Pleasure reading?
This entry was originally posted on 12 March 2003 at 8:02 p.m.
Occasionally i meet people who don't read for fun. Not even nonfiction. This boggles my mind. I don't want to sound effete or anything, but i just don't get it. There are so many great books out there. What's not to be gained by sinking into one for the odd twenty minutes here or there? It seems wrong, somehow.
I've heard arguments from people who don't like science fiction or fantasy because they can't suspend their disbelief enough to enjoy it. That's fair. But there's plenty of fiction out there that resembles reality to the point of banality.
One could take the argument against speculative fiction a step further and extend it to all fiction. The argument would go something like this: by definition, fiction cannot fully resemble reality, so some people (who don't enjoy things that aren't "real") will not enjoy it. A little extreme if you ask me, but fair enough. There's plenty of nonfiction out there that could easily fulfill this need for absolute realism (excluding books on things like string theory and quantum theory--which make reality as we generally conceive of it a questionable enterprise at best).
There are people who go to the other extreme: they want entertainment, so they don't want anything that resembles reality too closely. And to them i say there's plenty of speculative and even surreal fiction--and plenty of books about things like string theory and quantum theory, which, as i noted above, completely overturn reality as we tend think of it. And there are plenty of books on the occult, for those with a more spiritual bent.
So how is it that there are people who don't like to read?
Maybe i'm going about this the wrong way. Maybe the issue isn't content. Maybe the issue is actually the effort involved. It doesn't take much to watch television, and movies are great because you can completely lose yourself in the images and sounds on a gigantic screen in a dark room. Movie theaters are probably some of the best venues for suspending one's disbelief and getting lost in the story. And this is great.
Movies and television provide the visual and aural components as well as the movement, rhythm, pace, and setting of the story. It's all prepackaged, and the only thing necessary to enjoy it is one's attention. It's easy to see how some people might prefer this, especially if they believe that less effort means greater enjoyment.
But there's a certain freedom to books. The reader can construct the scenes to her specifications. She can enjoy the work without being annoyed by choices in cast, setting, lighting, and so on. She can choose the soundtrack (or even complete silence, depending on personal taste). And best of all, the reader is not forced to complete the entire work in a single sitting, and is not confined to a single place at a specific time--books are the ultimate form of portable entertainment.
The benefits of reading for pleasure clearly outweigh the effort needed to engage in the act.
So why are there still people who don't like to read?
The irony of this, of course, is that one of these people, the one whose distaste for reading i discovered most recently, is a colleague of mine--a graduate student. In an academic discipline that requires consierable amounts of technical reading. I can't imagine what it's like to be forced to read for a degree when one doesn't enjoy the act in the first place.
I just don't get it.
Occasionally i meet people who don't read for fun. Not even nonfiction. This boggles my mind. I don't want to sound effete or anything, but i just don't get it. There are so many great books out there. What's not to be gained by sinking into one for the odd twenty minutes here or there? It seems wrong, somehow.
I've heard arguments from people who don't like science fiction or fantasy because they can't suspend their disbelief enough to enjoy it. That's fair. But there's plenty of fiction out there that resembles reality to the point of banality.
One could take the argument against speculative fiction a step further and extend it to all fiction. The argument would go something like this: by definition, fiction cannot fully resemble reality, so some people (who don't enjoy things that aren't "real") will not enjoy it. A little extreme if you ask me, but fair enough. There's plenty of nonfiction out there that could easily fulfill this need for absolute realism (excluding books on things like string theory and quantum theory--which make reality as we generally conceive of it a questionable enterprise at best).
There are people who go to the other extreme: they want entertainment, so they don't want anything that resembles reality too closely. And to them i say there's plenty of speculative and even surreal fiction--and plenty of books about things like string theory and quantum theory, which, as i noted above, completely overturn reality as we tend think of it. And there are plenty of books on the occult, for those with a more spiritual bent.
So how is it that there are people who don't like to read?
Maybe i'm going about this the wrong way. Maybe the issue isn't content. Maybe the issue is actually the effort involved. It doesn't take much to watch television, and movies are great because you can completely lose yourself in the images and sounds on a gigantic screen in a dark room. Movie theaters are probably some of the best venues for suspending one's disbelief and getting lost in the story. And this is great.
Movies and television provide the visual and aural components as well as the movement, rhythm, pace, and setting of the story. It's all prepackaged, and the only thing necessary to enjoy it is one's attention. It's easy to see how some people might prefer this, especially if they believe that less effort means greater enjoyment.
But there's a certain freedom to books. The reader can construct the scenes to her specifications. She can enjoy the work without being annoyed by choices in cast, setting, lighting, and so on. She can choose the soundtrack (or even complete silence, depending on personal taste). And best of all, the reader is not forced to complete the entire work in a single sitting, and is not confined to a single place at a specific time--books are the ultimate form of portable entertainment.
The benefits of reading for pleasure clearly outweigh the effort needed to engage in the act.
So why are there still people who don't like to read?
The irony of this, of course, is that one of these people, the one whose distaste for reading i discovered most recently, is a colleague of mine--a graduate student. In an academic discipline that requires consierable amounts of technical reading. I can't imagine what it's like to be forced to read for a degree when one doesn't enjoy the act in the first place.
I just don't get it.
posted by Circus at 12:13 PM
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