Reading Well by Simon Sarris (July 17 2023)

The Map is Mostly Water

https://map.simonsarris.com/p/reading-well

Reading is alluring. It has a nameless quality beyond satisfying desires for information and pleasure. Despite more colorful and interactive media, reading text somehow remains more refined, more seductive. There is a visceral feeling to good reading. Partly this is because reading is nearly solitary.


At the beginning you are alone with just the characters. By the end, you are alone with just the author. To hear him well demands no other distractions. When one reads, or at least when I read, it is always very slowly and in a voice. Perhaps you have already imagined a voice you are reading this in. Say hello for me.


Reading is letting someone else model the world for you. This is an act of intimacy. When the author is morose, you become morose. When he is mirthful, eventually you may share in it. And after finishing a very good book one is driven a little mad, forced to return from a world that no one nearby has witnessed.