James E Hartley

It is a charming book, full of wit and insight.  If you like reading, you’ll undoubtedly enjoy it as much as I did. 

But (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?), there is a thread to Jacobs’ argument that seriously annoyed me.  It is an argument I have seen many times and it makes me inwardly groan every time. 

When a kindred spirit makes a wrong-headed argument, it certainly galls much more than when a philistine makes the same argument.  And, so I take it up here because I like Jacobs’ book so much.

The good parts:  Reading Adler and Van Doren was the first time I ever realized that different books need to be read in different ways.  Reading novels requires a fundamentally different type of reading than reading poetry or history or science.  Second, reading non-fiction is not the same as reading a murder mystery; in a non-fiction book, it is perfectly legitimate to look at the table of contents to see where a book is going.  (Strange as it may sound, this was truly a revelation to me.)  Third, skimming through a book to see the overall argument is also a perfectly acceptable thing to do; indeed some books should only be skimmed.  All that and more.  I learned a lot from this book.

But, Jacobs is entirely correct to chide Adler and Van Doren for what is bad about their book.  It has a rather officious tone.  It does not suggest, it orders; it never even attempts to entice the reader into its many insights.  It sets them down as rules like a strict taskmaster.  This is how you must read; this is how you must comment in the margins; these are the books you must read.

Jacobs will have none of that.  Instead he suggests reading at whim.  He likes that word, “whim.” Pick up whatever book strikes your whim, and enjoy.  Don’t look for lists telling you what books you should read.  Just read whatever strikes your fancy.

So far, so good, and if the book had ended at this point, I would have thought it was dead-on accurate. Convincing people to enjoy reading is much needed.  It is good to show that reading whatever strikes your fancy is vastly better than not reading at all because you feel obligated to read books you do not want to read. But then, as the pages rolled on, Jacobs clarifies his argument, and therein is the problem.

As Jacobs notes, if his book’s only suggestion was to Read at Whim, then it would have ended at page 25.  But, he wants to clarify his meaning.  What if, for example, I don’t know what books I want to read?  What if I want to read good books, Great Books even?  How do I find them?  If I am to avoid like the plague all the lists of “Books Everyone Should Read,” how will I find those books I would enjoy reading?

Here is where Jacobs gets into serious trouble.  Take someone who enjoys The Chronicles of Narnia or Dickens or Austen or Tolkien.  (Those are his examples.)  He notes that if you have fallen in love with any of those books, your whim will naturally take you downstream, to books that followed the book you loved.  Sadly, most of those books are not as good as the one you loved.

So, instead, turn upstream.  Find the books that influenced the author you love. Here you will find books that are “fascinating, illuminating—but also, yes, challenging. ‘Challenging’ is precisely what the (downstream) imitators usually are not, but that means they’re not all that rewarding either.”

Uh…where to start.  First, can we note that Austen and Lewis and Tolkien are themselves downstream authors?  If we take this advice seriously, then what we should all be reading is Homer and the Bible—can’t get more upstream than that.

Second, can we note that most of the books upstream from whichever author you want to mention are not very good?  That the bulk of what Austen would have read was just as poor as the bulk of what followed her?  Unless…and this is the crucial point…when we turn upstream, we make a point of only reading the good upstream books.  And to know which books those are, well, we have to have some sort of knowledge of which books are good.  And if we have that, then is there some reason we can’t use the same mechanism to find good downstream books?

And, third, look at the adjectives Jacobs uses to praise the upstream books: fascinating, illuminating, and challenging.  He has just created a set of criteria that suggests some books are better to read than other books.

Because Jacobs wants to preserve the idea of whimsical reading, however, he never wants to fully acknowledge that maybe some guidance is necessary.  And that is what gets him into the problem that really annoys me.

In a section entitled “The triumphant return of Adler and Van Doren,” Jacobs returns to the idea that different books need to be read in different ways to explain how he can reconcile his admonitions on how to read some books while at other times arguing just to follow your whim.

Jacobs, borrowing from Adler and Van Doren, says there are three types of reading and that we need to make a clear distinction which type of reading we are doing before we set off on a journey with a book.  There is reading for information.  There is reading for understanding.  And, there is reading for pleasure.

And, I wrote “Argh!!” in the margin.  (Really.)

Let’s take Jacobs’ book as an example. 

I read it for information—I wanted to learn more places I could read Great Books’ authors writing about reading and I assumed Jacobs would have some interesting pointers.  He did.

I read it for understanding—I wanted to understand more about the act of reading in the modern age which is so full of distractions so that I could more fully understand why my students have a hard time immersing themselves in a book.  There was a great deal of insight into this phenomenon.

I read it for pleasure—I wanted to read an author who knows how to write in a pleasant conversational tone full of clever wit and interesting anecdotes about a subject both he and I love.  As noted, above, I truly derived much pleasure from this book.

So which is Jacobs’ book: is it a book to read for information, understanding, or pleasure?  If it is one of the first two types, does that mean I shouldn’t have enjoyed it?  If I am reading a book for pleasure, does that mean I should never pause and look up and think about it, or mark a passage I particularly love (or hate)?

This idea that reading for pleasure is somehow a distinct act from reading for other purposes is one of the most pernicious ideas about reading.  It tells the reader that you can either pick up a book because you will derive pleasure from it or you can pick up a book because you will learn something from it or derive some deep understanding from it.  And given those two choices, which one is the better, more virtuous choice? Mere pleasure?  Or learning?

We read because it is pleasurable and useful.  Indeed, the very thing that makes a book a Great Book is that when read, it brings intense pleasure and it brings deep understanding and it is full of information.  It is the complete package.  That is the goal. 

So, read for pleasure.  Always.  And as you do, you will discover that the books that bring the greatest pleasure also bring the deepest insights into this world. 

But, if you tell others at the outset that you need to remember this is a Great Book, so it is useful or insightful, and not pleasurable, then it is highly unlikely that others will learn to enjoy reading those books.

In the end, I am happy to recommend Jacobs’ book.  I don’t recommend it because it is full of information or that it is full of deep insight.  It is both of those things, but that is not why I recommend it.  Read Jacobs’ book because it is a pleasure to read it.  If you like reading, you will enjoy this book.