II - 10 About Reading Books

About  Reading  Books

It  is  simple  enough  to  say  that  since  books  have  class-  es  --  fiction,
 
biography, poetry -- we should separate them and take from each what  it
 
is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books
 
can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds,
 
asking  of  fiction  that  it  shall(1)  be  true,  of  poetry  that  it  shall  be
 
false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall
 
enforce  our  own  prejudices.  If  we  could  banish  all  such  preconceptions
 
when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your
 
author; try to become him(2). Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you
 
hang back, and reserve and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself
 
from  getting  the  fullest  possible  value  from  what  you  read.  But  if  you
 
open  your  mind  as  widely  as  possible,  then  signs  and  hints  of  almost
 
imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences,
 
will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep
 
yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this(3), and soon you will find'
 
that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far
 
more definite. The thirty-two chapters of a novel- if we consider how to
 
read  a  novel  first  --  are  an  attempt  to  make  something  as  formed  and
 
controlled  as  a  building:  but  words  are  more  impalpable  than  bricks;
 
reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the 

quickest  way  to  understand  the  elements  of  what  a  novelist  is  doing  is
 
not  to  read,  but  to  write;  to  make  your  own  experiment  with  the  dangers
 
and  difficulties  of  words.  Re-  call,  then,  some  event  that  has  left  a
 
distinct impression on you- how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you
 
passed  two  people  talking.  A  tree  shook;  an  electric  light  danced;  the
 
tone  of  the  talk  was  comic,  but  also  tragic;  a  whole  vision,  an  entire
 
conception,  seemed  contained  in  that  moment.