The Case for Reading—Once Again

 

John Hallwas

 

I’ve been an advocate of serious reading for many years, and in fact, one of my most widely reprinted newspaper essays, “The Case for Reading,” appeared 30 years ago this month (January, 1985), when I was writing a column called “Visions and Values.” Our current decade, dominated by computer use, is a good time to provide an updated commentary of that kind.

Arguably, during our time of communicating through, getting information from, and being distracted by electronic devices, there is an increasing need to reassert the case for serious reading—if only to encourage those who already get messages and information online to broaden their approach, to put their reading ability to deeper use.

To begin with, I should admit that I’m fascinated with books. I always have been. Aside from being a teacher and scholar in two fields, I have worked for a library, a publishing house, and a bookstore. I have written books, reviewed books, discussed books, promoted books, and sold books. I have even created a “Books and Reading” (2013) historical program for local TV. In the process, I have often thought about why readers read and why others don’t.

Of course, many non-readers won’t admit to being uninterested in books. They simply say, “I don’t have time to read.” But they find time for TV programs, Facebook, sports, hobbies, clubs, and conversation. The truth is that many people have never acquired the practice of serious reading, largely because the intense satisfaction it provides for so many others isn’t shared by them. The problem is not lack of time but lack of interest and commitment.

Non-readers also know that reading isn’t expected of them. They can get along, have a number of friends, and be a good citizen without reading books. So they don’t do it. They simply don’t care about the rewards of reading—beyond the level of newspapers and popular magazines—even though countless readers have testified to the crucial  importance of books.  

That is ironic, considering the enormous effort of many people over the centuries to acquire knowledge and cultural awareness, as well as to examine the human experience and know themselves more deeply, through books. We now have far more good books than we can read—including thousands of new titles every year—and libraries that can readily supply them. Yet intellectually rewarding and psychologically probing riches that would have dazzled readers of any earlier era are entirely rejected by many people.  

A recent PEW Research Center poll reveals that 23 percent of American adults read no book of any kind last year. Many others read books only for practical reasons. As philosopher T. V. Smith once said, “There’s nothing to be done which books will not help us do better. . . . They tell us how to keep accounts, repair machines, build houses, make love, bury our dead, till our soil, and lose our wrinkles.” 

But readers who want that kind of instruction or advice usually have an instrumental view of books and knowledge. And more often than not, they are only occasional readers. If someone recommends a volume about social-historical changes, religious insights, cultural values, an achievement in the arts, or a complex individual, they inwardly ask, “What good is it to me?” Ultimately, that’s a view which limits the development of one’s inner life. The self is regarded as something with a use, not a unique center of being with enormous potential for growth.

In contrast, avid readers of good books—which reflect the experience and wisdom of humanity—are interested in cultivating a deeper, richer inner life. They recognize the role that books can play in the ongoing creation of a complex self—which may not be evident to others.    

Reading is, in fact, much more important to the establishment of individuality than television ever can be. Many people in a community watch essentially the same widely viewed TV programs week after week, but no two avid readers in a town read anywhere near the same combination of books in a year’s time. And if they did, their mental interaction with those books would not be the same. That is why reading not only reflects individuality; it helps to create it.

More people see movies today than read books, but aside from the fact that we have never had so many shallow, violent films before (which reveals much about our culture), even fine films, about complex people coping with life, are often less probing than books. Moreover, virtually all good films are plot-driven, in order to be engaging, but great books may or may not be, as fans of Montaigne’s “Essays,” Thoreau’s “Walden,” and Dickinson’s “Poems” can attest.  

And regarding computers, which most people seldom use for serious reading, I recall the question that Norman Cousins asked in a “Saturday Review” essay at the dawn of the computer age (1966): “The computer makes possible a phenomenal leap in human proficiency; it demolishes the fences around us. . . . But the question persists, and indeed grows, whether the computer will make it easier or harder for human beings to know who they really are, to identify their real problems. . . .” Half a century later, various studies, as well as simple observations, reveal that   contributions from the computer to most people’s lives are utilitarian. 

But even in a world of shallow preoccupations, often fostered by the computer, reading still provides a sense of deep spiritual community, a kinship with other men and women who have confronted the same challenges—maturing, loving, knowing, contributing, facing death—that each of us encounters. In a profound sense, serious reading shatters our loneliness, whether it is done on a computer screen or in the pages of a printed book. 

And that is perhaps the special reward of reading: the opportunity to become more deeply acquainted with the complex inner selves of other individuals. Indeed, that is one of the most satisfying and life-enhancing human activities. Nothing is more influential than another person known intensively—so intensively that his or her struggle or grasp of the world is understood and appreciated. Such a complex self can then challenge or deepen our own orientation.

        Through books we can participate with St. Augustine and Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Jane Austen, in the quest for insight into the natural world, human affairs, and spiritual meaning. We can broaden our awareness, enlarge our sympathy, deepen our understanding, and—in a world filled with distorted political and religious propaganda that denigrates those who are different—avoid being manipulated.  

To be sure, books aren’t everything. As Cousins also once said, “A book is a part of life, not a substitute for it.” But even in our miraculous electronic age, no solitary activity can be more intensely satisfying or deeply significant than reading books.