Reading Relationally
What does the relationship of reader and writer mean?
by Selah Bell
Right now I’m reading a book I don’t like very much. It’s the kind of book that I would have stopped reading after one or two pages if I had ever picked it up to begin with
(which in this particular instance is very unlikely) but it’s for a class and I have no choice but to force my way through it. Probably because it’s for school, I’ve spent more time considering why I dislike it than I have reading it. The conclusion I’ve come to, for now at least, is a lack of connectedness.
Most people recognize that there are several vastly different ways for a book to be good. Maybe the writing is beautiful and it’s just fun to read. Some books are incredibly boring but do such a wonderful job of conveying an idea or creating realistic characters that we call them good books in spite of the fact that we would never wish to recreate the experience of actually reading them.
I won’t say that the value of the written word can be condensed to a single point. It can entertain, expose, document, and so much more. Yet, in my mind, the commonality of all writing and reading is that it facilitates a connection between one person and another.
Even something like stream of conscious journaling, where a person is just writing to process their own life, seeks to connect past and present versions of the author and their thoughts. In an instance like this, the catharsis of the act comes from the joining of the two.
It is this joining that makes reading so personal and why half the beauty of the experience is found in its subjectivity. There is always a thread between author and reader. In some instances, what we connect to may be the author’s specific intent, a value shared between us. In other cases, such as works by unknown authors or authors we know little of, we might find ourselves instead connecting to universal human desires and experiences that are present in the work.
I’ve seen some people say that the death of the author is the birth of the reader, that as our own subjective ideas of a work are the only thing we can experience, they are the only part of the process that matters. However, I think that taking this idea at face value ignores the responsibility that we readers have to acknowledge the relational nature of reading and writing.
Although there are plenty of examples of times when authorial intent hasn’t necessarily mattered, to ignore the author’s personhood, their given existence as an individual at some point in time, robs the literary experience of its humanity.
It is because of this inherent relationship, that we should try to consider our own criticisms of and reactions to a work as carefully as we consider the work itself. If we don’t ask why we think what we think or feel what we feel, then we miss an opportunity to fully engage with what we’re reading and the gravity of artistic connection.
If the act of reading automatically comes with multiple layers of subjective perspectives, those implied by the author and our own, then thoughtful reading is the tool that allows us to understand these different perspectives individually as well as the way they come together to create our unique relationship to a work.
So, when we consider why an author might have made their artistic choices and where or why our own tastes agree or differ we can benefit from recognizing reading for what it is: Something a little convoluted, relational, subjective, and entirely human.
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“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past
centuries.”
René Descartes
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