[Max Goodman]

Fiction writer Nicholson Baker, if his U and I gives an accurate picture, frequently reads literature, including novels, only partially, but still retains details, including details of language. This shows me that my way of reading novels--starting at the beginning and plowing through till I reach the end or lose interest--is pedestrian.

I'm curious about how you smart folks read. I assume that most poems aren't long enough for there to be a lot of variety in how readers approach them, but I'm curious about anything you're willing to share.

[RCL]

Max,

I’m a pedestrian as I read both novels and poems, a byproduct of over 50 years of teaching literary fiction and poetry. Anyway, I frequently make mental or written notes as brilliant figures bob to the surface of both stories and poems. A bizarre aspect was when teaching poems one year, every poem I assigned had a single word in it that was a major clue to its meaning, consciously placed by the poets or not. I’ve been on the lookout for those keys ever since. The first taught in introductory courses was “My Papa’s Waltz.” Its key word is “countenance.”

[Roger Slater]

I'm the opposite. I read the whole thing (usually) but I don't retain details.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Start to finish. If it's literary, I'll often make marginal notes or underline/asterisk things. If not, I won't. Sometimes I retain a lot, sometimes a little...and I usually don't know until months, years, or even in some cases decades later how much I've retained... Needless to say, this last fact was a little problematic when I had to do my comprehensive exams en route to my Ph.D....

[Christine P'legion]

I read start to finish. What I've recently started doing, though, is sitting down when I've finished a book and taking about a page of notes. I'll summarize it in a paragraph or so, and then record my impressions, associations, questions, judgments, etc. I've found that knowing I'll be making notes at the end has naturally spurred a deeper level of engagement and made me a more attentive reader. So that's pretty cool.

This is something that I've picked up from Ted Gioia, as explained in this substack post from August: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/how-i-take-notes. It hasn't been long but so far I've found the practice very fruitful. (I don't mark up books like he does; my library would have some objections.)

[Max Goodman]

Thanks to everyone who chimed in. And thanks in advance to others who will.

Roger, I know you're joking, but I wonder whether Baker's unconventional way of approaching text helps him retain details. He's making active choices where the rest of us aren't.

[Roger Slater]

Ralph, why is "countenance" the key word in My Papa's Waltz?

[RCL]

The mother’s ambiguous acceptance of the dance in a poem with diction throughout suggesting the boy's ambiguous attitude toward the dance. Calling attention to itself, it is the only 3-syllable word in the poem, and it is a register higher than all of the remaining diction.

[Nick McRae]

Almost all of what I read outside of poetry is non-fiction, which would normally be approached differently than fiction.

These titles are informational, so you get what you want out of them and move on. That could mean scanning the index or table of contents, other times reading the whole book if you're interested in the topic.

I read fiction at times, but usually to check out a bit of the prose then move on. The way I see it, poetry has quicker and more regular payback, and often says more interesting things than literature (with the caveat that I've read almost no fiction).

[John Riley]

I read from the beginning to the end. When I was younger I would often, if the book or play deserved it, reread it. I can't read as ferociously as I did when younger and I miss it. I read fiction and nonfiction almost equally, although lately it's been more fiction. I am reading a nonfiction book now that I recommend for poets--The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality by William Egginton. It's full of poetry. The last novels were The Door by Magda Szabo and All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg. I do want to recommend them both and also August, a novella by Christa Wolf. I love novellas and this is the best one I've read in some time.

Do others like to read letters? I've been dipping in and out of Kafka's Letters to Milena. I can't take too many of them at one time. The letters are as brilliant, or maybe more so, than his aphorisms.

Also, I don't read one thing at a time and I have no idea why so much of what I read these days is written by women. It keeps happening. I may be a heterosexual girly boy.