One of the things I work the hardest at is not reading too much. I have various compendiums of reasons, aesthetics, epistemologies, and quirks for why I arrive at this practical plan of action, but one of the most important and straightforward reasons is that I want to read well. Outside of walking around, talking to people, observing conversations, looking at art, and consulting my memories and daydreams, reading is the most important source I have for understanding the world, and it’s important to me not to mess it up.
As with anyone who reads also for a living, the constant itch to have read more, in the past perfect tense, is one of the biggest temptations going. But reading something instrumentally, for some other purpose than its own sake, is also precisely the way to kill one’s delight in books, and risk losing forever that sense of playful freedom, and occasionally, total immersion, that keeps one’s desire for reading going. It’s cultivating that wish to read something that is most important: desire, in the true Platonic sense, is what most of all will let the experience of reading stay new, and so lay the beginning for a depth and richness to what one sees and hears and possibly learns from within it.
Of course, the contrary to all this is also true. It is good to have a certain measure of awareness of what it being said in the world; and it is extraordinarily hard but also extremely important to develop a habit of reading things that are truly difficult.1 All the time spent not reading is in part spent in the hope that repose will help maintain the real spring of the spirit that can sincerely enjoy complicated prose, something written in an entirely different century, amongst far-away people. But we read in order to understand the world, not books.
So here are some of my small rules for limiting reading. Don’t try to read too early in the morning. Never read on the first day of spring. When reading in company it is fun to read something a little scandalous or at cross purposes to the crowd. Read philosophy when fresh (morning). Novels when tired (evening). If extra tired, reverse this pattern. Avoid reading gossip (listening to gossip is by far more interesting). Don’t read things that feel ugly or cruel, or make you spiritually tired (find a way to observe things that are difficult but true more directly). If you don’t want to read it, take a break; you don’t have to finish it this time. I like to read something because someone mentioned it, and then I can think about it in relation to them. Phones are best off; never read from them if you can help it. If I read something, I’ll think about it; so I pick something to read knowing that it will people my imagination for the immediate future. If I’ve read too much philosophy in a season, I will go on a long long novel break, ideally for at least two months.
This year, for various reasons, I went on a slightly longer than usual novel break in the summer. It was particularly helpful! If I had to describe the following group, it would be in various shades of red, Stendhal setting the color scheme, Cleopatra adding in gold, Collette the sun, Baldwin light, Greene smoke and fog.
Cotton in my Sack, Lois Lenski (january)
[began: Emile, Jean Jacques Rousseau]
Nobody’s Family is Going to Change, Louise Fitzhugh
Mandy, Julie Edwards Andrews
Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen
The Red and the Black, Stendhal (february)
Good Omens, Gaiman and Pratchett
Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald
Genealogy of Morality ch. 2, FN
Kierkegaard et la sirène, Line Faden-Babin et Jakob Rachmanski (march)
Go Tell It On The Mountain, James Baldwin (april)
Antony and Cleopatra, W Shakespeare
Birth of Day, Colette (may)
Invisible Man, Harlan Ellison
The Golden Ass, Apuleius
[began: Cheri, Collette]
A Time To Keep Silence, Patrick Leigh Fermor (june)
The Good Apprentice, Iris Murdoch
Demons, Dostoyevsky
Midsummer Night’s Dream, WS
Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
The Haunted Hotel, Wilkie Collins
A Sentimental Education, Gustav Flaubert
All Men Are Mortal, Simone de Beauvoir (august)
[began Crime and Punishment, F Dostoyevsky (september]
Orient Express, Graham Greene (november)
Under The Net, Iris Murdoch
[began, partly work related: The Plague, Albert Camus; picked up the Collette again, too.]
Now, this list doesn’t include things read for class, reading/translating Greek or French, or secondary literature for work. Many hours of these, particularly this fall, which is where the list truncates. Locke was fun to hate. I’m reading about Greek color. Also I spent several days re-reading all of the Discourse on Inequality. This was not easy. But the above list is what kept me going. I’d never make it through mandatory re-reading of all assigned school books without these habits (it is not licit not to re-read for school), or have the stomach to read about Schleiermacher’s Plato and think to myself, you know that was kind of fun.
And in one week, I’ll be back on deep novel break once more!
This essay is in part inspired by Matthew Walther’s recent piece for The Lamp, where he describes reading one hundred pages a day. All advice is equally good, as advice, since any practical maxim may work for anyone at some point. If mine seems unhelpful, perhaps his is for you!