Reading Together

 

By Frank Filocomo

Should reading always be a solitary activity?

Nadya Williams, in an article for Front Porch Republic, makes the case for a more communitarian kind of reading. 

"The function of the earliest literature," Williams explains, "was to bring people together rather than give them a delight to hoard all to themselves."

Literature, therefore, was meant, not to be consumed in isolation, but to be experienced in a communal setting.

The Homeric epics were composed and performed orally by traveling bards before there was a Greek alphabet for writing them down. Performances brought communities together for the joy of such entertainment. These occasions also provided people with shared literature to discuss presumably for days after such performances.

I'll admit, my reading is done exclusively alone. I've always found books - good books, that is - to be a sort of vehicle to internal exploration. But, perhaps they can also function as a tool to community cultivation. 

There's different ways that this can go down. There are read-alouds, which Williams does with her children daily, but I'm not sure how applicable those are to other demographics. 

I'm more intrigued by silent reading parties of the sort that Reading Rhythms hosts in NYC and elsewhere. 

To be clear, these are definitely not book clubs; they're parties. 

Everyone brings their own book (no assigned reading here) and then discusses what they've read with a perfect stranger. So, there are intervals of silent reading, followed by intervals of conversation.

Molly Young documented her experience at a Reading Rhythms event in the New York Times. I recommend giving that a read here. 

To be sure, book worms are notorious for their social introversion. When it came time for Molly to turn to a stranger and discuss what she had just read, she recalled feeling "an icy dart of trepidation" shoot through her body. 

She quickly, though, overcame this pang of anxiety and lost herself in conversation and community. 

Some, at first blush, will think this hippy-dippy or a Bushwick-bohemian fad. And, who knows, it very well may be. But, so what? The revitalization of community will inevitably require innovative thinking and resourcefulness. 

I'm tempted to sign-up for one of these "parties." At the modest fee of $20, it is appealing. 

We'll see...