Alan Jacobs (2) (1958–)

Rating: 4 out of 5

“I am aware that I have taken on a difficult task here: attention to the past is a hard sell. I want to argue that you can’t understand the place and time you’re in by immersion; the opposite’s true. You have to step out and away and back and forward, and you have to do it regularly.”

This is, in a nutshell, the thesis of this book. Jacobs argues that in the age of social media, many classics and old books have been labeled ‘problematic’ and are discarded. This isn’t merely an other's problem for me though, many a time I’ve started reading a book and a few pages in went ‘ew’ from some unsavory sentiment. (A recent example would be Prisoners of the Sea,a childhood favorite, that I wanted to reread. The first chapter quite literally compared a black character to a dog [This book was written in 1897, and the allusion seems to me to be dated even for that time]. I went ‘ew’ and set the book down, not wanting to spoil the remaining good childhood memories.) This book is a thoughtful walk through both literature and some philosophy regarding how we read books from the past, the ethical questions that arise, and how to understand the changes that the world has experienced between an author’s time and the present day.

Another interesting idea Jacobs presents is that of informational triage. Due to the constant stream of information that we receive from the internet and social media, we are forced to perform a triage of this intake. To cope we quickly sort sources of information allowing us to nominally process our massive input. We rarely have the time to think something through from begging to end, let alone find differing perspectives. Our process of sorting is what leads to the oftentimes vicious reaction of online ‘cancellation’. Jacobs, of course, lays out this concept much more elegantly than this review, but I found it to be quite persuasive and applicable to my own practice of information handling.

The flip side of throwing out all old writings and ideas is embracing them uncritically, and this is not Jacobs’ intent either: “To say “This text offends me, I will read no further” may be shortsighted; but to read a “great book” from the past with such reverence that you can’t see where its views are wrong, or even where they differ from your own, is no better. Indeed, in foreclosing the possibility of real challenge it is worse.” The point of reading material written in a different age, apart from enjoyment, is to learn. To learn about the past, to learn about their wisdom, and to question the fundamentals of our current society. By seeing what escaped the eyes and thoughts of those who’ve gone before, perhaps some light can be shed on the unchallenged fundamentals of our present existence in a way that only our imagination cannot.

I only have a couple of bones to pick with this book. The excessive number of unnecessarily italicized words to provide emphasis, especially in sentences in which that emphasis was already patently obvious was very irksome. I also think that the book brought in a lot of material that wasn’t fully addressed or digested, consequently having little bearing on the arguments at play.

I quite enjoyed reading this book. I feel encouraged to try to slow the information that I receive on a constant basis, and I am also heartened to pick up some classics again. I guess if a book on the subject of reading his makes one want to read more, then it was a success. To end with a line that I chuckled at “but here’s one of the most important traits of authors of old books: they’re dead. You can neither punish them nor reward them.”
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I picked up this book because, like many readers, I struggle with focusing on a book when there are so many distractions calling my name. I was hoping to find some specific advice on how to deal with all those distractions when trying to immerse myself in a book, but, alas, what I found instead was a lengthy academic treatise on the benefits of reading. Jacobs is preaching to the choir here! I already know why reading is wonderful--the question is how to do more of it.

It also didn't help that Jacobs is a Professor, and writes like one: in a heavily academic style which made my eyes glaze over. Then there was the constant repetition. He reiterated his points over and over again, and even re-quoted his sources, leaving me to wonder if I'd accidentally flipped back a few pages. I finished the book thinking this could have been better as a punchy essay rather than as a full-length book.

Still, I can definitely get behind the core philosophy of this book: read primarily for enjoyment, read at whim, and don't read so you can check something off a list. Great! I'm all for telling readers to embrace their own individual reading tastes, guilt-free.

The main piece of advice that really resonated with me was the concept that reading is something that works best when done in solitude. As someone who's tried to sneak chapters amidst the daily hustle of family life, this piece of insight really struck a chord. It’s not me; it’s the chaos of the living room! Realizing that my environment is at least partly to blame for my reading frustrations was a genuine lightbulb moment.

Jacobs also reminds us that life is noisy, and distractions have always been around. Even our ancestors struggled to keep their attention glued to a book; somehow, knowing that made me feel better about my own wandering focus.… (more)

Encouragement and tips for those interested in rediscovering, or if you're lucky, maintaining, the joyful ability to utterly lose oneself in a book for long periods of time in our modern, distracting age. Read at whim, place yourself in serendipity's path (forget trying to follow a set plan of reading, "100 Books You Must Read" style), read slowly, don't think you shouldn't re-read books you've read in the past as you can often come across something new even in a well-loved "familiar" work.

Refreshing in that the author, a literature professor, does not take the anti-technology route, which a book of this nature might be suspected to. Jacobs in fact found that reading on a Kindle gave him back his ability to concentrate for long periods of time on a book.… (more)