There is something about churning through books that induces envy and even admiration, never more than at this time of year when piles of finished tomes are splashed across social media. Bragging rights seem to go to those who have read lots of books and read them quickly – how many times have you seen someone boast about finishing 10 books in a year? What about five?
But there is power in reading slowly, something the Chinese-American author Yiyun Li tells her creative writing students at Princeton University. “They say, ‘I can read 100 pages an hour’,” she says. “But I say, ‘I don’t want you to read 100 pages an hour. I want you to read three pages an hour’.”
That’s the speed Li is happy to read at, even if she is re-reading a familiar text. “People often say they devoured a book in one sitting. But I want to savour a book, which means I give myself just 10 pages a day of any book.” On an average day, Li, best known for her novels A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and Where Reasons End, reads 10 different books, spending half an hour on each title.
At that pace it can take Li up to three weeks to finish a novel. “When you spend two to three weeks with a book, you live in that world,” she says. “I think reading slowly is such an important skill. Nobody has ever talked about it, or taught me that. I’m a very patient reader. Even if it’s a very compelling book. I don’t want to rush from the beginning to the end.”
Elizabeth Strout, the Booker-shortlisted author of Olive Kitteridge and the Lucy Barton books, is also taking books at a more tranquil pace. “I was never a fast reader [but] I think I read more slowly than I used to. This is partly to savour every word. The way a sentence sounds to my ear is so important to me in the whole reading experience, and I always want to get it all – like when you read poetry.”
These words hit a nerve because I am an archetypal impatient reader, desperate to have finished a book as soon as I start. I want to know what happens – now. Ever since I started keeping track of the books I read (because I was sick of forgetting what I’d read) I’ve wanted to read more, to read faster.
So, in an effort to follow Li’s advice, I resolve both to linger and to juggle more than one book, despite my fear of not being able to follow more than one plot. I start with The Years by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L Strayer, and Alan Garner’s Where Shall We Run To? Both are memoirs, which wasn’t intentional. I spend about 45 minutes most days with the Ernaux, reading 30 or so pages; less on Garner because it’s shorter. This is probably still too fast, but old habits are hard to break. Spending time with both, I’m struck by how they seem to talk to each other, Garner’s experience of growing up in Britain during the war chiming with elements of Ernaux’s rural French childhood.
The same thing happened with my next Ernaux, I Remain in Darkness, translated by Tanya Leslie, which I read alongside Catherine Newman’s forthcoming We All Want Impossible Things. I alternate, 10 or so pages of each book each day, until I’m done; this time the Ernaux is shorter, at barely 60 pages, so even at this pace it only takes me a week to finish; the Newman, at 200 or so pages, takes me triple that. I had no idea they both dealt with deaths: of her mother in a hospital for Ernaux, and for Newman, a best friend in a hospice. Dwelling for days in Newman’s darkly comic story based on the death of her real life friend dials down the intensity but it means I wallow longer in her pain, which feels more like I was sharing her experience. Again, the books, although very different, feel as if they were part of a conversation.
A few pages into Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which I chose because my 14-year-old son recently declared it his best ever book, I wish I could speed up. I find the lingering dystopian images tricky to process despite his golden prose. Going slowly means I stop to look up words: “duff” (decayed matter on a forest floor); “skifts” (a light flurry of snow). Despite trying to dawdle I can’t spin out the 300 pages beyond a week; I need them to be over. Happily, On Hampstead Heath, by Marika Cobbold, which is about journalism, love and sausage dogs, provides some welcome relief. And for something different again, I have Nicole Flattery’s forthcoming debut, Nothing Special, which is partly set in Andy Warhol’s New York. By now I’m two months into my experiment, and have slowed down to Li’s 10 or so daily pages.
Taking my time with multiple books at once feels liberating; as if I have permission to pick up books I’ve spent years meaning to tackle. I’m not promising never to cane something again but I really think Li is on to something. Oh, and I’m at 85 books for the year, not that I’m counting.
