The Loneliness of Reading

[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)

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?

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?

[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.

In short: humans are strange and wonderful creatures.

Something we can all agree on.

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?

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 )

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.

[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.