At the library: Immersion, quicksand and the art of reading imaginative literature

Throughout the course of our lives, our skills as readers and writers hastily develop without us even recognizing it.

Think about it: we first embark on our journey in kindergarten by writing cute little pictures which boast one sentence per page, accompanied by doodles of hardly discernible crayon images. Soon after, in first grade, we're reading early chapter books which tell tales of the sassy 1st-grader Junie B. Jones, or the mystical adventures of Ms. Frizzle and her curious elementary class in the Magic School Bus.

Just a few years down the road, we're high schoolers researching scholarly articles on the chemistry behind combustion and writing three-page essays about the Woodstock festival for our Modern U.S. History class. Now, as a soon-to-be college student, I have come across a piece by Adler and van Doren in my Literature and Composition class, titled 'How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading.” In this piece, I thought Adler raised many interesting points regarding what it takes to be a good reader of imaginative literature.

I thought it was worth sharing some of Adler's thoughts on the importance of immersing yourself into a story before critiquing it. He raised the point that we should steer clear of a condescending or judgmental attitude when reading a piece of imaginative literature in order to completely comprehend and fully digest it. We must be an active and open-minded observer rather than a participant or bystander in the story.

To elaborate, instead of judging characters for what they do as if we were a character in the story ourselves, we need to judge a character's actions based on our knowledge, as a reader, of the world they are living in and the circumstances they are facing. From there, we are able to truly view the characters from an open-minded and empathetic perspective. When we have achieved this perspective, we can then objectively criticize the book based on what the author did with characters in the plot, rather than the world of the story itself (as that is more of a matter of preference).

I believed Adler's thoughts were interesting and thought they could also be translated as solid advice for branching out into different book genres. When pathing into unknown territory, especially in the realm of book genres and the various writing styles of the multitudes of authors, it can be difficult sinking your feet into the sand of unfamiliarity. Adler's advice could come in handy when you do decide to start that journey.

Letting yourself dive into the book, immersing yourself, in order to really understand the world and characters of a story is perhaps plain but solid advice. We must only judge a book once we have allowed ourselves to truly take in every aspect of a story.

After all, maybe once you do take your chances by stepping into that sand of unfamiliarity, it will turn out to be a quicksand of enjoyment that you don't particularly want to escape!

If you happen to be interested in stepping out of your comfort zone, the Washington Public Library is currently providing curbside pickup and express browsing services! If you aren't feeling comfortable with in person browsing, then feel free to take a look at our convenient online catalog on our website (www.washington.lib.ia.us), and perhaps reserve a book or give us a call.