Reading for Pleasure
I read somewhere recently (irresponsible, irresistible phrase!) that the proportion of us who read for pleasure is dropping, and has been for some time. The implication was that most of us, most of the time, read with a sense of obligation, rather than, well, open curiosity, say, or in the interests of a communion between writer and reader, a state of heightened consciousness, enriched memory, expanded knowledge. There is effort involved, varied as this may be from individual to individual. There is something of risk and opportunity about it, too, possibilities for tedium or outrage as well as opportunities to think different things, sink into new ideas, imagine improbable or impossible situations, engage with new language.
What wasn’t said, but was implied in this claim about the decline of reading for pleasure, was this is among the few ways we can encounter anything genuinely new these days — not sensational whiz-bang techy new (which invariably feels like a deeply unimaginative extension of what’s there already) but new patterns of thinking and speaking and solving problems, challenges to our ingrained cognitive habits. The implication, further, was that such moments are precious, critical.
It’s a loose idea, and begs a lot of questions. Who’s “us,” for one? Are we talking about everyone in a given population, say, all Americans, or all readers of English, or all readers of anything who are (technically, constitutionally) in a position to choose? Are “we” just those of us who were using our LinkedIn accounts when the post floated by? By “reading,” do we mean books? Newspapers? Magazines? Street signs? By “pleasure,” do we mean escape, titillation, confirmation, satisfaction?
Somewhere, deep down, I assume that reading figures in a kind of economy in which I exchange my attention — however tight or loose it may be — for rewards: information, consolation, distraction, reassurance. You could call any or all of these things pleasure, I guess. But could reading actually compete with a hot bath? Does anyone ever ask this kind of question? I doubt it. I can watch TV, go cycling, and still be able to spend an hour or two chatting with a friend now and then, maybe about the books we’ve been reading. This “economy” I’m talking about isn’t planned, isn’t evidently controlled, but it does need to deliver challenges and satisfactions on a regular basis, it needs to respond to slings and arrows of fortune, roll with the punches, which is to say, it needs to assert and defend some identity, some “me”. Reading isn’t everything: I want film, and music and some kinds of conversation. And there are those of us for whom reading is so awkward, so time-consuming that the prospect of pleasure never draws near. But reading, for me, remains the best, most reliable, efficient means of securing rewards I consider essential to being me, steering my way through a very complex present, with reflections on past and future. Pleasurable? I’d claim “essential”.
