Monday 14 July 2014

Attitudes to Reading

Stage 1:
I assume the first stage was picture books before bed time. In some ways this has influenced my attitude to reading all through my life: it's always something to do before bed and I normally cannot sleep without it.

Stage 2:
School. This involved trying to read as many of those little books with the yellow borders on as possible (I distinctly remember one with a hamburger on). It was about learning a new skill and trying to be good at it.

Stage 3:
The movement to bigger books was not hindered by my reading skills, but by my love of pictures. I could cope with more words, I just did not want less pictures. I suppose to some extent this led to my reading of large hardback illustrated classics such as 'The Secret Garden' and 'The Water Babies' (from what I remember that is one messed up book). But eventually reading became something I did by myself, carefully selecting books in the library. I rarely read something I just did not like. (This may have been due to how long I took choosing my books.)

Stage 4:
Reading young adult fiction was a very conscious change, it meant going purposefully to a different section of the library, choosing books with YA on the spine. I think I was ready for more difficult books long before I  was ready for the more "grown-up" content (I was/am fairly a fairly naive person!) I am glad I did read a number of YA novels, though I am a little suspicious of this "genre" nowadays and the artificial divide it creates between YA and adult fiction. Reading these books was about gaining the experiences I did not gain for myself and, to some extent, becoming a bit less naive about the way things are.

Stage 5:
Littered throughout my YA days were classics (facilitated mainly by them being free on kindle) but I never really thought about reading a contemporary "adult" book. It was only when I saw them on the reading list for sixth form that I thought I was now "ready" or "allowed" to read them. Probably the first I read was 'The Da Vinci Code' and I remember thinking (with that brain that assumed all adult books would be as challenging or as nuanced as the classics I had read) "well, it's just like YA, it's not even very good". This stimulated 'Stage 5' which I would regard my current stage. I mainly read, (pretentiously phrased) "good books" i.e classics (modern or older), books regarded as important. This is a sensible thing to do considering that I will (fingers crossed) soon be studying English Literature at university and this fact has affected my reading pattern. Books are no longer devoured quite as they were. I read things that I have no real connection to out of a curiosity, a desire to experience all these different books (admittedly also because a small part of me feels that I "should", but that part can be dangerous!) It's not so much about that total absorption in the story, though with the right book this comes also, it's a little more considered than before.

Do you identify with any of these stages? Have you got any extra stages? I think I can accurately predict Stage 6: trying and occasionally failing to read like a machine all the set books for university.