Reading Sucks
This may come as a surprise to many of you, but once upon a time I used to like reading. It’s true. Seriously. I’m not kidding. It was as recently as the eighth grade. For one particular assignment, my English teacher required us to read any 200+ page book of our choosing that was set during World War II. I got to the library 10 minutes before closing time and had to settle for the first book I could find with a swastika on the cover.
My teacher was shocked when I presented it to her for approval.
Teacher: Are you sure you want to read this?
Baka-Raptor: Is there a problem?
Teacher: It’s 656 pages long!
Baka-Raptor: Indeed, it meets the requirement of 200 pages.
Teacher: Wouldn’t you rather read something shorter?
Baka-Raptor: But then I’d have to go all the way back to the library and find something new.
Teacher: What the hell is wrong with you?
Baka-Raptor: It’s just a book, I’ll be fine.
I read the book like it was nothing. I even recall enjoying it. It’s a feeling I haven’t experienced in the 11 years since.
High school began a few months later. This is when I was first exposed to depth, and it ruined reading for me. My English teachers would yell at me whenever I plowed straight through an assigned reading. They wanted me to pause at every background object described in the book and pretend it was a symbol for life/change/growth/sex/whatever else a high school student could be expected to pull out of his ass. They wanted to me to read with a paranoia that some cryptic message capable of unlocking the secrets of the universe was hidden within every seemingly innocent turn of phrase. It was absolutely idiotic. Forgive me for having a bullshit detector, but contrary to what most English teachers will tell you, there is such a thing as a wrong answer. Most of the crap I was hearing in class discussions couldn’t possibly be right, and even if by some odd coincidence somebody nailed the exact meaning the author intended to give a phrase, who gives a shit?
I don’t care if some flower in the third paragraph of page 113 is a symbol of hope. I certainly don’t want to adopt a deliberate, tedious reading style to make those kinds of unverifiable theories seem slightly less nonsensical. Instead of pausing after every punctuation mark to overanalyze the phrase I just read, I WANT TO MOVE ON WITH THE STORY. Is that asking too much? If you cockblock my plot, how am I supposed to have fun reading?
I could write for days about how depth is a sham, how it’s a perverse, elitist game gone too far, how it siphons creativity and effort away from more important dimensions of a story, etc., but that’s for another post.* Depth in and of itself isn’t the reason I hate reading. I still hate reading stuff that isn’t all that deep, and it’s easy enough to ignore depth in other forms of media. My problem with depth is that teachers corrupted my reading style by forcing me to look for it.
My 10th grade teacher was the worst. My brother insisted that I transfer into his class because he was supposedly brilliant. He was actually a smug asshole whose sole pleasure in life was showboating his mastery of the curriculum he’d been teaching for 30 years. Next time I see my brother, I’m going to punch him in the back of the head.
This guy wanted to see handwritten notes in the margins of whatever you were reading. If your margins weren’t filled with “copious and utile” notes, that being his exact pretentious catch phrase, you were a failure. If you didn’t meet with him outside of class for “voluntary” review sessions, you were a failure. I met with him only twice, and I walked out on him the second time. He especially looked down on you if you never volunteered in class discussions. About half the students caught onto his bullshit and quit raising their hands by the third quarter, but I was the only one in the class who never raised his hand once during the entire year. I rule. He called on me three times. I gave him the laziest answers ever. He refused to recommend me for AP English. I whined my way through school administration, got into the class, and got a 5 on the test. I wish I could call that a happy ending. Unfortunately, this was the class that officially made me hate reading. Great Expectations was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I couldn’t tolerate the stop & chop reading style any more. If reading was going to suck this much, I was just going to stop reading. My best friend for the rest of high school was SparkNotes.
tl;dr: Less than two years after voluntarily going 456 pages over the limit, I quit reading altogether.
I still haven’t been able to untrain myself from the stop & chop reading style. Until I do, reading will continue to suck. Luckily, stop & chop only affects the sorts of readings I was assigned in English classes: novels, short stories, poems, and plays. I’ve attempted to rehab with a few novels and light novels since high school, but I’ve had to push myself pretty hard to get through each one:
- The Count of Monte Cristo (Barnes & Noble abridged edition)
- The Catcher in the Rye
- Strawberry Panic (vols. 1-2)
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (vol. 1)
- Spice and Wolf (vol. 1)*
- How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life
The only true success I’ve had with anything novel-like since high school was the Fate/Stay Night visual novel.* I guess the presentation was so different from a typical novel that I was able to read at my natural pace.
I mainly wrote this post because the rant was getting too long to include in my post about the value of plot.* However, I’d also like to dedicate this post to those of you who are English teachers or aspire to be English teachers. Don’t make your students hate reading.
