Lynn and I have been exchanging emails with a great old
friend of mine, a member of the legal profession and a judge, about Hemingway’s
short story “Indian Camp.” Both Lynn and I consider it one of the great short
stories in English. In one of our
exchanges, my friend speculated about how his professional reading, necessarily
highly focused and meticulous, affected his reading of Hemingway’s story.
It’s a deep and interesting issue, deserving of serious
analysis and attention. And, it alludes
to the even more important question of how we read in general and how we should
read.
One of my two Bachelor degrees is in English Literature, granted by a University and the faculty of “the Department of English.” In fact, the department would have been more accurately named a department of Literary Criticism and Analysis (which dabbled in Linguistics and Creative Writing.) These days, I find I would much rather have a Bachelor’s degree in Reading.
“Reading?” Just “Reading?”
Yes. Consider how many ways there are of reading. For example, there is the immersive, velocitized reading for recreation, often brought to Science Fiction or Fantasy where a primary goal is to imagine as completely and viscerally as possible a world the author has labored to imagine. Often, language is meant to be a pure transport mechanism, innocuous and transparent, though not always. In contrast there is Kingsnorth’s “The Wake” or Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange” in which a peculiar, sometimes difficult language is almost a character itself, claiming its own share of the reader’s attention.
But there are so many more ways of reading and ways a text is designed, consciously or unconsciously, to be read. One can read for rhetorical structure, identifying how rhetorical strategies and structures are employed. One can read for selection of detail and the consequences of those choices. One can read with attention to point of view. One can read for story structure or character arc. Or one can read in the context of how a work engages with a well-defined audience, it’s effect and meaning for them. One can read purely for definition, logic and persuasiveness of argument, even fiction can be read this way.
One can read historically, attempting to read in the context of a particular time in the past, bringing to it the insights and limitations one would have had at that time. It’s no small achievement to do that well. I’m reminded of Ricky Jay’s masterful demonstration of how a card trick would have been performed four different ways at four different points in history.
Simply, there are an infinite number of ways to approach a text and read it. How should one read it? How do you make an intelligent determination? How many times do you read it? How do you know you’re executing your reading strategy, perhaps paradigm is a better word, effectively?
That’s what I would expect from a college degree in “Reading.” Further, I’d argue that it’s never been more important. Consider the number and diversity of texts you engage with each day, some are even properly hyper-texts and need to be understood in that context. Unless, everyone becomes more accomplished readers do democratic societies, of which I personally happen to be particularly fond, have a chance of surviving?
One of my two Bachelor degrees is in English Literature, granted by a University and the faculty of “the Department of English.” In fact, the department would have been more accurately named a department of Literary Criticism and Analysis (which dabbled in Linguistics and Creative Writing.) These days, I find I would much rather have a Bachelor’s degree in Reading.
“Reading?” Just “Reading?”
Yes. Consider how many ways there are of reading. For example, there is the immersive, velocitized reading for recreation, often brought to Science Fiction or Fantasy where a primary goal is to imagine as completely and viscerally as possible a world the author has labored to imagine. Often, language is meant to be a pure transport mechanism, innocuous and transparent, though not always. In contrast there is Kingsnorth’s “The Wake” or Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange” in which a peculiar, sometimes difficult language is almost a character itself, claiming its own share of the reader’s attention.
But there are so many more ways of reading and ways a text is designed, consciously or unconsciously, to be read. One can read for rhetorical structure, identifying how rhetorical strategies and structures are employed. One can read for selection of detail and the consequences of those choices. One can read with attention to point of view. One can read for story structure or character arc. Or one can read in the context of how a work engages with a well-defined audience, it’s effect and meaning for them. One can read purely for definition, logic and persuasiveness of argument, even fiction can be read this way.
One can read historically, attempting to read in the context of a particular time in the past, bringing to it the insights and limitations one would have had at that time. It’s no small achievement to do that well. I’m reminded of Ricky Jay’s masterful demonstration of how a card trick would have been performed four different ways at four different points in history.
Simply, there are an infinite number of ways to approach a text and read it. How should one read it? How do you make an intelligent determination? How many times do you read it? How do you know you’re executing your reading strategy, perhaps paradigm is a better word, effectively?
That’s what I would expect from a college degree in “Reading.” Further, I’d argue that it’s never been more important. Consider the number and diversity of texts you engage with each day, some are even properly hyper-texts and need to be understood in that context. Unless, everyone becomes more accomplished readers do democratic societies, of which I personally happen to be particularly fond, have a chance of surviving?
Last November I read “Professor Borges: A Course on Literature” a collection of lectures given by the great literary figure recovered and edited by Martin Hadis et al. More than anything it was a course in reading and how a great mind read carefully, well and differently. Reading as others have read, decades or even centuries ago can be surprisingly helpful in making the particular weaknesses, obsessions and biases of the present apparent.
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