How to Read/Reading Deeply

[novella]

This was brought up in another thread and also touches on Halcyon’s quest.

Lots of people read just for entertainment. Other people want to read more critically and deeply, getting into a book at all sorts of levels beyond the surface meanings and storyline.

So, how do you do that? What are the ways you bring critique and analysis to a book or a poem? Do you care about that at all?

More importantly, what does it give you? Harold Bloom (the big cheese from Yale) wrote that reading deeply helps a person to “discover and augment the self”, that literature is restorative to the individual.


Personally, I can’t read any other way, because I was trained to read deeply and critically and did it for so many years as an editor. So I’m a slow reader, but I have a great memory for what I’ve read and how it relates to other things I’ve read. I’ve spotted obscure plagiarisms in manuscripts that I’m not even certain the authors were fully aware of. On the other hand, I have a very low tolerance for fluffy crud writing.

Anyway, just throwing out the topic . . .

 

[Crystal]

. I’ve spotted obscure plagiarisms in manuscripts that I’m not even certain the authors were fully aware of. . .

This sentence stood out for me, which i felt like to give a comment.

IMO, sometimes as we read something which was so impressive to us that it entered our deeper subconscious or whatever level of our minds, and which accultruated itself to our later experiences. We could not even recognize it when it took on another clothes and displayed itself or was brought up to our shallow level of consciousness. so, i did not think it was actually something of plagiarisms. also, there was some occasion that was sort of like 'great minds think alike'. anyway. just my random thought. As for the topic, I would take a longer time to think about it.

 

[Halcyon]

...Other people want to read more critically and deeply, getting into a book at all sorts of levels beyond the surface meanings and storyline. So, how do you do that? What are the ways you bring critique and analysis to a book or a poem? Do you care about that at all?

I have read several techniques for critiquing and analyzing literature. All of them first require complete understanding of what the author is conveying. Most techniques call for the use a journal in which you make references to the ideas or behaviors presented in the literature. Once you are certain of what the author has said, you’ve completed the first stage of analysis. This stage has various names but is a common theme among the techniques I’ve encountered.

After this state of analysis, you’ve reached a stage of critique. Depending on the type of literature, most techniques call for a historical fact-checks as well as behavioral commonalities that might conflict with the author’s characters. For me, this is as far as I would go in the critiquing stage, but most techniques call for ‘character evaluation’ in which you get questions like, “based on what you know of this character, do you really think he would …?” Then the issue becomes much more subjective as a great deal of the question are in the form, “do you agree that blah blah blah…”

Now the final phase usually seems to try to tie all this in with your own life experiences. Most techniques involve comparing emotions, comparing situations, understanding benevolence or malevolence vicariously, and things of this nature. I think this stage offers great oppertunity for personal growth.

More importantly, what does it give you?

I suppose enlightenment and knowledge. Intellectually or spiritually you have no choice but to grow if you’re exposed to and understand great literature. It’s like a muscle being exercised.

Through my reading ‘quest’ I have read dozens of book reviews and glanced through hundreds of books on improving comprehension. Several of these books I’ve gone through the I-wish-I-could-have-it-now-but-am-too-poor routine that I think might address this topic well. I don’t have the time to find them all, but the ones below appear to be great resources for developing “ways you bring critique and analysis to a book or a poem:”


Guide to College Reading (6th Edition) By Kathleen T. McWhorter

The Effective Reader
by D.J. Henry

Exercise Your College Reading Skills : Developing More Powerful Comprehension
by Janet Elder

The Questioning Reader
by Nora Eisenberg, Harvey S. Wiener

 

[novella]

I have read several techniques for critiquing and analyzing literature. All of them first require complete understanding of what the author is conveying. . . . Once you are certain of what the author has said, you’ve completed the first stage of analysis.



After this state of analysis, you’ve reached a stage of critique. Depending on the type of literature, most techniques call for a historical fact-checks as well as behavioral commonalities that might conflict with the author’s characters. For me, this is as far as I would go in the critiquing stage, but most techniques call for ‘character evaluation’ in which you get questions like, “based on what you know of this character, do you really think he would …?”

For the first part of this, IMO, you can NEVER be sure of what the author's intention is.

