As hectic and fast paced as my life already is, I certainly hope that this quote does not reflect the totality of our future literary reality.
The “solitary deep reading” may be inconvenient, but its also the only activity that actually makes me stop, ponder, wonder, think, and rest.
As much as I love technological advances, I need depth in my life, not just the collective breadth of common ignorance waxing eloquent on topics we just read as we scanned our Google reader.
yes but sometimes i stop, ponder, think, and rest while scanning my google reader…
thanks
Get your books on tape, an untapped market is theological text books I believe, and then you don’t have to stop, you can still ponder and think while multi-tasking, and as Warren Zevon so eloquently put it… I’ll sleep when I am dead. Who needs rest!! All kidding aside, there is something about entering into a prolonged argument or a story of some sort. I wonder what the neuro-chemical consequence is would be from people not reading anymore? It might be interesting to study what sort of characteristic differences emerged after the printing press came into existence? I wonder how reading novels effects our self concept, or how we function in relationships, or self control or other pyschological and sociological factors??