I’m currently reading The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, a 1000-year-old Japanese story generally recognized as the first novel. Thanks to “The easiest way to read more classics,” I’m taking my time and reading just twelve pages a day. This means I’ll be reading this book for the next three months (it’s well over 1000 pages long), but I have already experienced five gifts as a result of this approach.
My thirty-ish minute reading sessions keep me from burning out. I’m eager to come back to the book every morning, instead of feeling like it’s a slog, which is what usually happens when I tackle a classic.
Because I’m reading for a shorter time, I give more of my attention to the book. I find myself making notes, collecting quotes, and otherwise contemplating what’s happening much more than I normally do when reading.
I have time between reading sessions to think about what I’ve encountered, like the highly promiscuous life-style of the elite upper class of the Heian period.
It gives me time to do research. Armed with questions based on my reading, I’m starting to educate myself on that part of Japanese history and culture now. I usually don’t look things up until I finish a book, and then it is often too late, because I’ve forgotten what I wanted to know or lost some of my interest. Knowing that I have months of reading ahead of me, I’m not waiting.
Finally, I’m being reminded once again that books are the best time machine ever. The characters and places couldn’t be more removed me in time and space, nor could the author, who was a lady-in-waiting to an Empress, and yet the story is full of people who are doing and saying things people I know might do or say.
Just this morning (in a different book) I ran across this brilliant quote that I’m realizing was as true 1000 years ago as it is today:
It’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. — Alan Rickman
What are you reading right now?
