Books are amazing.
A good reader is one who will try to understand what the book is saying. A good reader appreciates a book, even if he doesn't agree with it. He can recognize the goodness in a book and weed out the bad.
Mark Twain, in a letter to someone who had asked him what method he used to write, spoke of the role of the "unconscious" in his writing. He talks about how he forms the words and sentences, and he thinks he has a motive, but if someone else finds a motive that he didn't intend to be there, it doesn't matter - it's in the text. The text is what speaks. It has a life of its own. (This short letter is published in a book, "The Art of Authorship", edited by George Bainton.)
Do you realize how amazing it is that the people who wrote these books are dead now, but it doesn't matter because these books are like their eternal children? These books are like people. It is so amazing to me, to think of a book as partly the product of a good writer's unconscious. This means that the text is somewhat free from the author's influence, especially if the author will allow it to be.
Think! If I wrote something profound enough, people might read it 300 years from now, and maybe their lives would be impacted! This idea makes me want to read more classic literature, and to write amazing things. It makes me feel very small to such a great task of writing something that will be read so many years from now, and even impactful. It also makes me more in awe of these authors who did accomplish this task, and may not have even had me in mind when they wrote.
Literature is really one of the only voices from the past that we have.
Also, I have started to think of books as someone's experience, or journey, or story, or some expression of themselves. These are things worthy of my complete attention and understanding and love, not just things that allow me to use my ability to see letters and note how they form words, and how the words form sentences, and say them out loud in my head in a way that makes sense.
Have you noticed that the best readers are also the best listeners? I always thought that was because people who read a lot tend to be quiet and they don't talk a lot anyway, so you can talk a lot to them and they don't talk back. But really, it's because they're used to giving full attention to books, and just allowing the books to tell them their story, without commenting or offering advice, just saying "this is the way it is". Maybe occasionally, the good readers nod in understanding or say "mmhmm", or cry in empathy or smile, or at least get involved emotionally.
I always thought that when people said "books are my friends", it meant they didn't have any real friends so they just filled up their time reading. Now, books seem kind of like people with stories.
I always thought that when people talked about "respecting books" (I was sharing this whole thing with my roommate earlier, by the way) they meant not eating toast while reading cause you might get crumbs or jelly in the book, and don't leave books on the floor for people to step on and for heaven's sake, use a bookmark and don't leave the book upside-down and open on the table because it'll bend the spine! But really, respecting books is like respecting people. You have to listen to the person's story, and not just to the words, but to the person's heart, and you have to want to be a friend, and smile and nod. You can't just pretend, either. If you read a book and you just pretend to respect it, you'll know the difference once you're done with it.
If you read a book and say "This book didn't do anything for me", you may need to think about your motives for reading. Yeah, there's a lot of literary crap out there, and you won't always be satisfied with a "good read". It's not about you being satisfied, though. I think it's about listening to different stories and finding the ones that will help your character or impact your life, whether or not you can nail down the way they do that.
Sigh. Do you all think I'm weird now?
