On reader's block
JA
February 28
Over at FSG’s excellent Work in Progress blog, Geoff Dyer confesses to reader’s block:
This year I read fewer books than last year; last year I read fewer than the year before; the year before I read fewer than the year before that. The phenomenon of writer’s block is well known, but what I am suffering from is reader’s block. The condition is creeping rather than chronic, manifesting itself in different ways in different circumstances.
… Sometimes I’m too lazy to read, preferring to watch television; more often I am too conscientious to read. Reading has never felt like work in the way that writing has, and so, if I feel I should be working, I feel I should be writing. Theoretically, if I am not writing then I am free to read but, actually, I always feel vaguely guilty, and so, instead of writing (working) or reading (relaxing), I do neither: I potter around, rearranging my books, clearing up. Basically I do nothing—until it’s time to catch a train, whereupon, like a busy commuter nibbling away at War and Peace in twenty-minute snatches, I plunge into a book, thinking, At last I’ve got a chance to read. In no time, though, I’m like Pessoa in The Book of Disquiet, “torn, in a futile anguished fashion, between my disinterest in the landscape and my disinterest in the book which could conceivably distract me.”
(And if this floats your boat, have a read of Damon Young’s Newsreel essay, ‘The Reader’s Duties’ in the March edition of Meanjin)
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Comments
01 Mar 11 at 11:29
I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, I can empathise – who has time to read anymore? On the other, I think (smugly) that only in this privileged modern era could we complain, Woe, I cannot possibly read!
Either way, I’m not sure I agree with the concept of a “reader’s block” as the author sees it. The similarities with writer’s block stops at avoidance. I don’t see reader’s block as a mental block or fear. Dwyer doesn’t even characterise it as a state of being unable to read, simply that he has grown weary of reading (which is where I think the true value of the essay lies).
Also, I find it interesting that he doesn’t mention the web and the multifarious other distractions that the modern reader must combat. Not sure if this helps or hinders his argument.
Thanks for the link to a thought provoking piece.
...07 Apr 11 at 5:37
Reader’s block? Give me a break! This is merely the bleatings of spoilt, middle class individuals. If this is all they complain about in life, then their twaddle can’t be taken seriously.
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