Good Readers and Good Writers

   Vladimir Nabokov

Source: http://www.ralphmag.org/CP/nabokov.html 

In my humble opinion –because let’s face it, following that reading it’s impossible not to be humbled- Nabokov wants us to understand that a good reader is both emotional and methodical. He explains in several different ways that we have to strike a balance between the two to properly read any given work. Nabokov expands on the idea of avoiding the pitfalls of simplifying works of literary art, by cheapening them with too much emotion; or glancing past their beauty with cold eyes working back and forth to simply take in the words.

I wholeheartedly agree with Nabokov's explanation of being a good reader. If you liken everything in a story to your own life, you've missed the trolley entirely. At that point you've basically turned beauty or tragedy into your own surroundings thus robing the author of the vision (s)he may have had at the time of writing to some degree. At the same time if you simply read the book as a set of organized words and don’t liken it to anything familiar, you are just reading words for the sake of optic nerve exercise. He is right; enjoying a great writing does require a difficult balance, which is itself  hard to explain.

I believe the characteristics of a good reader are primarily patience, and concentration. My definition of patience closely matches Nabokov’s explanation of “re-reading.” I find re-reading indispensable when I’m studying or reading in my free time, and let’s face it, re reading takes serious time and patience. The other feature I hold in high regard is concentration –for me at the very least-. I only find when I weed out the author in the writing. When my image of the author becomes clear –and I don’t mean the picture on the dust jacket- I start to pick out what they are picturing, and I get the whole picture, not my own iteration.

I consider myself a ghastly reader. I hold myself in the highest contempt for my lack of being able to entirely absorb a story or scene. Granted I've read many books in my life, but I fear that every time I put one of them back on the shelf; I’ve overlooked some key detail, some glaring premise that everyone to read the story before me picked up on during their first read through. I've been told time and time again that there is no mystery to an author’s writings. I find this statement to be comprised of pure insanity, I defend that every author is a liar; and a good one at that.

I fear I have gone way over the response size limit, for this I apologize – and thank you for reading-.

Found my “authors are liars” statement interesting? I found this article from 2009 that makes some good points about the subject during a routine Google search just now. I found it amusing.