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What is Slow Reading?
What is Slow Reading?
Traditional great books programs honor classic texts that address timeless human questions. But some programs value quantity over quality, "a list of books to get though." Survey classes can be helpful, but understanding a worthwhile book takes time.
Symposium Institute approaches great books in slow-motion. We believe that worthwhile books should be read slowly and in conversation with others, in a semi-structured setting -- not exactly a wine-sodden book group, but also not an academic classroom. We reach for the attentiveness that comes with careful, thoughtful, unhurried reading and conversing.
We slow down and let wisdom emerge naturally -- in dialogue -- rather than squeezing out propositions. One of the greatest benefits of this approach is to practice asking good questions. Good questions are rooted in the text or spring from the text, rather than imposed as prepackaged questions. Good questions can be critical, but they begin by knowing what exactly we want to criticize.
We engage in slow reading by...
Sustained engagement with texts over longer periods (usually 24 weeks). Worthwhile books deserve more time and effort than many of us are accustomed to, but the rewards of sustained engagement are many and surprising. There are no shortcuts, "no royal path." Just as it is almost pointless to hear someone tell you about Schubert's String Quintet as opposed to listening attentively from beginning to end, it is also pointless to substitute a first-hand reading of Plato's Republic with a summary of it. Even reading the Republic aloud, about 16 hours, is not enough time to wonder as we walk.
Meaningful dialogue attuned to connections. Learning to read in conversation with others takes time as well. Participants in seminars open themselves to being part of multilayered conversation that happens between and among: (1) the reader and the text at hand, (2) the reader and others in the group, and (3) the group and the wider world, conversations among authors over time and with contemporary life.
Reading a book on one's own has its pleasures as we follow an author's "clues to delight" (in the words of Eva Brann), yet readers often find that they come into a seminar session with a particular, even well-informed, view of the text, and that they leave with an improved understanding thanks to the diverse perspectives and questions brought to the table.
Besides, we are friends of the lento, I and my book. I have not been a philologist in vain — perhaps I am one yet: a teacher of slow reading. I even come to write slowly. At present it is not only my habit, but even my taste — a perverted taste, maybe — to write nothing but what will drive to despair every one who is ‘in a hurry.’ For philology is that venerable art which exacts from its followers one thing above all — to step to one side, to leave themselves spare moments, to grow silent, to become slow — the leisurely art of the goldsmith applied to language: an art which must carry out slow, fine work, and attains nothing if not lento. Thus philology is now more desirable than ever before; thus it is the highest attraction and incitement in an age of ‘work’: that is, of haste, of unseemly and immoderate hurry-skurry, which is so eager to ‘get things done’ at once, even every book, whether old or new. Philology itself, perhaps, will not so hurriedly ‘get things done.’ It teaches how to read well, that is, slowly, profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner thoughts, with the mental doors ajar, with delicate fingers and eyes. My patient friends, this book appeals only to perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!
-- Nietzsche, Daybreak
(Website editor's note: although I was tempted, it felt improper to edit down Nietzsche's long quotation above for "hurry-scurry" online reading. We'll just have to acquire the patience of a ... perfect reader.)
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