Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Reading Insecurity
Has the Internet killed thoughtful, prolonged engagement with a text—or are we nostalgic for a reading Eden that never existed?
Reading insecurity is the subjective experience of thinking that you’re not getting as much from reading as you used to.
Everett Collection
Slate is an online magazine, which means you are almost certainly reading this on a screen. It is more likely to be morning than evening. You are perhaps at work, chasing a piece of information rather than seeking to immerse yourself in a contemplative experience. You probably have other tabs open—you will flick to one if I go on too long. Your eyes may feel fatigued from the glow of the monitor, the strain of adjusting to Slate’s typeface, which differs slightly from where you just were. You should take a 20-second screen break if you’ve been gazing into your computer, smart phone, iPad, or e-reader for more than a half hour. I’ll wait. It’s OK if you don’t come back—we both know by now that most people won’t finish this article. If you do return, though, I’d like to bring up something that has been bothering me: reading insecurity.
It is becoming a cliché of conversations between twentysomethings (especially to the right of 25) that if you talk about books or articles or strung-together words long enough, someone will eventually wail plaintively: “I just can’t reeeeeaaad anymore.” The person will explain that the Internet has shot her attention span. She will tell you about how, when she was small, she could lose herself in a novel for hours, and now, all she can do is watch the tweets swim by like glittery fish in the river of time-she-will-never-get-back. You will begin to chafe at what sounds like a humblebrag—I was precocious and remain an intellectual at heart or I feel oppressed by my active participation in the cultural conversation—but then you will realize, with an ache of recognition, that you are in the same predicament. “Yes,” you will gush, overcome by possibly invented memories of afternoons whiled away under a tree with Robertson Davies. “What happened to me? How do I fight it? Where did my concentration—oooh, cheese.” More
By Katy Waldman - Slate
