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7/26/2010 7:41:35 PM
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AHMM Editorial
Posts 45
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Slow Reading
I’ve always been a rather slow reader, so when I heard about Slow Reading, the movement, I was a ready believer.
Slow Reading is a response and an antidote to the fast and furious way in which we are bombarded with information, misinformation, and that snarkiness that masquerades as wit these days. Ironically, I’ve come to this conversation about reading online, where I first read an article about it in The Guardian, and clicked through the hyperlinks with a growing sense of affinity.
Slow Reading is not radically different from what we’ve been doing (or at least, what I’ve been doing). But in an age when frenetic, breezy infotainment substitutes for news and tweets, texts, and blog posts invite us to skim quickly, a conscious effort to read critically and contemplatively may be something we have to remind ourselves to do.
What we’re losing, I think, is the experience of engagement: the sensuousness of reading, the meeting of minds, the cultivation of empathy with the voice of the text. That’s a big generalization, but for me, that’s the subjective difference of reading online as opposed to holding a book or a magazine in my hands.
Slow Reading, moreover, is just what’s required for short stories. They demand and reward that degree and close attention. Often I’ll read a short story twice, back to back: once to take in the plot, and a second time to take in the story. Short stories require the reader to be more alert to subtle shifts in tone, fine character details, and the dance between imagery and metaphor, the little hints that something is going on beneath the surface.
I endorse the advice Slow Reading proponents give for recapturing the experience of reading fully, and I think it is especially applicable to short stories: Read the story aloud to hear the music of the language; Read slowly to build a rapport with the author; Read the same story more than once.
I’ll also add: Talk about the story you’ve just read with someone else. Continue the dialogue that the author set in motion. Encourage others to read it or to share their thoughts about a recently read short story.
Perhaps the next “movement” will be Slow Submitting. To writers eager to see their bylines in print, I’d say, Before you seal up the story in the envelope, reread it, read it aloud, and rewrite if necessary. Then reread, read it aloud, fine tune, and seal the envelope.
What do you think? Have I made any converts to the Slow Reading movement?
Linda Landrigan
Editor, AHMM
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7/29/2010 3:44:05 AM
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Yoshinori Todo
Posts 232
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Well, I am a slow reader to begin with, but I’ve found that, the more I enjoy a novel or a story, the slower I (force myself to) read. One reason may be that I don’t want the story to end soon, but another is that I want to immerse myself as fully as I possibly can in the fictional world, take in every word, every detail, every scene of the story, see for myself what the writer did to make the reading experience so enjoyable and vivid. I want to be able to imagine everything that’s happening in my head, see a movie played out on the dark screen of my mind, as it were. That’s especially true with—you guessed it!—Agatha Christie. But I have to say that, when I first read her novels, I had to read as fast as I could, simply because I had to know what happened next. So I’m thinking that "slow reading" thing might—at least with certain writers or stories—only be possible on second and all subsequent readings.
Oh, I am a slow reader, but not when it comes to tweets, texts, and blogs. But I don’t consider these to be true reading materials, anyway.
edited by Yoshinori Todo on 7/29/2010
--
Josh
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7/30/2010 12:06:25 PM
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Leigh
Posts 211
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AHMM Editorial wrote:
Perhaps the next “movement” will be Slow Submitting.
No problem, Linda!
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8/4/2010 7:26:09 PM
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James A. Ritchie
Posts 142
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Well, I think fast for one is slow for another. The trick is to read at whatever speed you comprehend. For some, this is very, very fast, and for others very, very slow. For some, not at all.
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8/4/2010 9:55:00 PM
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Jeff Baker
Posts 132
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I've found that if I get into a book or story I zip through it.
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