Reading Life: Books for the Ages

by Sven Birkerts

A new, compelling collection of essays by Sven Birkerts, "one of America's most distinguished, eloquent servants of the poetry and fiction that matter" (Susan Sontag) Reading, the mind's traffic in signs and signifiers, is the most dynamic, changeful, and possibly transformational act we can imagine. To have read a work and have been strongly affected by it―and then to come back to it after many years―can be a foundation-shaking enterprise. In Reading Life , virtuoso critic and essayist Sven Birkerts examines what it means to return to resonant works of fiction―the books one thinks of "covetously, as private properties," the "personal signposts" of one's inner life. For Birkerts, these include The Catcher in the Rye , Humboldt's Gift , To the Lighthouse , and Lolita . In twelve far-reaching and intimate essays, Birkerts reflects upon his first readings and what later encounters reveal about time, memory, and the murmuring transistors of selfhood.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 3, 2007

About the author

Sven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies, which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture."

Birkerts graduated from Cranbrook School and then from the University of Michigan in 1973. He has taught writing at Harvard University, Emerson College, Amherst College, and most recently at Mount Holyoke College. Birkerts is the Director of the Bennington College Writing Seminars and the editor of AGNI, the literary journal. He now lives in the Boston area, specifically Arlington, Massachusetts, with his wife Lynn, daughter Mara, and son Liam.

His father is noted architect Gunnar Birkerts.

Reviews

[Ariadna73 · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book the author analyzes eleven books that he read at different times in his life; and tries to explain how the stories and other aspects of the literary works made him feel and think at the moment he read them.

I really liked all the reviews, but the ones I enjoyed the most where those of "The catcher in the rye", "Lolita" and "To the lighthouse" especially the latter, because it is such a beautiful interpretaton and if you allow me, an amplification of what Woolf tried to convey in her work. I truly think that Birkets is a gifter reader, and I wish I could have a fraction of his talent for reading and then transmitting what he thinks about what he reads.

This is the cover of the book I read:



The table of contents. Besides the three I mentioned as my favorites, there are quite a few that deserve great attention; such as Mme Bovary and "The good soldier". All these essays do nothing more than wake that craving for reading and in some cases re-reading such classics.



This is the first page of the book. It is noticeable how easy is it for Birkets to write and to engage. I wish I could do something similar:



This is one example of how this author is trying to explain in his mid-fifties, how a book affected him when he read it at the age of seventeen. It was not easy, but it is very enjoyable to read him try.





The beginning of the essay on "The good soldier". Another example of flash engagement:



Birkets uses a lot of quotations in his book. This is one of my favorite ones:



This is a very truthful description of how a novel engages the reader. Birkets is a master describing all these literary resources and the way they affect the readers:



A small summary of "Women in love"



Some remarks about Nabokov; another surprising author.



Some comments on "To The Lighthouse":



I really devoured this beautiful and very useful book. I have it for reference in case I want to re-read any of those eleven books it analizes. I would also be very happy if I found other books of this same author. I really liked his style.

***

I also have a blog! Link here:

http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since first devouring The Gutenberg Elegies one evening back in 1996 -- and then immediately searching out copies of American Energies and An Artificial Wilderness -- I've found no other critic-essayist who more astutely puts into words the experience of reading.

[...] a novel for me is a pretext, a way of starting up and sustaining a complicated and many-layered inner exchange, a to-and-fro which I long ago discovered I need in order to locate myself in the world. Reading is a process that keeps the inner realm open, susceptible. Involvement in a book sets things going at a depth. If I cannot sink into some virtual "other" place or triangulate my experience with that of another, I feel that my life is lacking the shadows and overtones and the illusion of added dimensions that imagination provides. It feels flat to me. [page 130]

The only change I'd make to this observation is that, for me, it needn't be a novel that helps me achieve this state - nonfiction will also open up this inner exchange Birkerts talks about.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably the best thing about reading this book is that it may actually compel me to finally read Madame Bovary and To the Lighthouse. I've been reading Sven since his cantankerous The Gutenberg Elegies and this was a pleasant enough encounter. Oh, and this book has perhaps the ugliest cover known to man.

[Ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Like the introduction chapter best"

Different from book critique, Sven Birkerts shared his feelings towards a great many classic works rather than weighing their literature value. This is like a biography in disguise of book reviews. It does generate interest in me in checking out classics that I have long wanted to read. Interestingly, I like the introduction chapter of this book best.

[Cynthia F Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author writes, "a novel for me is a pretext, a way of starting up and sustaining a complicated and many layered inner exchange, a to-and-fro which I long ago discovered that I need in order to locate myself in the world. Reading...keeps the inner realm open, susceptible. Involvement in a book sets things going at a depth. If I cannot sink into some virtual 'other' place or triangulate my experience with that of another, I feel that my life is lacking the shadows and overtones and illusion of added dimension that imagination provides. It feels flat to me."

This gives you some idea of what the writing is like. ;-)

[Rory · Rating 1 out of 5]

i couldn't figure this book out. why did it read like the leftovers of a PhD thesis? why was Target mentioned as a publisher? why did anyone think anyone would ever want to read this?

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love this man's mind.
You don't even have to have read the books he's talking about to get something out of these essays.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great writer and critic on returning to his favorite works of literature.

[Beatrice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a literary memoir, and Birkerts is an excellent writer. Like Reading Lolita in Tehran, but the action is interior/psychological rather than political/historical.

[Chiara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good reviews of several novels I had not previously read.