A few weeks back, I had the pleasure of speaking about literacy at Channel Thirteen’s Celebration of Teaching and Learning in New York. For their educational blog, I wrote a few words, and also chatted on the panel about a problem I see, and I’ve been wanting to look at this in more depth. I’ll begin here by excerpting a bit of the original post, but over the next weeks I want to develop the idea of quiet — in our minds, our lives, our reading. Quiet is becoming impossible to attain, because of the accumulated noise from public soundtracks, the jabbering of loud people, the roar of transportation devices, the blather in our own heads; for one, I’m convinced that we are losing or have lost one of the signal joys of human — to shut it all down and simply be.
I’ll begin with the idea of quiet reading.
As I see it, among those who do read, “quiet reading” — the manner of reading without distraction — is at least fiercely under attack, at most doomed. Because of the homogenization of culture and the pervasiveness of technology, even the youngest readers face a bewildering spectrum of distractions that cut into their time and ability to focus on reading.
Even then, much of the reading being done is secondary to the activity — such as Internet reading, the “reading” of video game manuals, web browsing, and the like. We could call this “noisy reading,” in which the paradigm of the solitary reader interacting with words on the page is drowned under near-constant music, whining computer fans, and flickering images, not to mention the “horror” of being alone.
The concept of quiet reading is probably already terminal; at the very least it faces awesome competition by an uncomprehending world. Authors for children have had to face this competition and adapt to it, hoping that books can form a part of that busy spectrum of activities — such as the inclusion of computer and non-book elements into the storytelling. But this is a losing battle.
To give a specific example of how adults have become inured to the problem, we carry books around with us. This is a defense, you say, against falling prey to the blaring world at large. But to admit that is to avoid the deeper issue. You may think you are reading Robert Frost on the subway, shelled up in yourself against the multitude of distractions of public transportation — but you are not reading Robert Frost. The quality of your reading is marginal. You want points for trying. You insist it’s better than looking at the shoes of the person across from you — which it is, certainly; all of that — but that tiny pride will work against you when you try to sit in silence and engage with words. You will hear a ghost, an apparition. Not the living breathing speaking man.
Of course, there are a thousand caveats. I live an hour from New York City. There is no quiet here. The bucolic parkway a mile from my house is a constant white roar. Hand tools, compressors, refrigerator motors, the sheen of noise when the water is run. Sure. Sure. They insist, too, that the past is the one place you can’t go to, so get used to it. I still think that there is something in words on paper that I’m not hearing or feeling or knowing because of the constant hiss of life but that is essential — or more than essential, if there is such a thing.
So the search begins . . .