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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

How do you read? (The mechanics of reading)

09:18 / 02.09.05

Initially mistook Xoc's thread for a technical How do you read question, then remembered v. interesting discussion one night about how people literally moved their eyes across text. Was astonished to discover we all did it differently!! I'm a word by word, one line at a time type, whereas other's spoke of alien central columns, scanning and even (shock horror) tendencies to read last page of novel at beginning!!! So come, secrets please.

09:44 / 02.09.05

Word by word. Often more than once. Like a child.

10:08 / 02.09.05

I had an interesting book for a while called "Photo-Reading" which proposed some interesting strategies for reading - scanning the text first, deciding what you wanted out of it, how you were going to utilise it, looking for key words etc. rather than just ploughing through it like a job of work. I got rid of it in the end because I felt the central idea - "photoreading" - was a bit bollocks, basically it was scanning the text with your eyes abstracted so it would be absorbed subconsciously. Bit unlikely, thought I. And I got sick of the authors exhortations to buy his tapes, ridiculously inflated promises etc.

10:17 / 02.09.05

I think an interesting thing coming across from the other thread is attitudes towards reading as something to feel guiltly about not doing, or approach as work, and so on.

10:35 / 02.09.05

Actually (just seen this thread having posted in the other) one of the reasons I think I'm not getting as much as I could out of the books I read is that I frequently miss words as I'm reading and often only notice a couple of pages later when I realise that the paragraph I've just finised makes NO SENSE AT ALL in the context I've imagined, and I have to go back and read the vital piece of information ("Hereward walked in") that I missed the first time.

Illmatic, was photoreading specifically for when reading for academic purposes, or just anything at all?

10:47 / 02.09.05

It was for everything, but it had a taint of "I will read lots of business books" about it. Very much pitched at that self-help/improvement market. Some of the ideas were very useful, but the central one just seemed too ... bollocks, basically. Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance.

All Acting Regiment

11:17 / 02.09.05

I think there's a lot to be said for having several books on the go at once, and reading a paragraph or two of each at every reading session, if you're reading for pleasure (as opposed to revising for an exam).

It allows you several snippets of different texts as opposed to one slog through a single style/pace. This is how I dealt with Ulysses, Twelth Night and The Ides Of Mad.

Ex

13:50 / 02.09.05

[Quick check with paperback]
About half a line at a time in one 'glance'. Can do a line at a time when I'm in a hurry, or it's not something I like much (bad fiction that I feel I should finish) but then, like Vincennes, I tend to miss key events. I recognise whole words, always, and groups of words, often. My eye only 'sticks' when something's wrong or complex.

I'm quite suprised at that pace myself. I've never had formal speedreading training or self-training.

Academic stuff is different again - if I'm accumulating information fast, to compile a reading list or similar, I'll kind of mentally gut an article. I absorb paragraphs in a couple of chunks, interpret them, and then reskim the paragraph to find the line I think sums them up, then summarise that in my notes. In a helpful essay, the intro paragraph describes the whole thing, and each paragraph starts with a sentence that sums up the paragraph, so it's a piece of cake.

I like fiction that deliberately slows me down because it is either complex, or really good - luscious description, neat metaphor. I just finished an account of the excavation of Tutankhamen's tomb by Carter, written in 1923, and I had to slow right down because of the wonderfully careful, meandering style of sentences. Picked up speed as I got used to his style of narration but still a treat.
If I only have a small paperback for a long journey, I'll slow down and wring all possible meanings out of the text, and break off to speculate, rather than reread from the start.

14:04 / 02.09.05

Ex - I'm am so jealous of anyone who can read half a line or even a whole line at a time, and I'm practically green that you can work through academic papers/texts so efficiently. I'm really fascinated in how these different reading styles develop, and am sure there's been a ton of research into it. hmmm

14:44 / 02.09.05

I have a fast reading speed but I have realised that this is because I skim read a lot of the time, absorbing the sense of the passage, but maybe not taking in every word. This only becomes a problem when reading dense academic texts or particularly poetic styles of writing.
I get around this by re-reading books which for some reason lets me take it all in.

