So often do I hear about how reading is so hard; it takes too much time; I don't like it.
I will say three things in response to this.
Reading takes practice - like anything, it gets better with time.
Reading only takes as much time as you put into it - no one is going to be standing over you forcing you to keep going.
Reading large quantities of books is not for everyone, no. However, reading one book can be. All it takes is one and the decision to keep going.
1. Books are people. Give them a chance.
“Believing takes practice.” ~ A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
Do not ever tell yourself that you do not like a certain genre. Every book is different even if they are grouped together as “the same.”
We can consider that if books are people, genres are personality types. One would never say that they disliked all extroverted or introverted people, loud or quiet, social-butterflies or solitary bibliophiles.
Likewise, one cannot say that they dislike all mysteries, all biographies or all science-fiction. Perhaps one is preferred over another, however the topic of literature is not one to be painted over with a broad brush. It is one to be delved into and explored, scavenged through one by one and not discarded stacks at a time.
Too often do we generalize and become so engrossed in what we know that we forget about that which we do not yet know. If one book catches your attention, read it! Realize the genre later and pick it up because it might interest you.
2. The main character isn’t as unlikeable as you think.
“Since I have a poet’s weakness for symbols, I am using this character also as a symbol; he is the long-delayed but always expected something that we live for."
~The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams
It is a strange and wonderful experience to find oneself in a character. Without realizing it, something in the brain jumps up and says, “Hey! That’s me!”
Maybe it is found in an attitude, or a nervous habit or a single string of dialogue, but it will be there. It is possible to find anyone in every story, new or old, popular or unknown. After all, that is the author’s goal: to make their characters relatable.
Readers need connection to keep a grip on the story, and the story needs connection to keep a grip on its’ readers.
This can be imagined like placing money in a pool. When you have a stake in something, suddenly what happens to that something becomes a lot more important, in this case, a character.
If we as readers see a little bit of ourselves in the work, we are suddenly invested in the story, in that person even, as a whole. Does the character die in the end? Is she redeemed? Does he succeed despite his mistakes? We use their trials and triumphs as a kind of literary tarot, giving us hints about how our own lives might unfold.
3. This is what you have been trying to say all along.
“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.”
~ Fault in our Stars, John Green
Similarly, our own thoughts sometimes appear in the works we read as well.
Have you ever wondered if other people thought the same way as you do, if others asked themselves the same questions or came to similar conclusions?
Within every text, so many factors are at play that there will imminently be something to make the reader think, in accordance with the author’s undoubted intent. It is all too possible that something, a phrase, a word even, will catch your attention and hold you there for just a moment longer than the rest. This moment is one in which we can both find a little bit of ourselves and put words to our own undefined thoughts.
4. Or maybe you hadn’t thought of that before.
“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without color, pain, or past.”
~The Giver, Lois Lowry
If our lives only revolved around the facts which we knew to be true, we would not then take enjoyment from the consideration of the unknown. This, however, is not the case.
We are a people who seem attracted to, who chase down, mystery in order to make some sense of it. There is a thrill in this, I think, that reinforces our belief, no, our knowledge, that there are always new aspects of the world to discover.
The same is true of new ideas that any given work brings to the table. It’s a bit like participating in a group discussion and being struck by the comment made by the normally silent individual. It is something well-planned, considered and often unrealized by others. It is the outsider in terms of ideas, and one that speaks quietly until it is noticed, at which time it bellows.
5. We are beings reliant on new perspectives.
“Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is.”
~ Continental Drift, Russell Banks
We are all subject to change, as is the world as a whole.
This is no new idea, rather, one that has pervaded human society and culture for centuries. Art and literature are the results of this change, and as such, they are also the very motivations for that of the future.
Each book is its own history and is pulled out of the world as it is at the time. This allows us, as readers, to recollect events of the past and events of the present, each bringing our own individual perspectives to the fore where they will become interwoven with those with which they come into contact.
The only hitch? We must first pick up the book which we may be afraid of, the book that we “do not like,” and we must read the book because of what it might be, not because of what we think it is.
