“I feel the need… the need for speed.”
I have a confession to make: I read too fast.
I don’t mean that in a sideways self-congratulatory I’m a super speed-reader neener neener to you slowpokes still thumbing through your December 2004 issues of The New Yorker way, either. I do read quickly, but not conspicuously so; I can’t cool myself on hot summer days with the wind produced by my fleet page flipping, or anything. When I say that I read too fast, what I mean is that I (often) read too briskly for my own pleasure. My eyes scan the lines of books and newspapers overly quickly, and I occasionally even skip whole words or phrases as long as doing so doesn’t actively interfere with my understanding of the particular sentence or passage I’m looking at (I have very little patience for lengthy descriptions, despite the fact that I’m not immune to writing them myself). In fact, I’m an incredibly efficient reader, in one sense, because I am very good at picking out the information I’m looking for. In another sense I am a fantastically bad reader, because I don’t allow myself the time I need to really commit to a deep and full reading that reveals the richness of a text. Too, my memory for the details (and even the broad strokes) of what I’ve read is generally rather poor. I often feel like I’m reading too fast, as well; reading changes then, turning from an act of enjoyment into a stressful, frustrating experience in which I can feel my brain lurching ahead of the words like a pathetically lame horse trying to gallop.
I’m not sure exactly when this habit began—and it is a habit, not an irresistible mode of being. I don’t read this way when I am editing, when I’m doing a close reading for the sake of analysis, when I am lucky enough to feel incredibly relaxed and focused, or when a writer’s style is so spare and precise that I cannot help but follow slowly and carefully the trail of words he or she leaves. I’ve always been a fast reader, but when I was younger I used to luxuriate in books. I would linger over each sentence because to finish a book was to be forced to exit the impenetrable personal space I managed to create around myself while I read, and meant that I’d have to venture back out into a world I wasn’t all that interested in—at least for as long as it took to find another book. In college I read huge amounts of material, but I never felt rushed about it… probably because I didn’t at all mind being lazy then, whereas now it tends to feel like a sin.
I think this freaky speed has something to do with having too much to do and always feeling pressed for time, with being too bent on getting things done, with reading being my business now instead of my escape. These days it’s the sense of completion I seem to crave; frequently when my fingers tell me that I am near the final pages of a book I actually speed up in an attempt to get there sooner, as if I’m a long-distance runner approaching her finish-line. I push myself, even though it’s uncomfortable and I don’t really want to do it. I’ve tried to be better at slowing down and savoring reading, but the success I have is highly variable, and depends on things like how many items currently appear on my mental to-do list, how much coffee I’ve just drunk, or how many words are left in the article I’m writing. I’m embarrassed to tell you this, given how important reading is in my life. I feel like I need an AA equivalent, some room full of sympathetic strangers willing to accept me for who I am and offer me helpful tips when I stand up and say, “My name is Meera, and I’m a rushing reader.”
What do you say? Will someone be my sponsor? Just understand that I might need to call you up at 2 a.m. sometimes and throw things against the wall while raging about not being able to stop myself from finishing The Brothers Karamazov.
May 6th, 2007 at 5:59 am
I really enjoyed reading that.
I know what you mean about efficient reading. I have the same dirty habit for writing these days. I had written a very eloquent and polite response to your post and I stopped, erased it, and now I’m writing you this again.
The next time you feel like you are galloping through the text, stop yourself, catch some air, and then reread it again. That works best for me. I notice that altough i read to understand, sometimes I DON’T understand, but then manage to cobra myself that I do because I don’t want to break that gallop… which isn’t very useful at the end of the day. I don’t know whether you do that (pretending to understand), but I catch myself doing that every now and then.
So I read it again.
And I understand it, and sometimes even, I’ll sit up and take notice of the wonderful way it was written, and just start to really enjoy whatever it is I am blessed to be reading.
