The eternal joy of slow reading
by Lionel Wijesiri
Another major literary revolution is around the corner. First we had
slow food, then slow travel. Now, those campaigns are joined by a
slow-reading movement - a disparate bunch of academics and intellectuals
who want us to take our time own while reading, and re-reading. They ask
us to switch off our smartphones, iPads every so often and rediscover
both the joy of personal engagement with physical texts, and the ability
to process them fully.
 I
became a super slow-reader years ago, long since this movement came into
being. Sitting on an arm chair or crouched on my haunches in any
unoccupied seat in a waiting room, I slow read biographies, philosophy,
classics or historical stories.
Sensibility
My last favourite was W. Somerset Maugham's The Summing up. I was no
longer seated anywhere; I was standing in an elegant drawing room on the
French Riviera, a decanter of old port in hand, listening to a great
writer talking just to me about his journey through life, passing on the
wisdom he has gained. An average speed reader might dispose of the book
within one hour. But he wouldn't be living that book with the writer, as
I did during the six weeks I took to read its 379 pages.
A slow reader himself, Maugham wrote unsparingly of those "read with
their eyes and not with their sensibility. It is a mechanical exercise
like the Tibetans turning of a prayer wheel."
Two months back I sailed with William Albert Robinson, through his
book Deep Water and Shoal. After a crowded working day, lying on the bed
after dinner, I felt myself dropping off to sleep in a warm cabin, the
boat pitching under me. Next night I will be on the deck again, in a
storm, and after two or three graphic paragraphs I'd be gripping the
helm myself, with the roar of the wind in my ears, my hair thick with
salt. I wouldn't let go of the helm until we sail into calmer waters of
a new chapter. My voyage took me about eight weeks. Had I raced through
the book at my former speed, I could never have experienced the blessed
release of Robinson's reality becoming so vividly mine.
Slow reading advocates seek a return to the focused reading habits of
years gone by, before Google, smartphones and social media started
fracturing our time and attention spans. Many of its advocates say they
embraced the concept after realising they couldn't make it through a
book anymore. Before the dawn of the Internet, it was unlikely that
while trying to read, you'd be confronted all in the same second with a
blinking ad for belly fat removal, a message from a guru asking you to
download a free book on meditation, and a button imploring you to share
whatever you're reading with friends. There have never been more
distractions keeping us from sitting down with a book for hours.
Stress
A 2009 study (University of Sussex, published in The Telegraph, March
2009) found that slow reading (for pleasure - not work) for just six
minutes can reduce stress levels by 68%. [Note that listening to smooth
music reduced the levels by 61%, a cup of tea or coffee lowered them by
54%, taking a walk lowered stress levels by 42% and playing video games
reduced stress levels by 21%.]
According to the article, psychologists believe reading helps reduce
stress because while reading slowly, we concentrate on the reading and
this distraction eases the tensions in the muscles and heart.
Dr. David Lewis, a chartered neuropsychologist, dubbed as the 'father
of neuro-marketing' for his pioneering studies of analysing brain
activity for research, notes that, "...It really doesn't matter what
book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you
can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend
a while exploring the domain of the author's imagination."
Lin Yutang, famous Chinese writer, author of the best seller The
Importance of Living, and whose informal but polished style in both
Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his
generation, says: "There are two kinds of reading - reading out of
business necessity, and reading as a luxury. The second kind partakes of
the nature of a secret delight. It is like a walk in the woods, instead
of a trip to the market.
One brings home, not packages of canned tomatoes, but a brightened
face and lings filled with good clear air.
That is what super slow-reading is all about. |
