Reading
The Word Become Flesh: The Feel of a Good Book
I remember books. Not just texts, but books—the look of ink on paper, the feel of pages, the art on covers, the cracks in spines. I remember the first Norton Critical Edition I read—“The Sound and the Fury”—with its acid-free paper, typeset in Electra, and a picture of Faulkner’s home on the front. I remember reading “Jane Eyre” for the first time in a beat-up used paperback pocket edition. Its wood-pulp pages were so old and yellowed that they kept falling out the further I read. By the time Jane married Mr. Rochester, I was left with a stack of leaves between two covers. I remember my childhood Bible, my Dr. Seuss omnibus, the small hardcover novelization of Peter Pan my mom brought me back from England. I remember the scriptural heft of the deckle-edged, double-volume Robert Fagles translation of the Homeric epics; the seriousness and calmness of the bleached, wide-margined paper of Isaiah Berlin’s “Four Essays on Liberty;” the spacing of the lines, set in sweet Adobe Garamond, of the “Harry Potter” books. I remember things that weren’t technically books at all: the copy paper on which I printed out and read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” for the very first time, the Sony Reader screen on which I just finished “Sense and Sensibility.”
Among people who read lots of literature—be it verse or prose, fiction or fact—there are two loose but very real camps. The first consists of people for whom the book provides a vehicle for the text. The physical characteristics of this vehicle do not matter. It may be hardcover or paperback, typeset in any font, printed on grey paper or cream, used or new—they could care less, as long as they have the text, legible and reliable. These are the dualists, believing in the separability of the book and the text, the body and the mind.
Separation and Sympathy in Shared Reading
I first noticed a split between my mom’s taste in literature and my own at the beginning of ninth grade. One of the first things we read in my English class was a short story by Fay Weldon about a woman who committed suicide without warning, though she seemed to be a perfect wife and mother. It was compressed, smart, descriptive, and rich; I thought it was brilliant.
I had just finished reading it on a rainy afternoon when I was overcome with the urge to share this story, which, I was convinced at the time, was the best thing ever. “Mom,” I said enthusiastically, “you have to read this.” I remember waiting for her reaction as she made her way through the three or four pages of the story, the same way that you wait for someone to listen to your favorite new CD or to taste the cookies you just made. I was almost heartbroken when she handed it back to me and said, “it’s very literature-y. Kind of depressing.” Well, yes, it was depressing, but it was also great. Why didn’t she like it?
Checking Out Harvard's Neglected House Libraries
Housing Day is nigh, and the last thing most freshmen are thinking about when making their lottery wish list is House libraries. Most have probably never been inside one. The news that each House even has a library may come as a surprise. The library may be a stop on a Thursday evening House tour for new students, and it will probably strike some people as a good workspace. A few will even stop to look at the impressive stacks of books crammed from wall to wall. Those students may find it even more surprising that almost no one ever actually uses those books.
It’s been this way for over a decade, at least. In a 2000 Crimson editorial titled “What are House Libraries For?”, Crimson news and editorial editor Adam I. Arenson ’01 wrote bluntly, “No one goes to the House library for books.” Even then, the libraries were used primarily as study spaces. In those days, they at least had librarians to tend to them; now, after the 2009 budget cuts, most are staffed minimally, if at all. There is no way to check a book out of my House library, and there is no way to keep track of where the books are. One would be worried about book thieves, but even they seem to have lost interest. Most of the books sit unconsulted, undisturbed, and unnoticed—classy furniture for what have become glorified reading rooms.
Growing Libraries--And Cutting Them Back Down
People who love books tend to want all of their own together, in one place, and preferably nearby. Part of this is utility; what good is having a book if you can’t use it? But beyond that, like any collection, they express an entire personality—who you are, or at least who you want to be. This isn’t to say that they’re just window-dressing, of course. The books you own are part of how you explain yourself to yourself. Whether you grew up with Madeleine L’Engle or Philip Pullman; whether you liked “The Scarlet Letter” or “The Great Gatsby” best in high school; whether you’re an Alice Munro person, a Lydia Davis person, or both—this is a deeply felt part of who you are, and everyone who owns even a few books knows it.
Taking a few books from home to college is like taking a cutting of one tree to start another. The graft has the same genetic character as the old library, but in miniature, and it gradually takes on a life of its own. It’s of the same species, but its limbs sprawl and stretch in completely different directions in its new climate. Preparing for moving into college freshman year, I’d carefully chosen a few favorites—a couple gift books, a favorite novel or two, a dictionary to help me keep up my high school French, and a Modern Language Association (MLA) guide. But this new sister library was, over time, colored by the courses I took, the cheap paperbacks picked up in the basement of Harvard Book Store, the occasional reading for free moments; its shade was deeper, its fruit had a different taste, it reflected a different side of me. And, by the time the year came to an end, I had a huge problem: how was I going to get all this stuff home?
Reading Such as Charmeth Sleep
Often I settle in for an afternoon of reading and studying on the couch in our common room only to find myself, ten minutes later, drowsily attempting to focus on a sentence while the warm, slanted sunshine washes over my face. Lunch sits heavy in my stomach. The second hand on my watch ticks hypnotically. I finally give in and nod off—no one told me they have naptime in college. The last sentence, cackling maniacally, escapes.
Reading is a basically soporific exercise. It is best and easiest done alone, in quiet places with gentle lighting. You may play music, but only music carefully chosen so as not to be intrusive—instrumental, if you have it—and without surprising, distracting, or otherwise interesting features. There may be warm and calming drinks involved, along with comfortable pillows, and maybe even a blanket. In short, with the possible omission of brushing your teeth, the ideal reading environment resembles nothing so much as going to bed.