18:31 / 02.09.05

Plodder here, word at a time. That's understandable and probably the only way with some fine pieces of writing but it's a pain in the arse when it's just some crappy thriller. If Ganesh and I read the same books, he's through it in the blink of an eye compared to me. I might well stop and go back a few pages or just a few lines and savour a good passage again, or to check out what I suspect I have missed if something that mystfiies me crops up in the text.

I would like to claim that this means I have much better recall after I've finished but sadly not the case. There are passages, just a paragraph or two, in some books that I do remember for years afterwards though. There's a brief scene in Iris Murdoch's A Fairly Honourable Defeat that I first read in the mid 70's and still remember vividly, where the Satanic and predatory Julius scores in an art gallery, although the rest of the book is largely forgotten. Other examples springing to mind too. Weird braned boy, me.

22:08 / 02.09.05

One word at a time also, sometimes out loud. I like reading slowly - can speed read but it seems a waste, whereas slowly reading something out in my head in a voice somehow makes it more dramatic.

Tryphena Absent

23:03 / 02.09.05

It usually takes me about 10 pages to start to skim read. Before I hit that point I fixate on words and keep going back to them over and over again until my brain locks down and I start to really read them as meanings. I've done this since early childhood to the extent that I don't see chapter headings or numbers once I begin to read meanings. It's as if my brain doesn't count them as part of the text but I never have any idea how far through a book I am unless I actually stop and check and I have no idea how I can get from Chapter 3 to 10 without even noticing. When I've been reading something I dislike for a while I get lost in implications and stop remembering the words entirely. It also means that with academic reading I often understand what an author's about but can't quote or remember the reasoning behind a point. I often feel that my subconscious does the actual reading and my conscious mind only remembers the filtered points. If I'm really enjoying the language and sentence structure I tend to remember it more clearly. Incidentally when I do really read I find that I answer people who are trying to talk to me without knowing what they've said or remembering my answer- does this happen to anyone else?

08:56 / 03.09.05

Yeah, the brain's answering machine. While I am immersed in a Napoleonic naval battle my mouth will say 'No thanks' to a cuppa, which I will only recall with difficulty. The battle on the other hand I recall with clarity and excitement, weird. note to self- which is more real to me?

Ex

09:06 / 03.09.05

I'm practically green that you can work through academic papers/texts so efficiently

It's totally practice; it's only really kicked in since I started having to swot up on whole unfamiliar fields in a morning. Big pile of articles, four sides of notes on each, wallop.

My worst habit is not really reading the first paragraph of books. i think I already want to be reading, so I tend to megaskim that first section and end up at the bottom of the page thinking Where am I? What the arse is happening and who's Siegfried?.

I tend to recall things well, although I have read most of a book with a tingly sense of unease before I realised I wasn't pyschic, I'd just read it before.

18:49 / 03.09.05

I like it, that degree of engagement with a book. I like being so caught up in the story that I just grunt rhubarb at my beloved when he says he's running off with a soldier. I like being so swept up in the book that I laugh out loud, inappropriately, on tubes or buses. I shout at books just the way I shout at the tele when something stupid or shocking occurs.

I don't think I move my lips when I read, as some do, but I do suddenly realise I'm reading a juicy bit out loud. Doesn't happen often enough.

OJ

10:18 / 05.09.05

I'm not sure there's anything to be jealous of in the "gutting" or "skimming" approach.

I frequently do both these things when I'm reading for information, skimming through press-releases, getting the gist of a research report etc.

But I find myself having to remind myself to read every word when reading for pleasure though. It's not a race, in fact when I'm really enjoying a book I often try to read more slowly and take in every word rather than jumping through lines and paragraphs.

18:25 / 05.09.05

I find myself getting faster and faster and losing any traction between the words and my eyes. A bit fevered. Speaking the words, even under my breath slows it all down and helps me visualise and remember more. This is also definitely the best way for me when reading poetry. Perhaps because it is sometimes written to be performed.

And no matter how much I'm relishing a book, as I get to the last 10 pages or so, I just start to accelerate. This also happens when I'm walking to somewhere new.....hmmmm.

19:17 / 05.09.05

Poetry is the one thing I read extremely slowly, I feel like I'll miss something good otherwise. I read poetry very infequently as well, so I think I want to make the most of the experience -and I find it difficult, which could be a factor in all of the above...

