"To learn to read is to light a fire"
I have flown a Sopwith Camel on the dawn patrol, castor oil seeping into my flying coat as my eyes strained for triplanes in the rising sun. I have endured the brutality of the Soviet gulag, the last sparks of the will to live barely smouldering as a monstrous regime smashed men, women, and children into the frozen tundra. I have walked amid the heat and squalor of Rome as a tiny, persecuted sect called Christianity was born and began to rise inexorably in the hearts and hopes of the faithful. I have trained for and won the Boston marathon, a victory of mind and will as much as a physical triumph. I have done all these things, and more, as a reader, experiencing worlds, wonder and horror beyond the boundaries of time and space that I inhabit.
As a result, I’ve developed a settled conviction that becoming a reader is indispensable for a life well-lived in our frenetic age. By a reader, I mean someone who has developed an appetite and a respect for words in sufficient quantities to test the powers of concentration, and of sufficient quality to engage the imagination and the intellect. I fear, though, that this kind of reading may be a dying art, or at least a declining one. Research conducted for the Book Council in 2018 reported rather breathlessly that “86% of New Zealand adults had read or started to read at least one book in the past year,” which seems like the kind of statistic that is calculated to be a damn lie, revealing in its obfuscation. More recent research for the Book Council reported that nearly 25 percent of 18-24 year-olds dislike reading or find it quite stressful, compared to a general average of 10-14 percent.
But whatever the statistics may reveal or obscure, there are a number of good reasons why we should try to be readers. The first is to gain knowledge, and it’s obvious enough that reading introduces you to new worlds, facts and figures, and expanded horizons. This knowledge of others is valuable, especially as the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes is a critical element of the empathy that is so rapidly being eroded in a world saturated by liquid crystal displays.
But just as important is the knowledge that this reading gives you of yourself, which arises through a sort of creative tension. On the one hand, as your horizons expand, your view of yourself shrinks as you locate yourself more accurately in the great sweep of time and history alongside numberless billions of others. In an age characterised by the culture of “the Big Me,” a reorientation towards personal humility should be welcomed.
On the other hand, this chastening effect is also strangely empowering. Small and finite we may be, but it is our own unique soul and intellect engaging with the text and discovering meaning in this vast universe, a realisation that should induce an awestruck wonder at the dignity and value of our own existence.
Reading is also a great leveller. Many probably think that reading is elitist, but the reverse is true; reading equalises, making style and substance freely available to all of us, regardless of our social standing. Not only does that empower us, it gives everyone the opportunity to train our minds in the kind of focused attention that reading demands, to be able to follow the thread of a sustained argument or narrative that unfolds in more depth and detail than even the most roiling tweetstorm. This ability to concentrate, to master challenging and important ideas, is a foundation of success in life, one that should be open to everyone.
So what should we read? Let’s start with the negative imperative—life is too short to waste on bad writing and trite thinking. Don’t persevere with flaccid or clumsy writing, or the kind of argument that resembles the author stumbling around in a dark and cluttered room. But do persevere with good but challenging writing, the kind that requires discipline and produces reward, rather than a thankless slog towards an uncertain destination.
Read for pleasure and to learn, ideally at the same time. Mix it up—read long and short works, fiction and non-fiction. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin both powerfully illustrate injustice and the depths of human depravity despite their differences in genre, style, and time.
If reading is unfamiliar territory, start with short books, like George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and essays, like Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail or CS Lewis’ Learning in War-time. Both of these have more power and value than many books, so make sure this kind of writing remains part of your literary diet. Choose good quality works, but don’t read merely to name-drop—if you read Dostoevsky (and I haven’t), do it for learning or pleasure, not for bragging rights. Read multiple disciplines and genres—advice (like Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport), science (like Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker), history (like Dominion, by Tom Holland), and so on.
Wherever possible, read physical books or on purpose-designed e-readers. There are technical reasons for this (not frying your brain with blue light), as well as scientific reasons (you absorb information more effectively in hard copy). Just as importantly, there are practical reasons—the alternative is to read on the screen of a device that also functions as a portal to the vortex of the internet, where you’re only ever one link away from the nightmare of cat videos and clickbait that makes up the majority of the online experience.
If, as Aristotle apparently said, we are what we repeatedly do, then it should be clear by now that readers have the potential to be people of curiosity, humility, imagination, learning, and discipline. These are social goods as well as personal ones. In a world where our shortening attention spans are frequently overwhelmed by the rising electronic tide, picking up a work of literature is not just an act of personal improvement, but a social good. Perhaps now, as much as ever, we need to discover, cherish, and promote the place of reading.
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
Victor Hugo