Why we read

I have been interspersing fiction with Reading Like a Writer, a book by Francine Prose (really?). It touts itself as “a guide for people who love books and for those who want to write like them.” I’m about 30 pages short of being done.

Although it is certainly a pleasurable, self-indulgent read (who doesn’t want to read about reading? and excerpts from brilliant novelists?), I’m not sure it is groundbreaking as much as organized (into chapters such as “close reading,” “words,” sentences, paragraphs, narration, character, etc).

Anyway. Not much to say about the specifics of the book itself–aside from its brilliant structure, it relies on well-selected passages, not brilliant insights. Except: it got me thinking along a tangent that can’t really end well, especially since theorists from Plato to Nussbaum have dealt with it in one way or another. Why do we read to begin with? Escapism? To experience different worlds, in a sort of ‘reading rainbow’ that helps us better understand multiculturalism and minimizes descrimination (I’m skeptical about this one, because one can just as easily write descrimination)? Meditation? Philosophizing? Proselytizing? Who knows?

Personally, the question itself rocks a large portion of my existence. I spend a lot of time reading, and am an English major. But I still have difficulty answering it, which, I suppose, speaks to either my wishy-washiness or the multiplicity embedded into the very idea of literature itself (what is literature anyway? ha, I’ll stop myself before going there) . On a basic level, I enjoy it. I derive personal satisfaction from books. This is not a rational, metaphysical, or productive statement. More than that, the things one can learn feels nourishing. A quest to become more worldly, understand the way people think, tough dilemmas, etc, may be achieved by reading a book. But is that really true? Because it’s never some objective medium, always the writer’s take on how people think, how to deal with moral quandaries, etc. But maybe an aggregate of books, studied seamlessly over time, can get at that, more than any individual work.

Who. Knows.

See, that went nowhere for me. What do you think? Why read? After all, it’s bad for rainforests.