But, this two-stage type of critique corresponds with something called "reading with the grain" and "reading against the grain." Reading with the grain is generally reading in cooperation with the author, trying to understand the author's point of view. Reading against the grain is distancing oneself from the author's point of view and looking more questioningly at the text.

You have to do both to get at certain ideas under the surface. For instance, reading against the grain you might ask what the author omitted to say and why? What do the choices of omission tell you? How does the author fit with his/her contemporaries and what frames of reference are absent or present? Those types of questions go beyond character motivation and emotional content, which are usually gotten by reading "with the grain."

I don't usually ask "how does this fit with my experience?" That, to me, is probably a tacit part of the other process. Though I do think any analysis reveals a lot about the analyzer.

 

[novella]

IMO, sometimes as we read something which was so impressive to us that it entered our deeper subconscious or whatever level of our minds, and which accultruated itself to our later experiences. We could not even recognize it when it took on another clothes and displayed itself or was brought up to our shallow level of consciousness. so, i did not think it was actually something of plagiarisms. also, there was some occasion that was sort of like 'great minds think alike'. anyway. just my random thought.

Re the plagiarism issue, it's normal for people to come up with what they think are their own original ideas and phrases, when in fact they've been culled some time ago somewhere else and become part of the subconscious. Lines of poetry and lyrics are particularly catchy this way.

What I'm referring to is really much closer to true plagiarism. For instance, in a famous article about innovation an author used a metaphor about a frog in a pot of water that's brought to a boil. Twice after that, on the same subject, other writers I edited used the same metaphor without giving credit. They had just incorporated that image and idea so completely into their way of thinking about the problem that they used it without critically thinking about why or where it came from. It would have been unprofessional to accept that as original writing. Had they given credit, it would have been different.

 

[Ell]

Lots of people read just for entertainment. Other people want to read more critically and deeply, getting into a book at all sorts of levels beyond the surface meanings and storyline.

I do both. It depends on my mood and, of course, the material. I don't approach a Clive Cussler or Dan Brown book in the same way I approach "Blindness" by Saramago or "The God of Small Things" by Roy. It's like comparing a tasty, quick meal at a favourite cafe to a long, leisurely, almost-sensuous meal at an intimate, fine gourmet restaurant. You enjoy both, but in totally different ways.

So, how do you do that? What are the ways you bring critique and analysis to a book or a poem? Do you care about that at all?

It's been a long time since I've really thought about the 'how" of this process. On reading the previous posts, I suppose I incorporate a combination of most that's already been mentioned - in particular, reading with/against the grain. I think of similarities to other books I've read; both in the style of writing and the ideas. I also find it helpful to read something about the author's background - interviews, previous works, world views. This all sounds like a lot of hard work, but in reality, it's become so ingrained and automatic a process that I don't consciously think about it.

More importantly, what does it give you? Harold Bloom (the big cheese from Yale) wrote that reading deeply helps a person to “discover and augment the self”, that literature is restorative to the individual.

Completely agree with Bloom. It helps you see the world, yourself and others from a different perspective, thereby enhancing knowledge of the self.

 

[Ashlea]

I tend to switch in and out of "deep" reading and a quick read, so I try to pick a selection that suits the phase I'm in. Lately, I've been in a bit deeper phase so I've read Life of Pi, Blindness, and now am on House of Leaves. I'm sure I'll be tearing through some romances soon tho.

It's definitely something you learn, and which takes a good teacher. And, the same is true of many kinds of expression, you can listen to a song and say, hmm, I like that, or you can listen to the chords and pay attention to the harmonies and instrumentation. Or with a painting, you can say, I like that, or you can think about the elements and the deeper meaning. If anything, the few art lectures I've been to have shown me that I like the education and tools to really critically analyze visual art.

 

[StillILearn]

I recently finished a book named...

..."How to Read and Why". I can't remember the author right now, but it was very interesting. This book got me to try Proust (Swann's Way), and of course, Henry James -- again. But the thing that has most helped me to become a better reader was taking a creative writing class.

I might also mention here that (in my opinion) Stephen King's book "On Writing" was one of his best. I learned a lot from it -- not only about reading and writing, but also about King himself.

 

[novella]

..."How to Read and Why". I can't remember the author right now, but it was very interesting. This book got me to try Proust (Swann's Way), and of course, Henry James -- again. But the thing that has most helped me to become a better reader was taking a creative writing class.

