Monday, March 4, 2024

Our modern problems with reading

We don’t have infinite time. The amount of reading attention any new book must compete with is getting progressively smaller. So we have to be selective.

It’s basic math.

Robert E. Howard read Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack London and H. Rider Haggard (and many, many authors besides, but bear with me as I make this point).

Michael Moorcock read Howard and his contemporaries C.L. Moore and Clark Ashton Smith… but is obligated to read ERB and London and Haggard.

Writers today read Moorcock and his contemporaries Karl Edward Wagner and Jack Vance and Poul Anderson. But also should read Howard and Moore and Smith … and ERB and London and Haggard.

The demands on new generations of readers multiply. What about readers and writers three generations from now?

Oh, and we all must read the classics. Shakespeare and Milton and Homer and Hemingway.

Make sure you read outside your genre. One should read history, too. 

The accumulated reading, generation on generation, cannot continue. The math doesn’t add up. How many books can anyone read in a lifetime?

Some books must fall by the wayside.

This is just the beginning of the problem. We have many more demands on our attention than previous generations. Movies, TV, video games, TTRPGs, YouTube, doom scrolling, etc., all compete for our attention during “free” time. And despite all the breathless predictions of the techno utopians, we don’t seem to be working any fewer hours.

That means we’ve got choices to make. As you get older, you realize you cannot fritter your time away. It’s far too precious.

So, what are we to do?

My advice: Read what you want. Just read, as long as its not Reddit forums or Twitter threads.

Read new sword-and-sorcery or read the classics. Read comic books, or graphic novels. Just make sure it’s something someone has created, with care. 

Don’t listen to what other people think. I don’t. Because I’ve read enough to spot illogic and ad hominem and the rest. 

Just because a book is old, published 60 or 80 or 400 years ago, does not render it out of date. C.S. Lewis tells us to rid yourself of “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find out why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood.”

And our age is prone to its own illusions.

Anything still in print 60 years after it was published is probably worth your time. Because it survived the test of time. The books that influenced your favorite author(s) are probably worth reading too, even if out of print. 

But don’t feel obligated to plow through classics that are going to kill your love of reading, either. 

Read what interests you, and carry that fire against public opinion. Which is often shit.

That’s another benefit of reading widely and deeply—read enough good stuff and you’ll develop a sensitive and accurate bullshit detection meter.

8 comments:

  1. You point out handily how there's more out there than we'll ever get to read. I try and read constantly, especially things I've heard of but never got around to. I'd say that it's worth giving "classics" a chance. Certainly don't plow through if you're not enjoying it, but if it was required reading at some point, it was required for a reason.

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  2. Also, with the Internet, I learn of 1.) all the books coming out 2.) all the books that are out now 3.) all the books I missed.

    It used to only be "walk in the bookstore/library and see what jumps off the shelf at me."

    I have decided that given my age, it's time to embrace "DNF" (did not finish.) I always want to read a book through to give it a chance, but I don't have time for thick books that don't keep me interested all the way through.

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  3. Baron: Years ago I made it a point to read through much of the speculative fiction "canon." Selected works by William Morris, George MacDonald, Ursula LeGuin, E.R. Eddison, Lord Dunsany, ERB, Pratt Asimov, Herbert, etc. For the most part, worth it, with some exceptions.

    Paul: DNF is tough... I hate the thought of the wasted time an unfinished read represents, but that is balanced by the thought of wasting even more time grinding through to the end.

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  4. I can relate to this so much. As I scramble to finish my master's I have hardly any time to read what I want.

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  5. I've avoided reading many literature classics. I just don't find a lot of it interesting, or worthwhile to me, mainly because the topics are so unexciting. I focus my attention on REH and his contemporaries on down through the 1970s S&S wave. However, I do go back and read the influences of these writers of the 20s-70s, and modern fantasy that hearkens back to this mode of pulp and pulp-influenced writing. I mean, Appendix N alone is quite the list! I have about 1,000 books in my house outside of RPG books, most of it this style of fantasy/horror/scifi/weird fiction, plus a ton of history, mythology, and folklore. Due to the mythology part of this, I've read Greek classics, so I guess there's that. I've tried to instill the love of reading in my kids, but they've resisted so far, except that my oldest has found the poetry of Rupi Kaur worth reading and keeping. I'll take the victory where I can find it!

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  6. I generally believe in reading the classics, though my opinions on them are my own. I'm not sure why, for example, The Great Gatsby is considered a classic. On the other hand, I think Dostoevsky is revelatory. That said how pertinent a classic is depends on who's reading it. A literature professor or writer probably should read James Joyce, but does a carpenter have to?

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  7. I'm sure we can all agree that the ONE book everyone must read is Flame and Crimson!

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  8. Ian: What are you getting your master's in? One day soon you'll be back to reading what you want, and I bet what you're (forced) to read now will make you better for it.

    AP: 1,000 books? Nice. And reading for your kids will pay off in unexpected ways. I read to both my daughters and one went on to become a reader. The ohter however is a phenomenal student with a love of science and chemistry.

    Matthew: Good point re., audience. And that reminds me I need to read more Dostoevsky.

    Scott: Of course, that goes without saying. Already in the S&S canon:)

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