Literature classes and their teachers were the dreaded dreams of most students. No matter how much you loved it and were interested in it, it was usually challenging and the teachers were conservative, opinionated and demanding.
So what were we missing as students? Literature was taught by rote, and little was learned beyond the names and authors of the first works. Lessons became repetitive - as if there was very little to talk about. Perhaps your teacher simply made you read his or her favourite books and asked you to summarise them.
All this may have contributed, at least to some extent, to some students. But I am sure the percentage is small. The main thing we lacked was the ability to interpret.
You know what they say: “They didn't make us read this author because they didn't want us to understand what was happening in the world!” This is where the strange part begins. Would we be able to understand even if we read, let alone find the will to read? Would we think we understood and feel better (or worse)?
I have loved reading books since I was a child. There were times when I thought I read a lot, and there were times when my reading was shallow and limited. But this is a matter of not giving up.
At some point, the seriousness of the subject changes and other dimensions emerge that we need to examine in detail. The book is no longer a pile of words to be read, but a way of spending time that must be given meaning. In fact, reading a book is an irreversible act. Shouldn't we make the most of it? We probably say that about many things in our lives, but that is another matter.
We have been having book club meetings for seven months. Before that I was working on writing my book and I read some books to help me. During this whole process I began to understand books better than ever before. Because there were two new factors in my life.
The first was writing the book itself. Short stories, details, emotional expressions, dialogue, rhyming words, correct use of words... When I practised this, the concept of story took on a completely different shape. At that moment I was forced to look at it not only from the reader's point of view, but also from the writer's point of view, which of course requires you to consider and realise different aspects of writing.
Readers usually do not think or know how much time the author spent on the novel, how many times he changed that sentence or what he felt at that moment. Of course, they only concentrate on what is written, what is given to them. They read with their inner voice and go on with their lives. What is missing is to discuss the book, to speak out loud. It is about expressing your feelings, defending your ideas and hearing the course of events from different minds. As a reader, I think that moment is the closest to the feeling of having written the book. To think like the author, to enjoy the work, to feel a little flutter in the chest...
The second is reading by studying. For me, the pioneers of this act were undoubtedly the book club meetings. Before that, I had never taken pen and paper and started making detailed notes as I read. Of course, I have made some small notes and marked places to remember with sticky notes, but I can see that this is not enough - for me personally. My brain wants more from this work.
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I don't want to go on and on about the importance of taking notes, but taking short notes is like creating a low-budget archive. They are patches for the brain. But this time it is necessary to go beyond even this action.
Yes, it may be true: "Not every book offers enough content to warrant serious study”. I disagree, but perhaps I am wrong. I think the problem lies in the relationship between the reader and the book. I am sure that we can get more out of a short story, a tale or a narrative than we think. We can even get it from poems, songs and micro-stories of four or five words. It depends on what we want to get out of it. “That's the question”.
If you don't know what I mean when I talk about studying the book, let me give you some examples.
I'm not talking about academic writing or being attached to it like a dissertation. For me, working on a book is like that:
Character names, personalities, appearances,
The history of time and place names,
Idioms and aphorisms,
Words, phrases, quotations unique to the book,
References to external or internal local elements such as songs, poems, books, films,
Pages with sentences I like,
Comments about the book itself, the author and other relevant information.
Of course, what I do here is not limited to taking notes. What the characters do not say is just as important as what they do say. Hidden intentions, events that may happen later, foreshadowing, philosophical conclusions, and things that are not understood in a single reading can be grasped through repetition with these notes. In addition, when a work is divided into chapters, summarising it also does a great job for me.
I think we can understand books better by adopting this kind of working style. We can keep them in our minds for longer periods of time, prevent ourselves from saying that we are just reading for the sake of it, improve our note-taking discipline, prepare a better ground for our discussions, expand our ability to express ourselves, learn to look critically, and perhaps most importantly, reveal our power of interpretation. Exactly what we said we lacked in the first place.
Of course, this is not always possible. It is an undertaking that requires dedication, time and concentration.
So let me ask you this question. What is more important for our personal development: reading that we put time and effort into, or casual reading that we do more often?
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