Carnal Reading and Spiritual Reading (novels, diary, encyclopedia, children)
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. . . when readers are enjoying the experience the most, the pace of their reading actually slows. The combination of fast, fluent decoding of words and slow, unhurried progress on the page gives deep readers time to enrich their reading with reflection, analysis, and their own memories and opinions.
The author says that reading a book, a novel, sometimes demonstrates the above, whereas the reading that many students now do, on the internet, tends to be 'pragmatic and instrumental'.
I like the terminology used: carnal and spiritual. I think it also can be used to separate the student who is more suited to academics from the business major.
The author says that reading a book, a novel, sometimes demonstrates the above, whereas the reading that many students now do, on the internet, tends to be 'pragmatic and instrumental'.
I like the terminology used: carnal and spiritual. I think it also can be used to separate the student who is more suited to academics from the business major.
I'd call it sentimental vs. utilitarian,
whether it's pleasure in the scenic journey vs. "just tell me what I need/want to know ASAP"
mentality/approach/material.
We all have some of both in our lives, I presume.
Interesting!
This also made me think of how I don't like certain non-fiction books that are set up to be eye-catching and flashy, and read like a web-page or magazine article. I figure they do this to attract people with short attention spans, or people who don't like just seeing paragraphs of text. They have inserts, illustrations, "quick facts," short little sub-articles, and other little interruptions all over the pages that annoy the hell out of me.
I like pages of lots of text, because when I read, I don't really see the text anymore; I get immersed in it, and visualize what I'm reading. Now I can see that's "spiritual" reading. I like to immerse myself in what I read--fiction or non-fiction--and I don't want the experience being turned into something like surfing the internet.
Interesting!
This also made me think of how I don't like certain non-fiction books that are set up to be eye-catching and flashy, and read like a web-page or magazine article. I figure they do this to attract people with short attention spans, or people who don't like just seeing paragraphs of text. They have inserts, illustrations, "quick facts," short little sub-articles, and other little interruptions all over the pages that annoy the hell out of me.
I like pages of lots of text, because when I read, I don't really see the text anymore; I get immersed in it, and visualize what I'm reading. Now I can see that's "spiritual" reading. I like to immerse myself in what I read--fiction or non-fiction--and I don't want the experience being turned into something like surfing the internet.
Yes. You get the point. I think the authors are considering that one type of reading is being sacrificed for the other and that is to the detriment of the individual.
Interesting!
This also made me think of how I don't like certain non-fiction books that are set up to be eye-catching and flashy, and read like a web-page or magazine article. I figure they do this to attract people with short attention spans, or people who don't like just seeing paragraphs of text. They have inserts, illustrations, "quick facts," short little sub-articles, and other little interruptions all over the pages that annoy the hell out of me.
I like pages of lots of text, because when I read, I don't really see the text anymore; I get immersed in it, and visualize what I'm reading. Now I can see that's "spiritual" reading. I like to immerse myself in what I read--fiction or non-fiction--and I don't want the experience being turned into something like surfing the internet.
I enjoyed the article, and, like you, am a spiritual reader. I like that.
I lose myself in my books. I have favorite series that I read every few years. One in particular by Celeste De Blasis is the Swan trilogy. When I read these three books nothing gets done around the house until I am finished reading all of them. I just don't want to put them down.
Her book The Proud Breed is one of my three all time favorite books. I read this one at least once a year.
Yes. You get the point. I think the authors are considering that one type of reading is being sacrificed for the other and that is to the detriment of the individual.
This makes me sad just to contemplate.
Whenever I lose myself in a book, I can't help but think of those who cannot. It boggles my mind that some people can't read at all. They are missing out on so much.
Internet reading is all about "bits and pieces" like Tracy described some books. Only those of us who also can read spiritually will think of digging beyond those tiny bites. I love following links and learning more about something that captures my attention.
(My family thinks that all I do on the computer is read posts on C-D. I keep telling them that I follow a ton of links from various pages, and I learn a LOT!
Sadly, I think too many people have the attention span of gnats. I know my brother does. He uses his laptop for going to Facebook. He watches television between commercials... literally! He changes the channel during a commercial and becomes engrossed in another show until the next commercial. I witness this on a daily basis and it totally drives me bonkers. (But I am not in the same room as he is. I control the remote when we both are watching a show.)
