Listening V. Reading

Oscars, Books, Audible

Hey Heathens and Heretics, how goes the resistance? In my study of religions I became convinced of an odd truth. Everyone through history and today only really believes part of their religion and/or they’ve added creatively to its belief and practice. Even the devout can be ultra selective, and oddly creative. So I’m betting you’re either heathen-ish or heretical.

It’s all in how you see things. I see the birth of each religion as a great blooming of doubt in the old religion. What pried them loose?

What pries anyone from deep habit? How do people change identity?

Pretty much only when they have no choice. The old identity is kaput. You just aren’t that anymore, so you have to make some adjustments in your image of yourself, and fast. We change our minds about ourselves when there is no other way to survive. Of course, sometimes we refuse, and don’t survive.

Last night I watched Blue Moon. Ethan Hawke was terrific. He was Lorenz Hart, the songwriter, and the movie was mostly a monologue given with a riveting performance. It was a heartbreaker, a man who senses that the good part of his life is over and he is coping with that over one night, in a bar. Talking for a great deal of the film. Me, I loved it. He’s nominated for best actor for it, and I’d give it to him.

For the first year of this Substack I stuck to a rotating schedule of themes and when I came to the topic I had to find something to say. One topic was me reading books found on a top one hundred books list. I’d read a lot of them when I started. I’d taught some of them in lit classes, and taught about many of them in history classes. Still a good many had slipped through the cracks. Some of the books I read and wrote about here are Infinite Jest, Don Quixote, The Magic Mountain, The Invisible Man, and The Bell Jar. I’d already read enough on the list so that it was reasonable to ask why a given book had been heretofore overlooked. Scared. Of length or perceived subject matter. In all cases unwarranted. These books were a great time. I remember each like a secret life I lived.

I read and listened to them. Let’s take Infinite Jest at 64 hours on audible. Well, no, let’s start with Pride and Prejudice, at 22 hrs a listen. Twenty-two hours is not that much, in terms of listening material. You can read Frankenstein in 8.5 hours of listening. Slaughter-House Five or Notes of a Native Son in 5; if you listen for half an hour every night as you fall asleep, you’ll have read either book in ten days. Or you can decide that over a long weekend you will knit, garden, walk, or clean while you listen for a few hours a day and get to know the great Frankenstein, start to finish, weird book though it is.

But the thing to face is that, let’s face it, listening, especially to a recording, is different from reading. When you read with your eyes, you space out now and again, and when you do, you go back and reread a little. Think of meditation and how difficult it is to keep the mind on a simple task like counting breaths. Except when the book has really got you, the mind will wander. Sure I read faster than I read aloud, but the actual getting done with a book happens faster when you’re listening, because it just keeps going. I do sometimes speed it up, when the natural voice is too slow.

I used to say that, to say that I’d read a book, if I listened, I have to have listened twice. You just miss too much the first time. The mind strays and the recorded reader keeps reading. You tune in again and you may have only been gone a moment but a lot of important information can get lost.

I still listen to many books more than once, because I can enjoy them more than once. But with lots of key books, I now do a combo of listening and reading, often at the same time. Yes you have to own two copies of the text, but very often you can get classics for free on the internet. Or buy a used physical copy, cheap. Sometimes there is free audio too for the classics. If you have the disposable income to just buy either the book or the ebook, and also get the audio, it’s worth it. I know we resist this as overconsumption, but it’s a better indulgence than many.

Why? Because the brain takes the story in more fully in text, hears the individual sentences, catches the details. But being read to is faster, easier, and more convenient. You can close your eyes for a while, move around. Also it just feels easier. So I do a combo, sometimes just reading, sometimes just listening, and sometimes both at the same time. For the most speed and comprehension, reading and listening, at the same time is best. The brain still reads along with the reader. You catch everything, because you are reading, but the assist of an interpreting voice in your head helps you to not pause and repeat, which makes the read faster, more fun.

I’m presently reading and listening to The White Castle by Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. I’m halfway through and enjoying it a great deal. I do love to underline the best bits in books, and after I’ve listened for a while, I can find most of the ones I liked by scanning for them in the paper pages.

One problem with listening to books is that you lose your place. If you lose your place somewhere in chapter five you likely restart at the beginning of chapter five. That listening overlap can mess with one’s sense of time in the book. For me, a paper copy solves that. It lets me see and feel where I am in the experience, and not get the parts mixed up.

Tonight is the Academy Awards and I like watching it live, for the outfits and in case something interesting happens. I did better than most years at seeing the nominated movies, but still haven’t seen a few major ones. Funny, I was just talking about reading books in order to tick boxes and here I’m talking about doing it with films. I guess I’d say that having a motivator in this form helps me do things I want to do—though it’s not a trait I’d have associated with myself. Interesting.

I’ve been writing this Think Bank piece over a couple of days. I saw Blue Moon a few nights ago by now. But now that I’ve said the Oscars are tonight, I really should post. Anyway, I thought I’d send up a flare.

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And you my dear ones? Do you listen to your books? Will you watch the Academy Awards?

The few days of spring weather we had recently were lovely but we’re in the cold again and it is stepping on my patience. I grow blue, or if not fully blue, maybe lilac. I’ve got to get more exercise, but again, waiting for spring. How are you keeping your mood up in this strange age in which we find ourselves? I retreat into writing, and can recommend it. Stay warm, stay safe, stay with me and I shall return to encourage us again.

love,

Jennifer