A shabby curate

W.H. Auden

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.

He is also a character in our biography

via "Reading: An essay" by W.H. Auden

We cannot read an author for the first time in the same way that we read the latest book by an established author. In a new author, we tend to see either only his virtues or only his defects and, even if we do see both, we cannot see the relation between them. In the case of an established author, if we can still read him at all, we know that we cannot enjoy the virtues we admire in him without tolerating the defects we deplore. Moreover, our judgment of an established author is never simply an aesthetic judgment. In addition to any literary merit it may have, a new book by him has a historic interest for us as the act of a person in whom we have long been interested. He is not only a poet or a novelist; he is also a character in our biography.

Charles S. Benson - Books

An essay by Charles S. Benson - Books. All sorts of passages.

There are, indeed, many books in our library; but most of them, as D. G. Rossetti used to say in his childhood of his father's learned volumes, are "no good for reading." The books of the College library are delightful, indeed, to look at; rows upon rows of big irregular volumes, with tarnished tooling and faded gilding on the sun-scorched backs. What are they? old editions of classics, old volumes of controversial divinity, folios of the Fathers, topographical treatises, cumbrous philosophers, pamphlets from which, like dry ashes, the heat of the fire that warmed them once has fled. Take one down: it is an agreeable sight enough; there is a gentle scent of antiquity; the bumpy page crackles faintly; the big irregular print meets the eye with a pleasant and leisurely mellowness. But what do they tell one? Very little, alas! that one need know, very much which it would be a positive mistake to believe. That is the worst of erudition--that the next scholar sucks the few drops of honey that you have accumulated, sets right your blunders, and you are superseded. You have handed on the torch, perhaps, and even trimmed it. Your errors, your patient explanations, were a necessary step in the progress of knowledge; but now the procession has turned the corner, and is out of sight.

The challenges related to reading.

But, on the other hand, here in the University there seems to be little time for general reading; and indeed it is a great problem, as life goes on, as duties grow more defined, and as one becomes more and more conscious of the shortness of life, what the duty of a cultivated and open-minded man is with regard to general reading. I am inclined to think that as one grows older one may read less; it is impossible to keep up with the vast output of literature, and it is hard enough to find time to follow even the one or two branches in which one is specially interested. Almost the only books which, I think, it is a duty to read, are the lives of great contemporaries; one gets thus to have an idea of what is going on in the world, and to realize it from different points of view. New fiction, new poetry, new travels are very hard to peruse diligently. The effort, I confess, of beginning a new novel, of making acquaintance with an unfamiliar scene, of getting the individualities of a fresh group of people into one's head, is becoming every year harder for me; but there are still one or two authors of fiction for whom I have a predilection, and whose works I look out for. New poetry demands an even greater effort; and as to travels, they are written so much in the journalistic style, and, consist so much of the meals our traveller obtains at wayside stations, of conversations with obviously reticent and even unintelligent persons; they have so many photogravures of places that are exactly like other places, and of complacent people in grotesque costumes, like supers in a play, that one feels the whole thing to be hopelessly superficial and unreal. Imagine a journalistic foreigner visiting the University, lunching at the station refreshment-room, hurrying to half-a-dozen of the best known colleges, driving in a tram through the main thoroughfares, looking on at a football match, interviewing a Town Councillor, and being presented to the Vice- Chancellor--what would be the profit of such a record as he could give us? What would he have seen of the quiet daily life, the interests, the home-current of the place? The only books of travel worth reading are those where a person has settled deliberately in an unknown place, really lived the life of the people, and penetrated the secret of the landscape and the buildings.

On aging and reading.

But I think that as one grows older one may take out a licence, so to speak, to read less. One may go back to the old restful books, where one knows the characters well, hear the old remarks, survey the same scenes. One may meditate more upon one's stores, stroll about more, just looking at life, seeing the quiet things that are happening, and beaming through one's spectacles. One ought to have amassed, as life goes on and the shadows lengthen, a good deal of material for reflection. And, after all, reading is not in itself a virtue; it is only one way of passing the time; talking is another way, watching things another. Bacon says that reading makes a full man; well, I cannot help thinking that many people are full to the brim when they reach the age of forty, and that much which they afterwards put into the overcharged vase merely drips and slobbers uncomfortably down the side and foot.

The influence of reading:

And thus in such a mood reading becomes a patient tracing out of human emotion, human feeling, when confronted with the sorrows, the hopes, the motives, the sufferings which beckon us and threaten us on every side. One desires to know what pure and wise and high- hearted natures have made of the problem; one desires to let the sense of beauty--that most spiritual of all pleasures--sink deeper into the heart; one desires to share the thoughts and hopes, the dreams and visions, in the strength of which the human spirit has risen superior to suffering and death.

Further -

It will make us tolerant and forgiving, patient with stubbornness and prejudice, simple in conduct, sincere in word, gentle in deed; with pity for weakness, with affection for the lonely and the desolate, with admiration for all that is noble and serene and strong.