Also Xoc, on your recommendation / description I bought A Fairly Honourable Defeat this evening!

19:42 / 05.09.05

Hope you will enjoy it, ma Chève.

I hope my memory of it translates to literary pleasure. Iris Murdoch could be very sharp, when she soft pedalled the allegory.

07:27 / 06.09.05

And no matter how much I'm relishing a book, as I get to the last 10 pages or so, I just start to accelerate.

Yes!! when its sooooper exciting I have to cover the upcoming text with something to stop myself glancing ahead and blowing the denouement.

And with poetry I often find the obsessive compulsive bit of my brain getting so hung up on the metre that I have real problems absorbing meaning - anyone else get this???

10:42 / 06.09.05

I often find that I slow down with the last few pages of a good book...trying to wring out the last few moments of enjoyment.

When reading I tend to read one word at a time, but I'm also aware of what else is on the page, so if the formatting changes, particularly if some dialogue is about to start, I find my eyes skipping forward to that section.

13:03 / 06.09.05

Sadly I can't share how I read, because as soon as I start thinking about it I hear all the words in my head, which slows me down considerably, and therefore cannot be how I read 'unobserved', as it were. Heisenberg in practice.

Maenad, I definitely have that with poetry. Focusing on the sounds rather than the meaning. In fact, I can rote learn things in a poetic setting without even contemplating the meaning, particularly songs, which I suppose makes me a thoughtless automaton (with aesthetic sensibilities).

13:16 / 06.09.05

With poetry, I was taught at school to read each poem aloud, twice, to get a true sense of sound and meaning. Because I was taught this at school, it took me a decade to appreciate the value of the lesson, and now try as often as possible (but clearly not in the bus or public spaces) to do so.

This may be a bit of a tangent, but has anyone read books such as Pale Fire by Nabokov, or the Dictionary of Imaginary Beings by Borges? These are books that really question How To Read in weird ways. In the case of the dictionary, do you browse? Do you dip? Do you go letter by letter? In Pale Fire, there are footnotes at the end of the book that become steadily more important and central to the whole sense of what might be going on. It is stupefying, really, and completely messes with ideas of reading page by page, as going through the notes at the end would be dull, and not only that, the poem itself, without the schizoid notes, would be dull.

Do you know any other readable books that examine and dissect the reading process in that sort of way?

19:31 / 06.09.05

I basically skim. Usually two or three times. I am fully aware that this is a vaguely silly and totally inefficient way to read, but it works and I enjoy it. I have no idea why I read this way except perhaps that I have a fairly short attention span and it lets me fill in a lot of gaps myself. If I know there's a fight happening in a scene, for example, I go through once and get the basics and have a picture in my head as I go back and re-skim to get more details.

09:52 / 08.09.05

One word. EXCREMEDITATION.

09:29 / 10.09.05

It also means that with academic reading I often understand what an author's about but can't quote or remember the reasoning behind a point.

I get this a lot, and get really frustrated when I'm talking about something (usually political) and cannot for the life of me remember why x is important/needs to be believed. And saying that you know you're right but can't remember why doesn't seem to do much to strengthen your position.....

09:57 / 10.09.05

has anyone read books such as Pale Fire by Nabokov, or the Dictionary of Imaginary Beings by Borges?

These sound wonderful, and I'm gonna put them on my list of 'books to look out for'. I really enjoyed Dave Eggars A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius partly for this reason, especially the semi-stream-of-consciousness movement through narrative positions. Am moving slightly off topic, but have always regretted not picking up book I saw in Waterstone's sale years ago - it was a series of seperately bound chapters which could be placed in any order to make up the novel, i.e. there was an almost limitless (sorry mathematicians) number of configurations, an idea which intrigued me big time but lack of pennies in the bank meant I went home empty handed and have wondered about this novel every since. Ha ha good old Google, have found it - The Unfortunates by B.S.Johnson. Anyone fancy giving it a go?? Seperate thread perchance?

17:59 / 16.09.05

That sounds fascinating- how long is it?

