Joyful Reading

Abstract

Abstract This essay contends that reading is nothing less than a validation of our shared humanity. However, the author’s joyful reading is increasingly disturbed by the dearth of reading in society at large. Missing is the focused attention on a single passage, unadorned by images, uninterrupted by alerts, unlit by a screen—simply text on paper. But in a world where celebrities appear shinier and happier than anyone in real life, black letters on a white background look like a failure, even aesthetically: too plain, too severe, too boring. For the author, that simplicity is part of the point: letters that do not call attention to themselves but rather to the ideas they signal. Digital media fractures our attention, while reading requires us to maintain focus on something other than ourselves. Reading thus resists two dominant cultural trends: the solipsism of life online and the impulse to move on to whatever is newer, hotter, or simply more outrageous.