The Lost Art of Reading

I came across this little number while browsing Barabara's Books at SFO before flying out to NC for Thanksgiving. I bought it on a pure whim because what I had really been looking for was something frivolous, light-hearted, just a little silly, and not terribly scandolous. But apparently not many people write that way any more. There was silly and frivoulous, but something so much more than scandolous. (We get so much scandal in our society on so many levels that it's nice to avoid it when possible.) The non-scandolous items were a little too heavy for airplane reading. (I'm afraid Bleak House is going to need a well-cushioned arm chair and several pots of PG Tips.) I was looking through the Mark Twain selection when this li'l guy caught my eye. As someone who quite enjoys reading, literary artiste, and the wonderful world of fiction I became quite intrigued by the title. After all, there's just something a little ironic in that the words of reading as a lost art were printed a book that was found within a room filled with books and people purchasing books. What on earth could the author mean?

I plucked it off the shelf and jumped to the 4th page. The author was relating an incident in which his son was complaing that his teacher wanted to annotate The Great Gatsby like crazy, which inhibited the actual reading of the novel. Then the author mentioned something to the effect that he felt that literature teachers tend to read into the symbolism of everything in novels which somehow makes the novel less enjoyable. I was hooked. He was saying exactly what I've thought for years! Can you believe that there's someone out there who also thinks that a writer doesn't think of all that symbolism while writing a novel and that it just evolves as they write? I thought I was the only one and that I must be quite dense to think that!

It's hard to sum up all the points that Ulin makes about reading, books, and technology. Suffice it to say, I have learned the value of reading itself, whether it's non-fiction or fiction or silly or serious. I thoroughly appreciated Ulin's humor and thoughtfulness that pervade this essay. He considers all viewpoints, is extremely well-read (being a book reviewer for the LA Times can do that to you), and is thought provoking. It's a good book: a quick read, entertaining and informative. Check it out sometime.