I might also mention here that (in my opinion) Stephen King's book "On Writing" was one of his best. I learned a lot from it -- not only about reading and writing, but also about King himself.

I'm gonna say the author was that gigantic wheel of Camembert named Harold Bloom, latterly of Yale, who coined the phrase "anxiety of influence."

 

[Crystal]

the phrase "anxiety of influence."

Thanks for mentioning this phrase. Here is something I have searched at here
Influence, for Bloom, is the swerve or clinamen a poet makes away from the influence of the strong poet who has influenced the poet to write. In his first chapter, “Clinamen or Poetic Misprision”, Bloom produces a long meditation on what is involved in this swerve. What is involved is captured by the word “misprison”, which we can take as meaning a misreading, an error (intentional or unintentional), even a defensive caricature. In order to swerve away from the inspirational and yet potentially suffocating influence of the great original poet (the precursor), the young poet (Bloom uses the Greek word ephebe to refer to the young poet) must begin to misread the earlier poet. Influence, the anxiety of influence which creates modern poetry, Bloom argues, is a form of misreading. He writes:

Poetic Influence – when it involves two strong, authentic poets, – always proceeds by a misreading of the prior poet, an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a misinterpretation. The history of fruitful poetic influence, which is to say the main tradition of Western poetry since the Renaissance, is a history of anxiety and self-serving caricature, of distortion, of perverse, wilful revisionism without which modern poetry as such could not exist. (30)

.........

Bloom states: “No one can bear to see his own inner struggle as being mere artifice” (65), which means that no one, surely, would ever even begin to attempt to write a strong poem if they began with the idea that their desire to write was already a product of poetic influence.

 

[Ell]

I might also mention here that (in my opinion) Stephen King's book "On Writing" was one of his best. I learned a lot from it -- not only about reading and writing, but also about King himself.

I'm glad you mentioned this because I feel King is often unjustly maligned. He's written his fair share of schlock, but also some very good stuff. "On Writing" was very insightful and contained sound, practical advice about life and writing. I enjoyed it immensely.

Thanks for the Harold Bloom link, watercrystal.

 

[Eugen]

This was brought up in another thread and also touches on Halcyon’s quest.

Lots of people read just for entertainment. Other people want to read more critically and deeply, getting into a book at all sorts of levels beyond the surface meanings and storyline.

So, how do you do that? What are the ways you bring critique and analysis to a book or a poem? Do you care about that at all?

More importantly, what does it give you? Harold Bloom (the big cheese from Yale) wrote that reading deeply helps a person to “discover and augment the self”, that literature is restorative to the individual.


Personally, I can’t read any other way, because I was trained to read deeply and critically and did it for so many years as an editor. So I’m a slow reader, but I have a great memory for what I’ve read and how it relates to other things I’ve read. I’ve spotted obscure plagiarisms in manuscripts that I’m not even certain the authors were fully aware of. On the other hand, I have a very low tolerance for fluffy crud writing.

Anyway, just throwing out the topic . . .

Hey Novella, great topic!

I started reading deeply after I grasped my own writing. I used to be a very fast reader, gobbling pages with a thirst for entertainment. Now, like yourself, I'm slow, and can replay verbatim, gazing out a bus window with a dreamy smile, brilliant scenes. Reading Lolita, for example, was like a prolonged and multiple orgasm, for the sheer joy of the language. Nabokov is a class apart. It took me two months, perhaps more, because much as I yearned to know what happens next, I couldn't bear the thought of losing such delight. I grew and felt fulfilled, reading that book.

But, this two-stage type of critique corresponds with something called "reading with the grain" and "reading against the grain." Reading with the grain is generally reading in cooperation with the author, trying to understand the author's point of view. Reading against the grain is distancing oneself from the author's point of view and looking more questioningly at the text.

I think I read, for most parts, with the grain, though I may find myself mentally correcting the work, already seeing how much better a phrase could be. At this stage, I read against the grain, and plot flaws stick out like hernias. If too many, too incredible, I lose interest.

 

[phil_t]

I have to agree it depends on the type of book and the mood you are in jsut how far you will get 'into' a book. For your standard adventure/thriller type book I rarely find myself over-analysing about the motives for the character's actions or the way the story swings, but in books such as Life of Pi you cant but having to think about things in a bit more depth.