Borge's book of imaginary beings isn't as interesting as it sounds, the Book of Sand is much better.
Italo Calvino's 'If On A Winter's Night A Traveller' is about the new book by Calvino called 'If On A Winter's Night A Traveller' and the reader who picks it up... meta in a good way, I recommend it.

Can anyone here speedread like the Guiness World Record dudes who read a page at a time? It's chunking just like you and I do but instead of grasping a word or a line at a time, they parse pages. Frightening.

10:05 / 17.09.05

The Unfortunates is twenty five short chapters, which can be arranged in any order, with a fixed first and last chapter. Its 288 pages, which seems about standard for a paperback. Do you fancy it?

10:40 / 17.09.05

Yeah, cool! A bit like a story you can shuffle!
Related rook trivia- Wittgenstein's Tractatum (IIRC) was designed so you could shuffle the pages and it would make sense in any order, Promethea issue 32 the same, and in the Castle of Crossed Destinies the stories are told as cross sections of a Tarot spread.

08:09 / 19.09.05

As I mentioned upthread, I read outloud (quietly) when I'm on poetry especially. This seems to help me with the meaning and obviously, you get more of the associations between sounds. now, last night I was reading the "Birthday Letters" by Ted Hughes, and I started to try and do a Yorkshire accent. I have a CD with him reading his Ovid book, so I had a clue as to what he sounded like. This really was great. Like acting, I suppose (or possesion by Ted!), and it made the experience a bit like listening to the radio. Later tried a Neruda poem, but just sounded silly.

Crux Is This City's Protector.

02:41 / 20.09.05

Oh, without doubt, about the out loud part. It doesn't matter if it's verse libre or sonnets; I simply can't make any sense of any poetry, let alone enjoy it, without reading every word and line aloud, if only in my head (so to speak; that is, activating the speech center of my brain and forming spoken lines, in my voice, with emphasis and such, even if I don't vocalize them). This is half because I personally feel that poetry is best enjoyed on a sensuous and musical level, enjoying the sound of the words and the meter (often more than the content), but also because the much freer (than prose) composition kind of takes away my inner ear, vis a vis all those tricks and markers that I use, as have been discussed, to skim the text, and, yes, often miss valuable contextual information, and always have a terrible idea of what everyone's name is. I tend to almost completely skip all proper nouns, so if there are people or with similar or similarly shaped names, I'm nearly guaranteed to get lost.

I really ought to take these things slower, I guess.

10:15 / 11.10.05

On Pale Fire and other hypertext-type books, everyone should read Geoff Ryman's 253.

I've been moved to open this thread by Tangent's experiments with varifocals, which she had to give up on due to the fact that they only focussed on a tiny area - one page/line at a time - and she needs to be able to focus on a whole page/double-page because of the way she reads. I suspect if you followed my eye movements as I was reading (and you're right, modernmaenad, there has been a ton of research done on this, though damned if I know what it said or who did it or anything else - must have read it somewhere!) you'd see that my eye was all over the page. I do skim terribly, I never remember characters' names even into the last quarter of a book,* and I've discovered recently that I don't read the ends of books, which is quite useful in that I never remember whodunnit in murder mysteries, but sometimes a bit embarrassing when there's a book I've read four or five times and I still don't know who turned out to be the missing heir or whatever.

*But that's not just when I'm reading. I was a bit worried about my internalized racism when it took me the first half an hour of Bride and Prejudice to start being able to tell the young female Indian characters apart, but then was reassured that I'm an equal-opportunities idiot when Mr Darcy showed up about ninety minutes into the film in a different outfit and I had no idea who he was.

19:51 / 14.10.05

My reading style depends entirely upon the style of the author. I find a lot of what people write to be fairly superfluous to the ideas being presented, so I tend to skim unless the writing is really good enough for me to savor the style.

I read in blocks of about 6-8 words when I'm paying attention; if I'm moving rapidly the I'll usually read the first line of a paragraph as a single visual block but with incomplete comprehension, and then I'll read a random block every two or three lines, slowing down if I hit interesting content.

I used to have a hard time with technical or academic content because my reading style was so tuned to mediocre novels where skipping large amounts of text doesn't really cause a problem, but since I do so much technical reading these days for work I'm finding it a bit easier.