Finally:

Well, this thought has taken me a long way from the College library, where the old books look somewhat pathetically from the shelves, like aged dogs wondering why no one takes them for a walk. Monuments of pathetic labour, tasks patiently fulfilled through slow hours! But yet I am sure that a great deal of joy went to the making of them, the joy of the old scholar who settled down soberly among his papers, and heard the silvery bell above him tell out the dear hours that, perhaps, he would have delayed if he could. Yes, the old books are a tender-hearted and a joyful company; the days slip past, the sunlight moves round the court, and steals warmly for an hour or two into the deserted room. Life--delightful life-- spins merrily past; the perennial stream of youth flows on; and perhaps the best that the old books can do for us is to bid us cast back a wistful and loving thought into the past--a little gift of love for the old labourers who wrote so diligently in the forgotten hours, till the weary, failing hand laid down the familiar pen, and soon lay silent in the dust.

There is no substitute for simply knowing these primary associations.

From E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy.

There is no substitute for simply knowing these primary associations. They must be called up with lightning speed in the course of reading and conversing. We do not have the luxury of figuring out such associations one at a time. We may do this with one or two words in a paragraph - that is the way we learn new words - but we cannot pause over many words at a time. When we encounter U.S. Grant, the primary associations must be available to us in milliseconds: that he was an important Union general, that he became president, that he drank. These are some of the implicit associations needed to make meaningful what is explicitly written about Grant.

Research into the importance of primary associations thus introduces a subject of profound significance for teaching reading and writing. Successful communication depends upon shared associations. To participate in the literate national culture is to have acquired a sense of the information that is shared in that culture. No adult-level discourse retreats to the rudiments of knowledge. If assumptions about rudiments could not be made, ordinary discourse would be so lengthy and intricate as to obscure its own point.

Educators in the Rousseau-Dewey tradition, who favor less emphasis on mere fact and more emphasis on the intensive study of a few cases, encourage us to believe that students will thereby understand general principles and learn how to think critically. But literacy requires us to have both intensive knowledge of relationships and extensive knowledge of specifics. We need not only a general understanding of the principles of biology (which would enable us to infer that canaries breathe and lay eggs) but also specific knowledge of facts about canaries. We need to know not only the broad social and historical significance of the American Civil war but also who U.S. Grant was, and what the word Appomattox signifies. It is not enough to say that students can look these facts up. The research reviewed above shows that in order for readers to integrate phrases into comprehensible meanings, they must already possess specific, quickly available schemata. When readers constantly lack crucial information, dictionaries and encyclopedias become quite impractical tools. A consistent lack of necessary information can make the reading process so laborious and uncommunicative that it fails to convey meaning.

A mother's touch

Alice in Wonderland by George Dunlop Leslie, 1879


One of the recommendations in Growing a Reading Culture - Just for Parents, is to make reading personal. When children are young and being introduced to reading, the mere act of snuggling up close has strongly affirming qualities. Now here is some interesting additional confirmation of the recommendation, though not as it relates to reading per se.

Researchers have found that a woman touching a person carries strongly reassuring connotations which encourage greater confidence and risk taking. The researchers speculate that this is a product of childhood interactions with mothers. If so, it adds a dimension to the recommendation to snuggle up close and read together. Reading, in the early days, is a challenging proposition. If a child's association with Mom is one which does indeed encourage a sense of self-confidence and a willingness to take risks, then that can only be helpful when it comes to tackling the art of reading.

The research is reported in this article.

Kids and Family Reading Report

Scholastic sponsored a survey of children's reading habits and released a report in 2008, Kids and Family Reading Report. The findings from the survey are consistent with and complimentary to our own in Growing a Reading Culture - Just for Parents. Some of the nuggets that support our own findings:

Kids like choosing their own books - 89% say their favorite books are the ones they picked out themselves.

Most kids say there are not enough really good books for boys/girls their age, and they say
finding books they like is one of the key reasons they do not read for fun more frequently.

Parents underestimate the degree to which kids have trouble finding books they like.

There is an extremely strong relationship among the three dynamics of reading importance,
reading enjoyment, and reading behavior.

Kids who are higher on one measure are higher on all measures, and kids who are lower on one
measure are lower on all measures

For example:

High frequency readers are five times more likely than low frequency readers to say
reading is extremely or very important (94% vs.18%).

Kids who think reading is extremely important are more than four times more likely than
those who think reading is a little or not important to love or like reading a lot (96% vs.
22%).

Kids who think reading is extremely important are ten times more likely than kids who
think reading is a little or not important to be high frequency readers (53% vs. 5%).

Kids are nearly twice as likely as their parents (26% vs. 14%) to say having trouble finding books they like is a reason kids do not read more books for fun.

Children who struggle to find books they like have far weaker reading relationships than other kids.

No man - no human, masculine, natural man - ever sells a book.

Non Libri Sed Liberi by Kenneth Grahame, an essay from Pagan Papers, originally published in 1893.

It will never be clear to the lay mind why the book-buyer buys books. That it is not to read them is certain: the closest inspection always fails to find him thus engaged. He will talk about them - all night if you let him - wave his hand to them, shake his fist at them, shed tears over them (in the small hours of the morning); but he will not read them. Yet it would be rash to infer that he buys his books without a remote intention of ever reading them. Most book lovers start with the honest resolution that some day they will "shut down on" this fatal practice. Then they purpose to themselves to enter into their charmed circle, and close the gates of Paradise behind them. Then will they read out of nothing but first editions; every day shall be a debauch in large paper and tall copies; and crushed morocco shall be familiar to their touch as buckram. Meanwhile, though, books continue to flaunt their venal charms; it would be cowardice to shun the fray. In fine, one buys and continues to buy; and the promised Sabbath never comes.