Doris Lessing in the Golden Notebook:
“I say to these students who have to spend a year, two years, writing theses about one book: ‘There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty — and vice-versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you. Remember that for all the books we have in print, are as many that have never reached print, have never been written down — even now, in this age of compulsive reverence for the written word, history, even social ethic, are taught by means of stories, and the people who have been conditioned into thinking only in terms of what is written — and unfortunately nearly all the products of our educational system can do no more than this — are missing what is before their eyes. For instance, the real history of Africa is still in the custody of black storytellers and wise men, black historians, medicine men: it is a verbal history, still kept safe from the white man and his predations. Everywhere, if you keep your mind open, you will find the truth in words not written down. So never let the printed page be your master..”
Never let the printed page be your master - good point that. Certainly true in the case of religion. Letting a set of words which someone has told you is from God - become your God, is Idolatry indeed! (ok, not that i think idolatry is bad in itself, but considering in the Islamic context it’s meant to be bad, i find it quite ironic i suppose)
Anyway, that’s how i read books really, i always have. If a book doesn’t grab me, i don’t stick with it. (even when i was reading it for class, or especially rather. Oliver Twist: eugh). I started reading Tolstoy’s Crime and Punishment recently - I took it with me to Tobago. It started off well, and I had heard a very interesting acount of it from someone at a cafe, which piqued my interest really. The premise of the book was a really interesting one (particularly for me, with my many guilty consciences), and I felt for the narrator, but I don’t think i really like Tolstoy’s style. Very soon, i couldn’t remember who was who with all the different names and i wouldn’t read anymore. I can’t force my brain to read anything it doesn’t like, that’s the problem. I haven’t any discipline. But perhaps it doesn’t matter, as Doris seems to be saying.
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