The Dailies

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Diremption (n., die-REMP-shun)

A sharp cut
into two parts.

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On Reading Well

There are many tragedies in an industrialized education system, but one of the most disheartening is how many people never learn to read. They learn how to consume words on a page but not to engage with it. The written word is a mountainside ready to be strip-mined for information. There is little thought given to anything beyond comprehension. Understanding, application, engagement, analysis, enrapturement, forming—all these things are stamped out. Is it any wonder that our bestsellers are mass-produced dreck?

Karen Swallow Prior is an English Literature professor at Liberty University in southwestern Virginia. Her second book, On Reading Well, is a gem. It feels like a debut, its need to be heard so clear, but with the craft and seasoning of a middle-aged, experienced writer and reader. Prior has taught students how to enjoy and engage with classic literature for years; here, she gives her readers a start at doing it themselves.

On Reading Well is built around the idea that books can and should teach virtue. To quote Prior:

There is something in the very form of reading—the shape of the action itself—that tends toward virtue. The attentiveness necessary for deep reading (the kind of reading we practice in reading literary works as opposed to skimming news stories or reading instructions) requires patience. The skills of interpretation and evaluation require prudence. Even the simple decision to set aside time to read in a world rife with so many other choices competing for our attention requires a kind of temperance.

Prior organizes the book into three sections, each focusing on a different set of virtues. Each virtue is expounded through a work of fiction. Some works are exemplary (The Road) while others show us what to avoid (The Great Gatsby). By the end, we have a solid picture of what it means to live well.

Prior details each story, interweaving plot points with analysis and application. It’s not just a great writing technique—something the best reviewers do well—but it also mirrors our own journey to virtuous living. Our realities are interrupted by epiphanies that reshape our perception of the past and set us on a different course for the future. We practice, we gain clarity, and then we try to do better. Most likely, we will stumble and start again.

Books like On Reading Well are essential on these journeys. On Reading Well is didactic. It is less someone coming alongside you to walk on a path than someone guiding you down that path. Prior is our guide, but to more than just the books themselves. She wants us to learn how to read, and, in doing so, to be changed. I was reminded of Alan Jacobs’ notion that thinking happens in and with other people. As we read Prior’s book, we think with her. As a more experienced reader (and, than this author, a more experienced human being), Prior trains us in how to glean wisdom from a text, calling us to become trained in our thinking. By spending time with her, we are made better. And then it is our turn to carry the fire to another generation.

The most interesting thing of On Reading Well is the mixture of literature Prior picks. Some are four hundred years old. Others are less than ten. All of them are classics. They have endured. Many a young person has been directed to them, even the newer ones, because they were judged valuable. Similarly, the virtues that Prior expounds also endure. When we see them in others, we recognize their value. As we ponder them, we understand that the author of Proverbs was correct: our job is to get wisdom, however we can. Skill at the art of living is the key to a good life. That skill is not the same as a list of rules. It is only learned through humble learning and practice. When it reveals itself in cultivated, practiced virtue, it is glorious.

If we are what we repeatedly do, as Aristotle claimed, then the things we choose to consume become us. Consuming good literature is a start, but the best steak in the world can still be idly wolfed down. We need to be good consumers of good literature. The only way to get better at that is to learn from those who are better than us. On Reading Well is essential for that. It’s not the end of the story—it shouldn’t be—but it can train our feet to run in the right direction and places. Books like that are more vital, more capital-r relevant than any thinkpiece or Vox explainer will ever be. Consume them instead. Start Reading Well now.

(P.S. Ned Bustard's woodcut illustrations for each chapter are fantastic. Here's one:)

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