• Continuing the journey: reading to gain understanding and insight into the self

Degas – Reading, circa 1889. Wikimedia Commons.

“Read for yourselves, read for the sake of your inspiration, for the sweet turmoil in your lovely head. But also read against yourselves, read for questioning and impotence, for despair and erudition… Read your enemies.. and also read those whose darkness or malice or madness or greatness you can’t understand because only in this way will you grow, outlive yourself, and become what you are.”

Adam Zagajewski, A Defense of Ardor: Essays

• Stretching our minds: reading ‘against’ oneself.

This wise and erudite poet counsels us to read in order to be inspired, but he also adds another angle, another reason for reading, which might at first seem counter-intuitive. He recommends that we read ‘against ourselves.’

What does he mean by this?

He is asking us to confront and challenge ourselves by reading the most demanding material, contrary to our own views, in difficult situations.

Furthermore, he urges us to read what our enemies have written… in short, to look at all sides of life, all ways of thinking, whether we approve of them or not. 

Fighter – Egon Schiele. 1913. Wikioo.

There is much wisdom in this, for reading about extremes in life, about painful and perhaps dark and insane happenings, is most likely to increase our understanding of self and other. It will also stretch our minds, a little like turning things upside down through a visual medium, in order to gain a different perspective.

Anish Kapoor. Turning the World Upside Down.Flickr &Wikimedia Commons

“(Kapoor) investigates what we hardly know, turning the world upside down and inside out to extract meaning. It gives us a glimpse at the mysteries both of the human imagination and the universe we inhabit.”

New Statesman.20 October 2010
Exhibition review: Anish Kapoor, Turning the World Upside Down
Kensington Gardens, London.
By Sue Hubbard

There is a paradox in the fact that, as Adam Zagajewsky says, we can more powerfully become ourselves through reading about the evil, or indeed ‘greatness’ of others. By reading extraordinary material that ‘turns our world upside down,’ we can be helped to decide who we are, what we agree with or consider truthful, and what is our personal credo.

Escaping Criticism- Pere Borrel Del Caso. 1874. Wikimedia Commons.

Through such knowledge we can ‘outlive ourselves,’ that is, we can see beyond the narrow confines of our life, transcend ourselves, break through the restrictive frame of a self-centred existence. In this way books can help us ‘escape,’ discarding rigidities and black and white thinking.

• Books as mirrors

Henri Lebasque. A Woman Reading.1920. Wikioo.

“Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

Marcel Proust, Time Regained

Within a book, we often find aspects of ourselves. We are part of a whole human race, and it is inevitable that we will find our own image in the pages of many books.

These reflections are from the mirrors that a book provides, mirrors that verify who we are and how much we are connected to each other.

As well as offering us a reflective confrontation with ourselves, they can also confirm and reassure. Even if we are alone, they show us that we belong to the world and have something in common with others.

Mirror in Six Panels – Roy Lichtenstein. Wikioo

“Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of a larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.”

Rudine Sims Bishop

We need to see ourselves in books. They take our life experiences and give them back to us, processed, modified, perhaps, in some instances, justified. This can feel supportive and affirming of who we are; in some ways it has a passing resemblance to therapy.

We feel a sense of belonging, to ourselves, each other and the world. In the pages of a book we can discover that others, too, have feelings of unreasonableness, hopelessness and despair, ‘bad’ habits and crippling self-doubts.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet.  1890. Van Gogh. Wikimedia Commons.

Virginia Woolf also described books as ‘the mirrors of the soul.’ Within a book, we will inevitably discover aspects of who we are, as we are all subject to the human condition.

• Books as escape

“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.”

Alan Bennett

Books have power, the power to time travel through the ages and open doors to new worlds for us, both within and without. They provide refuge and relaxation, stimulating our thoughts and our imagination.

They can take us anywhere. Reading opens our minds and we will discover a whole new world of experiences and ideas. We can be transported through time and into many different places.

Reading can temporarily remove us from a harsh reality and allow us to take time out, imagine, learn and process our own thoughts. 

“We read to give our soul a chance to luxuriate.”

Henry Miller

Books offer us a relaxing break and a more creative alternative to staring at our mobile phones, surfing the internet, or watching Netflix.

Sheep with laptops – Michael Sowa.(b. 1945) Wikioo

These can be passive, imaginatively unstimulating pastimes. Whilst they can in themselves be entertaining and pleasurable, they do not generally inspire or stimulate us in the same way as books.

Allyssa Milan.fun with tv! Flickr

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

Groucho Marx

Poetry – Jean Baptiste Camille Corot. c. 1860. Wikioo.

“Words are the wings both intellect and imagination fly on. Music, dance, visual arts, crafts of all kinds, all are central to human development and well-being, and no art or skill is ever useless learning; but to train the mind to take off from immediate reality and return to it with new understanding and new strength, there is nothing like poem and story.”

Ursula Le Guin.

 

© Linda Berman