:



In short: humans are strange and wonderful creatures.

Something we can all agree on. :D


Oh, I actually meant that quite literally. I study Chinese now, so don't have time to read through thousands of pages of text a week - I was referring to the Chinese literary world - which seems a distant glitter beckoning - but alas - I am at about 1000 of 4000 or so characters I need, and know none of the compound meanings, so it is an uphill drive, as I have stated, but it doesn't mean anything.

Ah! I see. I guess I haven't been around for awhile and wasn't aware of where your interests have carried you lately.


As for me taking an academic route - I still toy with the notion - I knew after my first year really that I needed to get away from English, and run as far as possible if I wanted to get anywhere in Academia. It seems English as a discipline has become a unwanted appendage, and is slowly being cut off by the knives of more "useful" subjects, so, ultimately, I picked up and ran.

Coward. Meanwhile we few, we happy few...


Of course, I toyed with Italian for a while, but that too seems to be a dying world - U of Toronto has the largest Italian department outside of Italy, but even that is being cut down severely. Alas, I landed on East Asian Studies (essentially Chinese Studies) and that seems to work - at least it is an expanding field, as apposed to a dying one.

Why "alas"? It was your choice, and it sounds like a fascinating field of study. Having a couple of friends in East Asian studies who are looking at the job market, I wouldn't necessarily have said that it's an infinitely superior pragmatic choice than other humanities jobs, but naturally if it's something you find you really love then that's the most important thing. In any case "pragmatic" choices of subject aren't successful when it comes to academics unless there is also a real love of the subject chosen. If you do go the academic route you might find a way of combining your new Chinese skills with your knowledge of western writers. I have a friend who has recently been very successful with her dissertation comparing French writer/philosopher Michel de Montaigne and Chinese writer/philosopher Li Zhi. It produced some really fascinating thought (and a successful run on the job market ;)).


But will I go to Academia? Perhaps, perhaps not. I have the language requirements for several disciplines, but ultimately, whether I pursue anything related to my current education is debatable. At least, I think, by the end, I will have at least read something a little bit interesting, and be able to speak a few languages comfortably.

Yes, obviously you'll have to discover what you most want to do, but as you say, you'll walk away with some good skills and a worthwhile experience at the very least.


For instance, I couldn't go to a dinner party, and discuss Spenser's Faerie Queene with many people - in short, if people ask me what I study now, I simply just respond with languages - it is far easier and less painful then explaining that in class we sit there and discuss different forms of allegory in Spenser, or sit there counting out substitutions in Astrophil and Stella - quite simply, nobody cares, and nobody, outside of a small niche, really knows what that means anyway.

Now that is a common place thing - try doing that with something like Gascoigne and where is one left with?

:lol: Boy are you talking to the wrong person. I spend a huge portion of my life both in and out of the classroom talking to people about works/authors like The Faerie Queene and Gascoigne when they know nothing about either. It is entirely possible to talk to people about Spenser over dinner, waiting at the bus stop, in the dentist's waiting room etc. I'm often pleasantly surprised at how many more people are interested in learning about something they don't understand than I used to think.

I do understand what you mean, however. Chances are high that I'm not going to end up having an in-depth specialized conversation over the dinner table, because the people I'm talking with don't have specialized knowledge. I do tend to start off by mentioning Shakespeare to people when they don't know what I mean by writers in the Renaissance period because they're more likely to recognize or have some connection with Shakespeare than with Spenser, who fewer people have read. That doesn't mean that I haven't ended up talking about Spenser to lots of people. I just can't launch in right off the bat with sophisticated observations about allegory any more than I would do so in the first lecture of a beginning survey course. Obviously one can't expect other people to know as much as you do about a subject you spend a lot of time with, but if you start with the basics a fair number of people may take an interest in literature. This is true, though, of any profession or intense interest a person has. Is a doctor lonely because most people aren't going to be interested in an in-depth discussion of anatomy at the table? Or is someone who enjoys aviation lonely because not everyone wants to talk about the more detailed technical aspects of planes?

Thinking about such situations though, I realize that I did used to have a lot more trouble talking to people about my literary interests because I was trying to explain something I was just learning myself. It felt like a problem with the other person being uninterested at the time, but I think it was more of a problem with my level of knowledge and experience at explaining the things I enjoy in a way that other people can understand and connect with most easily. Probably some teaching experience has really helped with this. It's very difficult as a student to try to articulate something you've just learned yourself, or to know how to trace back to the start of how you ended up with the understanding you've just acquired in order to explain it to someone else. I still have the same sort of problem with trying to explain something I'm just beginning to research, perhaps the concept of a new chapter of my dissertation that I'm struggling with, but I'm more self aware now that the awkwardness and the impulse to brush people off with a brief answer is more about my own inability to express something coherently than their inability to understand anything at all about my topic. Because of this I simply explain to people honestly a few basic things that interest me about the topic and am upfront with the fact that there's a lot I don't know about it myself.


