How my liberal arts education ruined reading
Look out every Wednesday for a new installment of The Eye’s recurring series: How my liberal arts education ruined… This week: Reading.
It’s official. Lit Hum has ruined reading for me. The class that’s supposed to be all about celebrating the greatest works of writing ever produced by Western society, Lit Hum was supposed to be a literature lover’s dream come true, but it has killed my love of reading. Destroyed it. Annihilated it. Well, not really, but it’s made it pretty damn hard to keep up.
Once upon a time (before I stepped foot on the Morningside campus six months ago), reading was one of my favorite activities. I’d plop down on a sofa with a stack of books and some sort of chocolatey snack (milk, not dark) and not move for a solid five hours. Classics, non-fiction, mysteries, fantasy, chick lit, sci-fi—you name it, I’d read it.
Fast-forward to the present: I walk through a Barnes and Noble and spot at least 10 books that I’d like to read right this second. I pick one up, make my way to the register, and just as I’m about to pay, I put it back. I can’t buy this, I tell myself. I’ve still got half of Confessions to trudge through.
A few days later, a friend shows me a book she’s really excited about. One of Jeffrey Sachs’s new ones about ending world poverty. “It’s so good!” she keeps telling me. Being a potential econ major, I’m pretty darn excited about the book myself. I pick it up, flip to page 1 and begin reading. A few paragraphs in, a voice from the back of my head commands me to put it down. “You haven’t finished Dante yet,” the voice states accusatorily. “So?” I ask it. “I’ll get to it tomorrow.” “You haven’t finished Dante yet,” the voice repeats ominously. I try to ignore it. “You have no business reading anything if you haven’t done your Lit Hum.” The voice is right. I put down the book and tell my friend I’ll borrow it over Spring Break.
I reach into my purse pull out my copy of the Inferno (You don’t take Lit Hum books everywhere you go?). Two pages in, I can’t handle it anymore. I’m doodling in the margin, day-dreaming about summer back in California. I close Dante and put it back in my purse. A year ago, the Inferno would’ve been a book I’d read for fun in my free time. But there’s something about being forced to read a book that just kills its appeal. So now I’m trapped in this eternal reading dilemma. I can’t read books for pleasure because I know I should be reading for Lit Hum. And I can’t read for Lit Hum because someone is telling me to read for Lit Hum.
So I give up on reading and take a nap instead.
Oh no! You have to read some of some of the great works of western lit not of your own accord, but because someone told you to. Let me tell you what a beautiful intellectual butterfly you are and comiserate about how the Core, the existence of which you must have realized before coming here, stifles your pleasure reading.
I am so, so sorry.
You’ve just explained my own feelings. There is this psychological hurdle in me that turns into burden what would have normally been fun. Why does this happen when something becomes a chore?
Now I try read a few pages of a non-academic book on the bed right before I go to sleep…which also helps you fall asleep more quickly and get a better night of sleep..
Reading isn’t a zero sum game. Pleasure reading time =/= work reading time.
I don’t understand. Surely your high school forced you to read books against your volition as well?
You mus be one of those people who tried in high school
Oh, no, homework takes priority over your pleasure activities? Can’t be!
“Official” education has destroyed the minds of many. Reading classic books was never intended to be put through an educational meat grinder and analyzed the way it has been in educational institutions. The concept behind reading the great books is for the individual to make his own connections with the literature, not for “educational” experts to tell you what to read and what to think. Get the cliff note guides, read those, pass the course, then read the great books on your own accord.