Three Kinds of Readers
More from _A Theology of Reading_
Alan Jacobs quotes Goethe on kinds of readers: “[T]here are three kinds of reader: one, who enjoys without judgment; a third, who judges without enjoyment; and one between them who judges as he enjoys and enjoys as he judges.”
The first kind of reader I’ve encountered in the student who swelled with indignation because I suggested that a steady diet of romance novels (whether Harlequin or “Christian”) may not be either realistic or a healthy diet for the mind. This is problematic because the student wanted to fill her mind with a pleasure whose deceptiveness could easily lead her to embrace a view of love that would create expectations that would never be met in real life. Other examples are those who wish to fill their minds with graphic violence, horror, and sex scenes. There is a prurience here that leads to sickness of the soul.
The third kind I’ve encountered in the student who told me she couldn’t read a short story I’d assigned because it had two swear words in the first five pages and she couldn’t possibly be putting that kind of thing into her mind. This is problematic because, while the desire not to fill the mind with profanity is a good desire, the student’s rigidity about it, her fear of contamination by anything worldly, kept her from learning how to confront the issue and see beyond it to a reality she needed to learn about, and a beauty in the story that was well worth a little work to keep her mind pure.
(I would like to say this: I never assigned works that were “filled” with profanity; I avoided it as much as possible, never used it myself; left it out if reading a passage aloud in class; and the story in question no doubt used no more profanity than the student was exposed to in spoken language around her every day, even on our Christian campus.)
Jacobs is deeply concerned with these issues. If we read merely for pleasure, we risk taking in lies and deceptions that could be harmful to our souls; but if we read everything with the primary idea that there’s probably something wrong with it that we must be at pains to find and reject, we risk never enjoying the gift of a story or a poem that is truly meant for – and capable of giving us – real delight. He likens the story or poem to a home-cooked meal: “It is a gift that we honor, by receiving it with gratitude.”
He wants us to learn to read charitably – to honor writers and texts by coming to them with an attitude that we can enjoy them and/or learn from them. But he recognizes the dangers as well: “There are times when we are right to look a gift poem in the mouth; some gifts, as we all know, have a coercive aspect. [. . .] However, this not to say [. . .] that all gifts have such a dubious and coercive character. Some works of art are presented to us as opportunities for refreshment, recreation, and pleasure. Discernment is required to know what kind of gift one is being presented with, and in what spirit to accept it (if at all), but a universal suspicion of gifts and givers, like an indiscriminate acceptance of all gifts, constitutes an abdication of discernment in favor of a simplistic a priorism that smothers the spirit.”
So he rejects both the first reader and the third, and embraces the middle way. This is the way we strive to teach our students to read. Don’t turn off the faculty of discernment, but don’t let it take over. Enjoy the beauty of the work, but don’t let it carry you into embracing lies. And put the work away from you if you find it is truly tempting you toward worldliness.
I remember reading a book of stories and essays by Southern Christian writers – each writer had a short story followed by an essay about writing and Christianity in the South. I began reading one essay which intrigued me both by the content and the excellent style. It started out with strong Scriptural ideas well-expressed and I nodded along as I read . . . until suddenly I realized I was nodding at an idea that was clearly heretical. I was aghast – how had I come to that point where I was starting to agree with heresy! So I went back through the essay and identified the point where the writer had begun to stray from the clear Scriptural text and saw how he had come to rationalize the heresy. And I realized that I’d been reading largely for the sheer pleasure of the style and hardly attending to the argument at all, just accepting it because of the beauty of its expression.
It was a lesson to me. Even after decades of reading and study, I could still be led astray by a lie clothed in beauty. I could have enjoyed the beauty of the style while still seeing the shape of the argument much sooner had I been attending to both the style and the argument – something I know how to do and usually do. I don’t in the least regret reading the essay; I know more about how people come to believe that something taught against in Scripture can be true, and in the end no harm came to me – because I was brought up short and began to exercise discernment.
It reminded me of the danger of reading but without taking away the pleasure of it – something I hope I got across to my students: don’t read in fear (or avoid reading), but don’t read mindlessly, either. Learn how to read closely and well, be immersed in the Scriptures in order to be immersed in Truth, and then enjoy your reading. You’ll be brought up short, as I was, when something in you recognizes untruth, and then you can decide how to respond to it.
Jacobs ends the section where he introduces these issues with this: “Like all good theology, then, a theology of reading will require an emphasis on discerning judgment. But it will also find its place as part of a theology of gift and recreation.” I’m looking forward to the chapter where he gets into this in more depth.
I have my students read Sir Francis Bacon's essay "Of Studies." One of his metaphors reminds me of your commentary here: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." We can't know which to digest if we never taste; on the other hand, we can taste and discern the danger in swallowing some of them since digesting them is out of the question. Balance, balance, balance! As always, thank you for your wise analysis.
Thanks for reading, Wanda. Looking up the author before buying is a great strategy that can save a lot of frustration. I actually warn my students to be especially alert when reading anything by a professed Christian. The tendency is to assume they will be truthful and accurate and thus let down one's guard. But Christians are just as human as non-Christians, and of course they can be inadvertently inaccurate or deliberately deceitful or anything between. Because they profess to be Christian, we need to pay especial attention to what they say and evaluate it well and honestly, because they are professing to speak in a voice that honors the Lord. I _expect_ non-Christians to say things that are, well, non-Christian, so I'm aware to watch for it and not overly bothered by it; I expect Christians to speak truth and need to remind myself that we don't always.