On reading in relation to literature

ATLANTIC READINGS
Number 17
BY LAFCADIO HEARN
The Atlantic Monthly Press, Inc. BOSTON
Copyright, 1921, by THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
As the term approaches its close, I wish to keep my promise regarding a series of lectures relating to literary life and work, to be given independently of texts or authorities, and to represent, as far as possible, the results of practical experience among the makers of literature in different countries. The subject for this term will be Reading—apparently, perhaps, a very simple subject, but really not so simple as it looks, and much more important than you may think it. I shall begin this lecture by saying that very few persons know how to read. Considerable experience with literature is needed before taste and discrimination can possibly be acquired; and without these, it is almost impossible to learn how to read. I say almost impossible; since there are some rare men who, through a natural inborn taste, through a kind of inherited literary instinct, are able to read very well even before reaching the age of twenty-five years. But these are great exceptions, and I am speaking of the average.
For, to read the characters or the letters of the text does not mean reading in the true sense. You will often find yourselves reading words or characters automatically, even pronouncing them quite correctly, while your minds are occupied with a totally different subject. This mere mechanism of reading becomes altogether automatic at an early period of life, and can be performed irrespective of attention. Neither can I call it reading, to extract the narrative portion of a text from the rest simply for one’s personal amusement, or, in other words, to read a book “for the story.” Yet most of the reading that is done in the world is done in exactly this way. Thousands and thousands of books are bought every year, every month, I might even say every day, by people who do not read at all. They only think that they read. They buy books just to amuse themselves, “to kill time,” as they call it; in one hour or two their eyes have passed over all the pages, and there is left in their minds a vague idea or two about what they have been looking at; and this they really believe is reading. Nothing is more common than to be asked, “Have you read such a book?” or to hear somebody say, “I have read such and such a book.” But these persons do not speak seriously. Out of a thousand persons who say, “I have read this,” or “I have read that,” there is not one perhaps who is able to express any opinion worth hearing about what he has been reading. Many and many a time I hear students say that they have read certain books; but if I ask them some questions regarding the book, I find that they are not able to make any answer, or at best, they will only repeat something that somebody else has said about what they think that they have been reading. But this is not peculiar to students; it is in all countries the way that the great public devours books. And to conclude this introductory part of the lecture, I would say that the difference between the great critic and the common person is chiefly that the great critic knows how to read, and the common person does not. No man is really able to read a book who is not able to express an original opinion regarding the contents of a book.