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How many times have we seen the imperative ‘read carefully’ on medication instructions or an installation guide? I can only speak for myself here but when I see those words, I immediately concentrate harder than I might otherwise have done to ensure I don’t miss some vital piece of information.

But do we make the same effort to read carefully when we pick up a novel?

Read carefully

Write Carefully

Any author who uses writers’ forums or goes on writing courses will tell you that editing is one of the most important parts of writing. Yes, you need to have all the other ingredients; a really good idea, a credible plot, good characterisation etc. but the thing that ultimately raises your novel from ‘something I wrote’ into ‘my novel’ is good writing and even better editing.

An author may spend as much, and frequently more time editing as they do compiling. Every sentence will be picked over, every descriptor scrutinised, every paragraph dissected until the final product is as polished as it can be. That process can sometimes take years.

And then along comes the reader and in just a matter of days, or sometimes hours, all those words will have been consumed, digested, and probably forgotten as they move onto their next book. Even if you’re not a writer, if you have ever spent hours in the kitchen preparing a meal, only to have it consumed in minutes, you will know how that can leave you wondering if it was really worth it.

The Speed Reader

Jack and I are both avid readers and since returning to the UK in the summer of 2021, have acquired enough books to fill a large bookcase to capacity. Despite having loaned multiple books to friends, we simply do not have enough room for more, so we’ll be giving loads away to the charity shops and to next year’s village fête.

Consequently, when we go into Taunton and find ourselves browsing Waterstones, we limit the number of books we can buy depending on how many unread books we still have sitting in the bookcase. Which sounds reasonable, except Jack reads at twice the rate I do which means he gets through all his choices, and mine, before I’ve even finished my own. As I sit here, there are fourteen books on my reading list waiting for me to read, all of them Jack’s choices. He, on the other hand, has just two and will no doubt soon want to head into Taunton to replenish.

The Considered Reader

When I read, I like to hear the text in my head. Effectively, I’m reading aloud in my head. I’m pretty sure my lips don’t move; Jack would have taken great delight informing of that habit were it evident, but in a way, they might as well be.

This considered reading is not something I do consciously. As far as I’m aware, I’ve always been the same. I don’t think it’s a woman thing because our friend Jo can easily give Jack a run for his money when it comes to speed reading, so I guess it’s just a me thing. But the result is I take much longer to read a novel and will repeat a sentence in my head if it doesn’t sound right or I haven’t quite grasped what the author is trying to say.

I’m not inferring here that Jack doesn’t give due attention to what he reads while I do. I know that is not true, it’s simply that both Jack and Jo are far more capable than I of reading a book carefully and quickly. I’m just wondering if any of us is really giving the book the care it deserves.

Read Carefully

Last week, while I was reading Cities Of The Plain, the final instalment in Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, I read a few sentences and then stopped and read them again. Then I put the book down and thought about how beautifully those few sentences expressed something so momentous.

The sentences were:

Along the sandy unpaved streets nightvendors trundled their carts or drove their burros before them. They called out leeen-ya. They called out quero-seeen-a. Plying the darkened streets and calling out like old suitors in search themselves of maids long lost to them.

The thing that initially made me stop, was the noise their cries made in my head when I read them, and how that was exactly what they sounded like – the sad laments of lost lovers. I imagined McCarthy must have heard that sound and then considered what it reminded him of, finally hitting upon the perfect simile.

But the thing that made me put the book down and ponder further was that word ‘themselves’ which seemed incongruous in the sentence. Then I realised it was letting me know that the man hearing them, our hero, was in the thrall of a woman he could not find; a fact that we, the reader had been hitherto unaware of because our hero had been unable to acknowledge it himself. In just one word judiciously placed, McCarthy had put the reader further into the picture.

It would have been so easy simply to read that passage and move swiftly on to the next page but in those four short sentences, McCarthy had conveyed a world of feeling, and a precious insight.

I was glad I had taken the time to consider their weight. I felt I had given the author the respect his words were due, and from that point onwards I read even more carefully and probably slowly.

It makes me wonder if novels shouldn’t have the words ‘read carefully’ printed on their inner sleeve.

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