About

Cheryl Miller is a 2007 Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellow and the editor of Doublethink magazine. Her work has appeared in such publications as The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Wall Street Journal, Reason, and The Claremont Review of Books.

She can be contacted at cheryl [at] americasfuture [dot] org.

Read my other blog. The one that's not obnoxious and self-absorbed!

Recent publications

"The Master" in The Claremont Review of Books

"Scary Rise of the 'Sanctimommy'" in The Washington Times

"Why Malamud Faded" in Commentary

"Blogging Infertility" in The New Atlantis

"Outsourcing Childbirth" in The Wall Street Journal

"The Painless Peace of Twilight Sleep" in The New Atlantis

"The Genius of Old New York" in The Claremont Review of Books

"Parenthood At Any Price" in The New Atlantis

"Modern Girls and the Moral Revival They Are Leading" in The Washington Times

ARTICLE ARCHIVE

Links

Sunday, March 30, 2008

I Don't Care What Your Teacher Said, Reading Is Not Good For You

Whenever I suggest that Harry Potter (like Trix) is for kids, I always get the following argument: 1) J.K. Rowling is phenomenally popular, and 2) well, at least people are reading something. I appreciate this argument insofar as it recognizes that the book in question is inferior, but otherwise I don't get it. For children, I suppose the hope is that they will move on to books that are actually good, resulting in a lifelong love of reading and high SAT scores. This is fine by me; I loved trash novels as a kid, and they did me much good.

But for adults, this argument makes no sense. Unlike children, they're well aware that there are better books out there, and they are decidedly not reading them. So the only other possible explanation must be the foggy notion--drilled in by generations of English teachers--that "Reading Is Good." According to this theory, mere contact with words on a page--no matter the content--enhances and improves one as a human being. You can tell when you're talking to one of these people because they usually explain they could be doing something much more mind-numbing with their time, like watching daytime television or playing video games. What they don't seem to realize is that reading can be just as harmful to the mind as General Hospital or Grand Theft Auto: Witness The Da Vinci Code and anything by Sean Hannity or Michael Moore. I like to think of this as the reading-as-alchemy theory of books: Dross becomes gold simply by being printed on the page! (Note: This is also why you should be deeply suspicious of anyone who claims the Internet has somehow heralded in the Golden Age of Reading. Just think of all that text people are reading on Second Life! Anyway, books are "tragically isolating.")

In sum, adults reading Harry Potter should be just as embarrassed as if they were caught reading Danielle Steele or Tom Clancy. They should definitely not suggest J.K. Rowling should win a Nobel Prize (though I'd love to live in a world where Edith Wharton, Cole Porter, and Dorothy Parker won).

Labels: lit crit

posted by Cheryl # 12:51 PM

Comments:

Can't adults read admittedly trashy books for fun? Or is that privilege reserved for children who don't yet know what good writing is?

# posted by

E : April 2, 2008 1:18 AM

Absolutely, but they should feel mildly ashamed while doing so.

# posted by

Cheryl : April 2, 2008 12:19 PM

How can you tell what people are not reading from a few things you know they read? I myself am constantly in the middle of several books at the same time, ranging from classics (and many classics are kind of trashy and certainly could do with some heavy editing, IMO) to silly manga novels about pirates. In my mind, you should only be ashamed of losing your sense of fun and placing the snobbery above simple pleasures.

# posted by

Anonymous : April 2, 2008 4:13 PM