Why I read

I’ve been rereading things I studied in college–”Bullet in the Brain,” Cheever’s “Reunion,” Gardner’s “Redemption,” portions of Eliot’s “Waste Land” and “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and I feel like there’s something to be said for the constancy of a good book, poem, or story. It’s ability to endure over time impresses me again and again, keeps me writing and working in order to produce something of that caliber.

I was explaining the other day how I read, how I start first by appreciating the words used, the rhythm of a sentence, and how I let the words bring me to the plot. In a good story, the conceit of the plot and words that allow you to understand it are often inseparable, as if they existed for the sole point of conveying that particular story.

After I savor the verbiage and the way the author sews the words into the plot, I evaluate the plot itself. I’ve decided that a [good] plot extends beyond the last page of the piece.

For me, the best story encourages the reader to think. The reader evaluates the story, the parts and the whole. The story achieves its success when the reader feels compelled to understand it, when, upon reaching the end, the reader continues to contemplate the characters, to apply their own life experiences to the story for a basis of comparison. For me, the best story is like finding buried treasure. You look within the landscape of the story after rumors of hidden gems that lie within, hoping they will quell boredom. Upon peeking through its pages you discover golden phrases inlaid among a bed of concrete story line. Though satisfying and exciting, the best kind of story keeps you coming back, having instilled in you the notion that your journey, your efforts to understand, were rewarding, and are worth pursuing in the hopes that your labor might be rewarded by future discoveries of treasure.