It little profits that an idle grad,
By this full shelf, among these dusty tomes,
Matched with an aged prof, I mete and dole
unequal grades unto a savage class,
That cram, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

You guys sure know how to make a girl feel happy about her chosen profession. (That's hilarious, Mortal :lol:)


Petrarch: I did not mean to ignore your question, I just needed a moment. I took a peek at your travel blog and you appear to look much younger than your posts would indicate, so I am going to borrow from James in the imperative: "Live! Live all that you can!"

Savior what your gifts, and lively intelligence have given you and burn these experiences into your memory. It could be that I was never meant to be a professor; I cannot say, because my pain interfered with my self-discipline. It took me years even to work up the nerve to query editors regularly and make a nuisance of myself, and I don't use Coletta's nearly scientific diction, so I have an intimation of how well my little project will fare, perhaps, at the end of the day -- but I regret many of my choices, cannot undo them, and feel like I am in a race against the clock just to get to the level I want to be as an author.

I was, however, where you are now, in a sense, and never made the most of it. I hope you do.


Thanks, Jozanny. I'm doing my best to live fully so long as the powers that be allow. :) Hoping that your project goes well and that you find satisfaction in it. Sounds like you aren't forgetting to use the best of your own gifts and intelligence or to get the most out of life that you are able, and that's an admirable thing in any person.


Jozzany--JBI, my critique would be, so what?

When you stay on topic, your knowledge too has the capacity to teach, as opposed to upending every convention you see. Maybe you should try it some time.

SLG--Where is the "I just spit my drink on the computer screen while laughing" icon?

See, I told you that your posts were an antidote to polemic around here, Joz. ;)

Meanwhile, mum's the word on my possibly youthful appearance. Can you imagine what would happen if this lot stopped picturing me as the most earnest of middle aged professorial types, complete with spectacles, a dowdy sweater and slightly graying hair pulled back at my neck? Hard enough to get any respect 'round here as it is, what with being a scholar attached to a dying appendage of a discipline. :D

[Jozanny]

Petrarch, you mean the poet Gascoigne? I never studied him, but may have heard his name in passing.

As to not always reading when lonely, normally I do not these days. I read sometimes for pleasure, often for research, and to continue my education, which doesn't necessarily include research. When I am in a depressive episode, I usually play computer games for a little, as I find I cannot write myself out of it when the hormones are saying you are being punished for not having enough sex and children. I do complain to my chirpy internist, who is maybe a little younger than yourself, and she suggests the woman's clinic since she is going into oncology because someone has to.

(See what happens with age? The body burps and one gets epic...)

When I read the... classical modernists though, barring Joyce, who requires something else, it lifts me up. Proust did something I have only done with middling success. He uses disability to focus superbly on idiosyncrasy. I am going to go see how much Amazon wants for Montaigne. He keeps slipping my mind.

And just bought the complete essays. I'm terrible!

[Hidden Leaves]

Hi Lumiere.

I am introverted and tend to avoid social situations. I read not because I am lonely and have nothing better to do, but because I am curious. I like learning. I like complex and subjective art because it allows for greater depths of appreciation. Reading depends not upon loneliness, but upon what one is motivated to achieve.

I read because I like to learn, and yet learning involves the acquirement of both knowledge and experience. It is not a lack of desire that prevents me from experiencing life first hand; rather, it is a fear of rejection. Books are secure. I am trying to break free of this fear by way of increased confidence in my creative autonomy; desire is not foolish if one knows what it is that one truly needs.

[blazeofglory]

Of course reading is something I too find a good company of in essence. O course I find people to surround me all day, different customers, phone calls and loads of work but when I reach home I feel lonely at times and especially weekends will be appalling, and if not for books I would have my long live such a bore. I definitely prefer people to books and people are indeed things of vitality and books are like dry-bones compared with people but coming across good people is not always possible and those you are with cannot interest you all the time and you will then have to jumpstart with books choicelessly, yet I take to be companioned with a good is not a waste of time at all in life

[Lumiere]

Again... I don't think it is as simple as this. I am in no way lonely. My career demands that I virtually take the stage before a less than appreciative audience every day. when the work day ends I frequently rush to my art studio where I work upon my paintings (an experience certainly as solitary as reading... except that I have several studio mates with whom I frequently banter upon art... and once I have finished I have any number of other artist friends with whom I can toss ideas back and forth). I then return home after some few hours to dinner and conversation with the wife at which time I read, putter about the computer discussing reading, and listen to music... anything but watch TV... until I go to bed at around 2 AM. I don't look to books as an alternative reality to one that I have somehow missed out on. I do see them as a means of getting even more experiences... engaging in a dialog with individuals of varying cultures, eras, beliefs, etc... that are often quite removed from my own. In art there is a famous quote by Cezanne to the effect of "The route to the Louvre is through nature, the route to nature is through the Louvre". The idea is that the road to art demands that we live... we experience all that nature has to give... yet to make sense of this... to give an artistic form to nature demands more than the mythical natural inspiration... it demands that we spend time looking and studying art.