*posts forthcoming
Tags: books without pictures, catch phrases, chronicles of the efficient slacker, depth is a sham, i got 99 problems but writers block aint one, obscure simpsons reference, plot is king, reference to something other than the simpsons
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baka-raptor@baka-raptor.com
I’ve just come to say that I can only read what I like.
I read The Hobbit in 3rd grade for my own self, it was decent (Robinson Crusoe was better). Though, once I started getting into higher grades and getting books forced upon me, I started to dislike reading more and more. This becomes worse since Mark Twain decided to find his wife here and evntually burry himself here. Please die somewhere else next time, Mark Twain. I still do enjoy reading books that I like such as The Melancholy Haruhi Suzumiya that I wrote the best essay ever on for an extra-credit assignment (it was alos my first 100 of the year for an essay).
I read The Lost World (Jurassic Park’s sequel) in the 5th grade. No analysis, just dinosaurs and guns, the way reading was meant to be. That’s when reading was fun.
I didn’t even give myself the chance to hate Twain. When I was assigned Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn (whichever it was) in the 11th grade, I just assumed I’d hate it and skipped straight to the SparkNotes. I’d usually at least try reading a chapter or two. Man, I really hated reading back then.
As a LONG time lurker (2 years), this is my first post.
For me, Great Expectations was what showed me that American English courses were complete jokes. I easily made it into “honors” 9th grade, and had to read that horrible piece of trash. The only redeeming part of the class was when we read The Odyssey and were forced to make some kind of presentation over GE. Even though my presentation was by-far the best (I got the only A), and involved taping a doll (pink power-ranger action figure) wearing a white “dress” doused in turpentine getting lit on fire to represent the “catching on fire scene”, the teacher felt I wasn’t “honors” 10th grade material. I guess I showed her when I got a 5 on the AP test and didn’t have to take a single English Literature or Language course in college (I scored high enough on the AP test and various placement-tests that I got a minor in English Literature without taking a single class).
After graduating and getting a demanding job (SQA and V&V engineer for a military jet-engine program), the only books that I read for pleasure are the true classical literatures. I’m talking about The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, etc., and not the stupid classics like Tale of Two Cities or Tom Sawyer. To me, there’s a reason those old epics survived the previous 3,000 years of human history, and I enjoy reading them. Mostly, because the major themes, characterizations, and plot points in those epics still apply today (Hector cared about 1 and only 1 thing: protecting his wife and child from the horrible fate they would meet if the Greeks won; what man today doesn’t feel that way when going to war?).
While your posts are intermittent and rare, I normally enjoy them. However, this is the first post you’ve made in the past 2 years that really made me connnect with what you’re writing. Granted, alcohol might help with that
The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, Baka-Raptor—that’s right about where I envision myself.
It’s one of my goals in life to read The Mahabharata. I’d also like to give one of the Greek epics a shot, though I haven’t decided which. Not that I’m in a rush to choose. First comes God of War III.
I just browsed the CMU course catalog for the English minor requirements. Course titles like “Poetry Workshop” scared me shitless. Glad I stuck to Econ.
My asshole 10th grade English teacher would talk behind my back once I left his class. He’d say that some people were only in AP English to satisfy their egos and didn’t really belong there. Huge douchebag. He needs a “copious and utile” ass kicking.
Even though you’ve been reading for two years, part of me considers you new if you hadn’t been reading since I revamped my site in Feb. 2007. Still, it’s always cool to hear from long-time readers.
I remember having a disussion with an old archaeolgical professor of mine regarding presenting a hypothesis for field research. His general belief was that as long as theres no definite evidence against an idea then you could argue any old nonsense and nobody will be able to refute it with any certainty.
That same stance probably covers at least half of individual interpretations from “depth” reading.
Thankfully, while I do enjoy looking for greater meaning in classic texts my mind has never been altered like yours in regards to reading, therefore I can plow through books even if I don’t pick up 4/5th’s of whats being said behind the scenes. Besides, if i’m really that bothered I can check the internet afterwards for other people’s bullshit/opinions.
It also helps that, despite my protests to the contrary, many of the books I read (mostly fantasy) are looked down upon from an academic point of view so i’ve never been encouraged to look for further meaning.
Sucks about you’re asshole teacher though; most of mine were awesome and encouraged different outlooks on discussed literature. I remember one guy jumping up and down with a huge smile on his face when I gave an interpretation of a sentence he’d never understood properly (it was to do with an old english slang phrase or something). More than a bit excessive but hey, can’t fault the enthusiasm.
If anything I can relate this post to highschool art rather than literature. I used to love drawing anime, insects, architecture etc, but a whole year of being forced to draw bowls of fruit with pastels permanently destroyed my enthusiasm… bastards!
Some measure of discipline can take the fun out of anything. I used to love swimming. Then I was on my school swim team through all of middle school and high school. I rarely go swimming anymore. I don’t hate it, but it’s just not as fun as it used to be.