Koobz
May 8th, 2007 at 4:53 am
I do not think this habit gets broken over time as you get more and more busy with life’s things as the years move along and you feel that there is less time to do all the things you want to do. I think it was Kim Ping who told me, once, that scientific experiments show that the time becomes shorter as you grow older. I am not sure how this was done but one way will be to ask people of different ages to estimate how long the passing of a certain period of time is; say one minute. They may start by ringing a bell or something and you then speak up or press a buzzer, when they think one minute is up. He said the older a person gets the “shorter” he estimates the minute to be and this MAY support the view that older people think time is passing faster than younger people. Intersting methodology.
I found that studying a text that you have to know well (and there are many such texts when you study and practice medicine) will slow you down. The other trick is to breathe along in a gentle staedy rythm when reading. I use to hold my breath for as long as i could when reading and this made me read even faster with the results that you have noted.
All I really wanted to say was we are looking forward to seeing the both of you soon and the weather will probably take your breath away and, a period of rest from reading, may be all you need. (rum and ginger ale drinks may also help; what did you say there were called, “Dark and Stormy” ?? Vijay
May 8th, 2007 at 8:10 am
What occasioned this post was a book I’m reading that has no plot and is instead incredibly focused on the minute details of life ; there’s one paragraph all about what happens to your lower lip when you bite really hard down into an apple, for instance. It’s helping with my speed reading issue, but I’m not actually liking the style that much, so I’ve come to think of it as practice, almost. ;-)
Dad, you are the one whose unbelievable memory for what you’ve read has always inspired me.
I’ll have a Dark and Stormy with either of you any time.
May 20th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Sorry to barge in again (well, not really, but…)
You know, they’ve done studies that indicate that quite a bit of what is considered maturing and learning actually consists of blocking out information. It’s a rather interesting conceit. Getting older seems to consist of an ability to decide not to pay attention to what’s going on around you.
When I first started trading on the p-coast years ago, I wondered how in the hell people were able to get anything done in such a frantic, chaotic environment. As I moved up in the job, I learned that more and more of what was going on around me could safely be ignored. And I became better and better at letting the things that didn’t directly concern me fade in to the background.
I bring this up because there have been studies done that indicate that quite a bit of our perception of the passage of time seems to be correlated to what we notice. Think of a time that you’ve been immersed in a “mindless” task. You look up after a few minutes and realise that a few hours have passed.
If you consider your mental construct of time to be marked with milestones of notice, the fewer milestones (events) you have, the less time you will have noticed passing. By becoming more noticeful of the life around you (ie. blocking and filtering less and less of what happens around you) you’d spend a bit less time on autopilot and things would seem to occur a bit more slowly.
As for needing a reading sponsor, I’d recommend checking out http://www.readerville.com. The woman who started the site used to run Salon’s Table Talk section and decided that she wanted a site devoted to books and literature. There can be a bit too much bragging about how much reading is done and a bit too little reading for my taste, but all in all it’s a pretty solid site. But there’s a pretty interesting group of people there, with a diverse selection of readers, teachers, writers, linguists and editors. A few of the people on the site have become published after some goading withiin-site.
It’s one of the better book sites that I’ve stumbled across. It’s technically a pay-site, but Karen (the owner) has not made it a required payment, so you can register and check it out at your leisure.
Sorry if that’s a bit wordy. Hope the move goes well.
Reading anything interesting lately?
June 11th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
You might also enjoy checking out http://www.librarything.com...
June 11th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
You might also enjoy checking out http://www.librarything.com
June 11th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
You might also enjoy checking out http://www.librarything.com
June 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Ack, sorry ’bout that. Computer got kinda wonky.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Jesse. I don’t really consider reading for pleasure to fall into the category of tasks where I’m gaining efficiency by safely ignoring unimportant details. I already know I’m good at blocking out information. :-) When I’m reading for pleasure, I want to slow down more and absorb it instead.
Thanks also for the site recommendations. I know of Library Thing, but I don’t think I need another internet obsession (my friend Sarah is always trying to get me to join though). I’m pretty much of the opinion that what would help most is just setting aside more habitual time for reading. I do plan to try wandering through Readerville some night soon!
June 12th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Apparently not! ;-)
(I’m sorry that last comment went into my moderation queue; I’m not sure why, but that shouldn’t happen again.)