Ah, but I disagree with your initial statement. You are lonely. Yes, I have the horrific audacity to tell someone I don't know in the least that they're lonely. There is a difference between feeling lonely as a temporal state and being lonely as part of the human condition. At certain times in your life or on certain days you may experience loneliness more keenly, but it is always present. Many of the thing humans strive towards are in an effort to cure loneliness, and often times we succeed. We are distracted from it by a full life in which we derive meaning and satisfaction from interacting and relating to others. But what inevitably happens when there is a lull in these wonderful distractions? At some point, we feel that we are lonely. The loneliness was always there, but it was suppressed to the point that we don't recognize its presence. Humans are lonely by definition of our species. What other animal under the sun is such a dual creature as man? We still experience animal-like instincts, but also find ourselves with the ability to think and reason. A rather problematic combination, if you ask me. We're not gods. We're not animals. We are the only creatures that wander the great space between the two.

I do, however, agree with your statement about reading as means of gaining experience rather than replacing reality. But I still hold that not only reading, but rather all art fills a void and is necessary. If it wasn't necessary, why would man stake so very much in the pursuit of creating art?

[Red-Headed]

Humans are lonely by definition of our species. What other animal under the sun is such a dual creature as man? We still experience animal-like instincts, but also find ourselves with the ability to think and reason. A rather problematic combination, if you ask me. We're not gods. We're not animals. We are the only creatures that wander the great space between the two.


I couldn't agree more. I think Shakespeare said this beautifully in Hamlet:

'What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.'

~ Hamlet II,ii

[Annamariah]

Then again, there are many wonderful books I can't talk about with anyone, partly because none of my friends have read them or even if they have, they haven't experienced it the same way I have. In that sense reading is a very solitary pastime.

Can you only discuss a book with someone who shares your experience of the work? It would seem to me that someone with a different experience might bring a different perspective... come at the book from an angle fully new and unexpected by you. That would seem to be far more valuable than someone who merely parrots or reinforces your own experiences.

I didn't mean that. Of course discussion is best when both parties bring something new into the conversation. I just didn't mean that kind of discussion. I'm sorry, I'm not expressing myself very well.

I meant those books that made the deepest impact on me, that evoked some feelings that are so strong that I don't wish to discuss them with someone who doesn't understand them. That's what I was trying to say about other people not experiencing the books the same way. Even those book I'd be able to discuss about on a more general level, though.

(If no one understood anything, please pardon me. I haven't slept well for weeks and it shows...)

[gbrekken]

Feeling the Education of Henry Adams is somewhat different than reading it. would I appreciate that others felt the same as I. I don't know and perhaps may never.

[inbetween]

reading itself is a strange thing, for the story is only completed when it is read. without the reader a story is only paper and inc. this is why there is not one story but rather many versions of a story in this world (one for each reader). actually you can watch this phenomenon whenever you try to expain your thoughts to someone... there is no world but a world for you and a world for me and so on .... (see Kant). or like Schopenhauer says "to read means to think with someone elses head". I know he ment to insult but I like the thougt... so whenever I'm sick of my own head (and world) I take a book and I'm gone... most of the times I love the fact that this is my world ... but sometimes I just despair while trying to explain my thoughts.. I feel as if I was speaking a foreing language that noone understands... so I'd perhaps like to have only one other individuum that talks my toung... well, yea so I hate it an love it .. now you understand my name, I'm inbetween

[Brad Coelho]

Reading is inherently an anti-social behavior through the tangible eye, but it transcends loneliness intangibly. Reading, like any other vocation, must be implemented into one’s life w/ some sense of balance; otherwise an unwanted effect is sure to occur.

Great thread topic by the way, as this is place is safe haven from loneliness :)

[Janine]

I find reading comforting, not a lonely pursuit at all. In fact, when I get away from reading, that is when I begin to feel depressed and lonely. I think reading and experiencing the mind and the idea of a great author and human being is very much like being in contact with his soul. I find reading makes me, not only thoughful, but also happy beyond describing. It places me in another world, of which I connect with the thoughts of another human being, even though they, themselves no longer physically exist. Their works and soul lives on. This is the magic of communication. Books are just one more form of communication as is music and art.

[hellsapoppin]

I do not agree that reading is a ''lonely'' process. Yes, it is a solitary process in that you are doing it alone. But there are thousands doing precisely the same thing. Each of us gains from reading and we become more contributive people as we learn from the materials we read. Thus, the world becomes a better place for the time spent on this wonderful activity.

[blazeofglory]

Reading is really a lonely activity but the fact is it kills our loneliness and we can have a company op people of the world over, not only of this time, we will kind of come across genres of people of many centuries. When I read Shakespeare I will silently communicate with people of a country that was different than what I am in. I can share ideas of them and this indeed will liven up my soul. Therefore reading is not something that gives loneliness but it takes us to a world of friendliness and affability in point of fact. I have moments when I was unaccompanied, living solitarily and had it not been for books or to put it another way, if books did not give me company of I would have lived a life of melancholy. But books always supported me against the stretches of time in life. Even now I cannot think about life without books, for books give me all kinds of emotional and intellectual satisfaction. It has of course widened my world of thought and imagination. And therefore loneliness and books are two different and opposite poles. Or to put simply loneliness cannot exist where there are books

[Dinkleberry2010]

Reading and books have provided me with a livelihood as well as helping to keep me sane and literally saving my life. If it wasn't for reading, I wouldn't be here--I'd been dead a long time ago.