I think it is very dependant on the writing style of the author as to whether they encourage you to 'think' about a book or just enjoy the story as it goes along.

Phil

 

[novella]

I think I read, for most parts, with the grain, though I may find myself mentally correcting the work, already seeing how much better a phrase could be. At this stage, I read against the grain, and plot flaws stick out like hernias. If too many, too incredible, I lose interest.

I don't think of reading against the grain as looking for faults in a work, but more like thinking outside the book. Either you are in the author's universe or you are outside it mentally. Like, you can read The Shipping News, for instance, and fully accept the weird world Proulx creates and then you can digest that and think about how and why it's different from other books. I know a lot of people who can't stand that book; I think they had trouble reading with the grain somehow.

 

[StillILearn]

You guys are awesome...

I'm so glad I found this forum.

 

[novella]

Authors' Real Lives

Ell,

I was thinking some about your comment here, re reading around and about an author when you are reading a book or planning to read one. There are definitely certain authors who invite that, maybe because they seem to be giving a lot of themselves in their writing.

What do you think distinguishes an author who attracts that kind of research and one who you just accept as an opaque source of fiction? I'm not sure.

For instance, I've read lots of Ethan Canin, and he writes excellent books with great, psychologically real characters and tight plots, but I've never been curious about him personally. I just think of him as a regular writer, sitting in a room typing, like me.

Others, like Paul Auster and John Cheever and John Le Carre, I feel intensely curious about. It's as if the tragic and emotional parts of their stories are more personal and unreconstructed.

Thoughts?

 

[Sitaram]

I must read this thread more carefully

No pun intended. I am at work, and if I do not post to this, I will not find it so easily tonight. This forum comes up with some good questions regarding analysis, more so that my previous forum. I want to take a look at King's book.

Sometimes you can tell what an author intends. I never realized until yesterday that Steinbeck hand carved a box with TIMSHOL inscribed upon it, in Hebrew, to hold his manuscript, as well as a journal on how he wrote "East of Eden", as a gift to his publisher.

Well, more later.

I still have not had time to study the thread, but I began thinking about the poetry of Wallace Stevens, and how there essentialy is no plot or characters, or dialogue after the fashion of a novel, and hence a poet like Stevens, who strives for the metaphysical and sublime, is forced to use symbolism and that which is implicit and multivalent. I think Stevens reveals a lot in his essays entitled The Necessary Angel.

I'm not talking about poems like "one if by land and two if by sea" or "beneath the spreading chestnet tree".

I think one portal into all these deep things is a writer like Nabokov who also writes critical essays on authors like Kafka.

====

I have started to read a little from the beginning of this thread. Here is a good link for brushing up on Harold Bloom (since his name is mentioned)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Bloom

I was initially confusing the name with Alan Bloom, from the University of Chicago, a Greek scholar, who lectured at St. John's, Annapolis several times while I was there in the 60's. I have Alan Bloom's tranlation of Plato's Republic at home.

 

[Prairie_Girl]

I too tend to alternate. I'm married to a wonderful woman who's only flaw seems to be that she tries to talk to me while I'm reading. Therefore, I tend so read a little more "shallowly" when she's around, and adjust what I read accordingly, when she's doing something else however, I do find that I read very deeply. Especially if this is a revisitation of a book that I've read previously. Knowing what's going to happen lets me read it a bit deeper and see things that I otherwise wouldn't have.
Oh, and also, I love you guys!

 

[ions]

I think one of the keys to reading deeply is context and education. Not necessarily formal education, although that doesn't hurt, but being well informed. The easiest example of this is Dickens and the Industrial Revolution. Having a decent knowledge of London during those times, politically, industrially and socially give Dickens that extra depth. Not that Dickens was ever lacking in depth. If you're oblivious to a subject that is in a book's subtext before you read a book you're not gonna see it in the book. The more you know about the world the more you can appreciate what someone else is saying about it.

The more you read and the broader range of books you read will help you read at a deeper level.

 

[WoundedThorns]

hmm i read just for entertainment for the longest time. now i actually read more in depth b/c my last english teacher kind of converted me in that way. the classes consisted of her questions and our open books and we'd have to find these answers or whatnot. i remember how odd it was afterwards b/c i was reading some simple "bestseller" and i had nothing to ponder over