Reading in Public No. 41: Thirty things good readers do
According to Vladimir Nabokov and me
When I was studying literature and composition in grad school, I read a short essay that radically impacted the way I understand the process of reading. I can’t really say that it changed how I read in the way that books like Craft in the Real World1 or Playing in the Dark have done. Rather, it illuminated something about reading that felt true to my soul.
The essay is Vladimir Nabokov’s “Good Readers and Good Writers,” which is adapted from a literature course he taught. You can read the whole thing here. It’s three-and-a-half beautifully written pages, and while I’m going to share much of what I have gained from it here, I really think it’s something that will speak to every reader (and writer) in a unique way, so do read it if you have the time.
This essay resonated with me so deeply that it became the guidepost of my AP English classes. Every year, I would start our course by having students read it and together we’d pull out the most profound and important lessons. These lessons would become our working list of “things good readers do,” which we would revisit again and again as we encountered texts that delighted, frustrated, and challenged us.
I continue to think about this essay all the time as a public and professional reader. While I don’t believe that there’s one way to be a “good reader,” this essay gets at the things I do when I want to read something well. I’ve wanted to share this essay and my lessons from it since I started my Reading in Public series, but at times it felt too personal to share! Rereading this essay again today and typing out my favorite ideas from it was—once again—delightful and invigorating. Reading this essay makes me want to pick up a Great Book and pore over it for hours. It’s the most wonderful and motivating feeling I can imagine.
But still, my list isn’t meant to be prescriptive—although Nabokov’s essay certainly is meant to instruct. I don’t and wouldn’t want to read like this all of the time, and I don’t think this is everyone’s way to be a “good reader.” Rather, this post is the essence of Reading in Public—I’m sharing about how I read when I really want to get the most out of my experience because I’m fascinated by the ways we all read differently. You can choose to take everything or nothing from my Nabokov list, but I hope is helps you reflect on what “good reading” means to you.
Good Readers…
notice and linger over details;
avoid readymade generalizations, preconceived notions, and expectations when starting a book;
seek to understand the world of the book as its own entity before attempting to link it to other real or fictional worlds;
understand that great novels are great fairy tales—not historical depictions of time or place;
appreciate that master writers completely reinvent the world in their own unique ways;
meet the author, “panting and happy” at the top of the mountain the artist has created2;
have imagination;
have memory;
have a dictionary;
have some artistic sense;
reread;
read with “the mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine;”
“enter into the spirit of the game;”
don’t seek to identify with characters;
employ “impersonal imagination and artistic delight;”
establish “an artistic harmonious balance between the reader’s mind and the author’s mind;”
remain aloof and enjoy their aloofness;
passionately enjoy “with tears and shivers” the artistic composition of a book;
are not objective;
put aside their preconceived values, ideas, and imagery to fully engage with the world, story, and ideas the author has crafted;
see, hear, and visualize the details;
have both an artistic and scientific temperament by balancing passion and patience;
recognize the prismatic in-between space between truth and fiction;
know that literature is deceit but also know that nature itself is deceitful;
recognize writers as magicians and inventors;
seek books from masters who combine the skills of storyteller, teacher, and enchanter;
are in tune with the artistic quiver that vibrates in them;
“read not with [their] heart, not so much with [their] brain, but with [their] spine;”
find both sensual and intellectual pleasure in books;
read to “watch the artist build his castle of cards and watch the castle of cards become a castle of beautiful steel and glass.”
Tell me your thoughts! What surprises you from this list? What resonated with you? What would you add? What do you notice about your reading when you know that you’re reading well?
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Happy reading!
Sara
Yes, I will continue to mention this book until every reader I know has read it.
This may be my single favorite image from this essay and the one that I think about the most. When I read a great book, I want to be that “panting and happy” reader who joyfully worked through the text to make meaning with the author.
Love this list and will definitely return to it but I disagree with point 3, for me. I think I get the point, but the way I see it, the book and I the reader exist in the real world and my readerly experience encompasses all the fictional worlds I have read before, and I don’t think I can or want to set those things aside when I engage with a book, even temporarily.
"Don't seek to identify with characters" is surprising to me! Could you expand on that point at all? I'm definitely pondering it...