....I like the terminology used: carnal and spiritual. I think it also can be used to separate the student who is more suited to academics from the business major.
I am an old dog, and I have to confess those terms made me both snicker and shudder. It sounds like an approach to reading that the Sisters of Mercy at our local parochial school might have invoked, with the notorious Baltimore Catechism for back-up.
. . . when readers are enjoying the experience the most, the pace of their reading actually slows. The combination of fast, fluent decoding of words and slow, unhurried progress on the page gives deep readers time to enrich their reading with reflection, analysis, and their own memories and opinions.
The author says that reading a book, a novel, sometimes demonstrates the above, whereas the reading that many students now do, on the internet, tends to be 'pragmatic and instrumental'.
I like the terminology used: carnal and spiritual. I think it also can be used to separate the student who is more suited to academics from the business major.
From the article:
"the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains, quite literally, have been trained to apprehend them."
<sigh> "Stop, novel! Put down the page numbers. You are under arrest!" An author who doesn't understand the nuance of the secondary definition of "apprehend" attempting to lecture about literature is... interesting. Apprehend might seem correct, but it has another form - apprehension or apprehensive. The connotation (not the denotation) of apprehend is of understanding, but with unease or incomplete understanding. Comprehend does not have that implicit negative aspect, and the related word, comprehension, is much closer to an educated intent for the sentence.
"A book’s lack of hyperlinks, for example, frees the reader from making decisions — Should I click on this link or not? — allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative."
This is precisely how propaganda works. By use of hypnotic suggestion and standardized format, the reader "turns off" critical thinking and relaxes into the story/report/article/book/imagery. Real history books are studded with cites and notations and other elucidations. Relaxing into the programing designed by an author for the readers of a novel can allow a type of non-thinking empathy, and can be fun, but I would not claim it as a spiritual experience unless examined later with a critical eye. Some authors are very good at making heinous characters likeable or even loveable. Falling into the trap of loving those characters and walking away without some introspection and value judgment creates copycat killers, leaders of hate groups, and other misguided individuals. Psychopaths can be brilliant and even likeable authors.
"Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who read only onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and a third less likely to have a favorite book."
Oh, please. Even before electronic devices, a majority of kids stopped reading for pleasure after high school. The general rule was that the last 300 page novel half the kids would ever read was read during their Senior year. Today, every teen has to at least look at written communications. I remember teens that were doing good to sign their name to a birthday card. This is not new, nor is it relevant to anything but impressing the easily impressed.
"Unlike the ability to understand and produce spoken language, which under normal circumstances will unfold according to a program dictated by our genes, the ability to read must be painstakingly acquired by each individual. "
Aside from being a direct affront to the deaf, this is just plain wrong. If the author is talking about the base 4,000 word vocabulary that most people pick up without significant effort, then maybe there is a kernel of truth. If the author was writing in Chinese or another language that required intense visual decoding, maybe. English or the romance languages? The ease of general phonetic confluence makes that claim a stretch, at best.
"Nell found that when readers are enjoying the experience the most, the pace of their reading actually slows."
That is a generalization. When I am reading a novel and it gets interesting, my reading pace will often double as I shift gears. Only rarely are there authors whose use of language is so exquisite that I intentionally slow to savor the words.
I wonder if some of the slowing - in some readers, but not all - is simply that they normally don't pay much attention, and the enjoyable passages they are reading are interesting enough for them to pay greater attention to detail and even re-read. An example of that might be a convoluted mystery novel, where clues are hidden in the text. Another obvious example for most of us is poetry, where the words are intended to be translated at the time of reading into emotions or visual or auditory imagery.
To summarize, deep reading may have an effect of making some people kinder - provided that what they read is oriented towards kindness. However, it can also make people meaner - if what they read is incendiary or full of hate. That is the nature of reading. To make an article that is just a gloss of the "nice" is cotton candy for the brain, and something that I might read in passing on the internet... oh, wait...
Before, I always read only fiction, but now I involuntarily switched to non-fiction. I don't know if it's related to age.
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He uses his laptop for going to Facebook. He watches television between commercials... literally! He changes the channel during a commercial and becomes engrossed in another show until the next commercial. I witness this on a daily basis and it totally drives me bonkers. (But I am not in the same room as he is. I control the remote when we both are watching a show.