In archaeology, I imagine there are so many gaps in what you can know about past that there’s nothing to be gained by throwing out every theory with some uncertainty to it. Still, there has to be some measure of responsibility and ethics and in the field. There’s no way you could just make up some cockamamie theory and be automatically granted research funds to go digging for fun.
This is one of the reasons I say depth is a sham. Elitists are so insistent on the existence of depth—whenever they feel like a work is good enough for it. Trees in sci-fi aren’t as good as trees in Dickens.
Surely you still enjoy reading political treatise; ie ‘The 10 things you CANT say in America’, or ‘I am America (and so can you!)’
On a side note, mmmmmm, coffee…
I could read libertarian propaganda all day. You don’t need to analyze it. It’s common sense!
Humor has been easy to read ever since I discovered Maddox. Besides, it’s not like English classes ruined comedy. Intellectuals see no merit in comedy.
Speaking of propaganda, I finally got around to watching ‘Sicko’ the other day. Certainly an interesting perspective on the state of healthcare. I would be intrigued to hear your take on it at some point in the near future.
when I first read a book… It was a text book.
and though now that we had a lot of books in our house… I can’t find that strength to finished them all even I know them all.
crap! though I hate reading… I really need to do it for my studies in the cruel feasibility studies and thesis which by the way kills me a lot.
is there any subject that doesn’t require to read books…any of it!
But the most enjoyable book I read would be the math book in my highschool… I still like it.
Wow, you’re a huge loser. Not that I’m one to talk. One of my favorite books of all time is the 1993 World Almanac. Not kidding.
If a subject doesn’t require any reading, it probably won’t make you much money. Suck it up. Your future trophy wife will thank me.
anyways… It came handy in tournament in math so I can’t say it didn’t do any good to me… but somehow I did manage not to read it anymore due to obsolescence issue…hahahah!
But If I were to read… I’ll definitely read Da vinci Code(still haven’t read it) or something mind boggling. I guess, that something I really can’t change… unless they decided to pass a bill that limits the weight of the bag a student had to carry.
[...] honestly don’t remember that much. I wanted to rewatch the OVA before writing this post, but my last post was so popular that I spent all my free time responding to comments instead of reliving the horror [...]
I’m of the opinion that finding symbolism and such in writing are English teacher’s way of proving who has the bigger cock.
My prof this semester is nice. She’s decided that symbolism is a personal interpretation, and there are no right answers.
As long as “no answer, this is stupid” is also a right answer, I’m cool with that.
@Baka-Raptor
You hated Catcher in the Rye? That was an easy read, and while controversial and contentious, you can’t help but perceive its effect on people during the time, and on teenagers nowadays.
Hey, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was far more socially important than Catcher in the Rye. It still doesn’t make it a good book.
I didn’t hate Catcher in the Rye. It was better than I expected, that’s for sure. I still had to force my way through it though.
[...] storage cannot handle the massive scanlation, and he starts spurting blood everywhere, much like what happens whenever Baka-Raptor tries to read anything. In due time, Touma spots the glow from all the magic, and runs in to Imagine Breaker the hell [...]
OMG. I totally agree. I can’t stand reading for school anymore. I’m still in high school, and I recently read the longest book I’ve read in a long time (A long time meaning maybe 4 years…? …Ish?) And what I read was Battle Royale. Nice, gore. And one of the things I really don’t like about reading/reading for school is that I never have time for reading. ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY GIVE US 60 PAGES OF READING AND EXPECT US TO HAVE NO OTHER HOMEWORK. My teacher finds ways to keep us from using Sparknotes. Two weeks ago I had to stay up until 4AM to finish 2/3 of a book because I had a test the next day.
Man, I hate school in general.
How about listening to audiobooks? Are you open to doing that? It works for me.
Problem is that I do it for leisure and not to beat a deadline to make a book report on it.^_^
BTW, I love these out-of-anime-topic posts. The number of replies to your post prove that many agree with me, that or I’m just a grumpy old man who ain’t interested in today’s anime scene anymore, just like the guys at Colony Drop.
Absolutely true. “Language Arts” is such utter bullshit. There can be rigor in communication; things can be taken for literal value. There doesn’t have to be stupid esoteric symbolism behind every word. If someone writes something airy fairy that can be taken in many different ways, then it means the writer doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to clearly communicate. And god do I hate delicacy in reading “interpretation”. The truth is, there are many ways to interpret literature depending on your perspective. I’ve been chastised so many times because I didn’t interpret it the same way as my teacher. Fucking stupid bullshit. I really don’t care though, because English classes secretly serve to mop up these idiots so that they can be expunged from the rest of society.
[...] Reading sucks, but I must admit the light novel has one major advantage over the anime. The economics gets rather complicated at times. Digesting those pages at your own pace makes for much better entertainment than watching the characters yap through antiquated trading lingo so quickly that even a prodigious economist such as myself was unable to understand fully without the pause button. [...]