What We Read And Why We Read
“ We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything, what a waste!”
Dear readers and lovers of reading,
These are the lines from the book Call Me By Your Name, by Andre Aciman, fondly adapted to the screen by James Ivory and Luca Guadagnino.
Now, let’s talk to each other, one voice to another, like two unmet familiars. At the risk of sounding boastful, I’ll say this: I did not copy-paste the quote from a website. I wrote it word for word, without blinking, straight from the pages of Aciman’s novel. I am not boasting about this because I want to parade my taste in words or my ability to quote from memory. I’m trying to prove the influence, or rather the hold, a good book has over a person. I’ve read this novel three times but I remember recalling this line since the first time I put it down after reading. This brings me to my hypothesis — It’s never about how many or how many times we read something. It’s about what we read and why we read it.
The clock struck 12 on the 31st, and I found my Instagram feed full of content about New Year’s resolutions — given my search history and content behavior, most of them were about writing and reading. I saw people making promises to themselves to read as many books as they could. What’s the problem with it? Is it not a “good habit”? — you may ask. You might have even filled your Goodreads page with a bunch of new books like the last year, only for those to end like proverbial top-shelf liquor — desired but never touched. I’m not trying to shame you, believe me. I’ve made a lot of promises in the past that I have let down too. I am simply trying to appeal to you to treat this new aspiration for a new habit with some kindness.
Like body count, the number of books you read is not going to matter. It could be 5000 books, or it could just be 5. Numbers are just numbers on a soulless surface if the books you read don’t truly speak to you. As David Foster Wallace once said (and I paraphrase) — Books are like a double-edged sword, there are books with good morals and sharp knowledge. The stuff elders make you read so you can grow a little wiser. And then, there are books you read for the pure pleasure of it. It is a form of communication between two humans that comes directly from each other’s consciousness. A book, good or bad, should be able to give you a pure catharsis that can only be achieved when you make immaculate sense of something. So, write this down. This should be your ultimate goal. Reading is no different than living life until the end of time — in constant need of meaning. Without it, a book, and the words inside it, are just a waste of vegetation, just as life is an empty conch shell.
Ask yourself this question each time you pick up a book. One: Why do I think I want to read this book? It could be anything, fun, knowledge, inspiration, or you simply want some help sleeping and you hate taking pills. But the “why” is the key to making sense of what you read. If you can’t seem to find a single book that answers the question, then simply wait until you find one.
With that, dear readers and lovers of reading, books are truly the one thing that puts us all together on a dissimilar path. I hope you find your soulbook. Happy New Year.
