I discovered a rather snobby essay by Edith Wharton today as I was looking her up in the library catalog. Wharton has nothing to do with law that I know of and law students weren’t clamoring to know about her. It was a down moment and I thought, I wonder what Wharton books are available? So I looked her up just because and found an essay called The Vice of Reading, published in the North American Review, October, 1903.
In the essay Wharton differentiates between two kinds of readers, the mechanical reader and the intuitive reader. The intuitive reader is the reader who was “born to read,” the good reader, the one who understands books and learns from books, the one for whom “reading forms a continuous undercurrent to all his other occupations.” For the born reader, reading is not a vice. Wharton has her beef with the mechanical reader.
Mechanical readers are the ones that read the books that everyone else is reading. They are also the ones who read because they think they ought to and they deliberately undertake reading for the purpose of being able to pass opinions and display how culturally with it they are. These are poor readers because they don’t know how to read and often don’t understand what they read. If these readers just stuck to reading the mediocre trash that they seem to like so well, then everything would be fine. But they don’t and because they don’t they pose a menace to Literature.
Mechanical readers are like tourists “who drive from one ‘sight’ to another without looking at anything that is not set down in Baedeker.” The delights of allusions and turns of phrase are lost on them. For these readers
books once read are not like growing things that strike root and intertwine branches, but like fossils ticketed and put away in the drawers of a geologist’s cabinet; or rather, like prisoners condemned to lifelong solitary confinement. In such a mind the books never talk to each other.
The menace mechanical readers pose to literature is fourfold:
- Because mechanical readers are most satisfied with mediocre writing, they facilitate the careers of mediocre authors. Not only does this allow people who shouldn’t be writing to write, but it keeps those who do have creative talent from being encouraged to reach their full potential.
- “Secondly, by his passion for “popular” renderings of abstruse and difficult subjects, by confounding the hastiest rechauffe of scientific truisms with the slowly-matured conceptions of the original thinker, he retards true culture and lessens the possible amount of really abiding work.”
- The mechanical reader has the habit of confusing moral and intellectual judgments. He cannot separate and grasp the difference between the portrayal of life and incidents in the book from the “author’s sense of their significance.”
- The mechanical reader’s “demand for peptonized literature” has created the mechanical critic who simply summarizes the plot and calls it a day instead of doing any kind of thoughtful analysis.
Wharton’s snobbery in the essay is both appalling and amusing. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I get the sense that she doesn’t believe that poor readers can, with practice become good readers. You can either read or you can’t and if you can’t then you shouldn’t. Not very democratic.
Read the essay when you have a free 15-20 minutes. I’m pretty sure Wharton meant every word, but part of me wonders if she isn’t writing tongue in cheek. Your thoughts and opinions welcome.
Alas, intellectual ability is not democratic. Health, hard work, and good teaching can improve our brains, but not nearly enough to bridge the gulf between the bottom of the curve and the top. But I don’t see the harm of encouraging “mechanical readers” read and discuss good books. The serious reader won’t be harmed by their comments, since they already know better, and other “mechanical readers” won’t be missing out on anything since they wouldn’t be able to follow more substantial discussions anyway. This would seem to confound Wharton’s argument that mechanical readers hold back the intellectual progress of society. I think the only case in which the mechanical reader/critic does harm is in misrepresenting a book as offensive, leading to its being banned or its author/publisher being threatened or physically attacked. I’m not sure what can be done about that. What would Wharton make of a world where death threats can stop a book from being published?
Unfortunately, that is the case now, isn’t it.
Forget about even reading the book, people demand tat books be banned just based on the idea
P.S. I love her use of “peptonized.”
Well, I’m just going to read it first — but I have to say, I can feel either like an intuitive or a mechanical reader depending on my mood, the subject, the writer, the phase of the moon… A “pre-reading” hypothesis: perhaps this is also a warning about the mechanical reader crouching inside the intuitive one?
I agree it is a bit of an elitist concept, however…in our house I am the born reader. My husband is a mechanical reader. If it’s hot, he buys it and it takes him three months or more to read 150 pages. I enjoy the written word. I enjoy finding authors I’ve never read and learning from their art.
I am finding in my kids the very same thing. My son is ten and is currently reading Order of the Phoenix and would rather read it than eat. My daughter who is 8 has to be forced to read and normally hands it to me and begs me to just read it so she can sit and let her mind wander off in space.
So, I guess I said all that to say that I don’t know that a mechanical reader can ever become a good reader. I think it may just be something you are born with or without.
Hmmm. That’s an interesting idea, but I agree with Charlotte that the same person could fit in either category depending on the moment. Perhaps these are more useful concepts to use to think about ways of reading instead of types of readers. And I completely disagree with the idea that people can’t become good readers. Not everyone will become a great reader, but people can certainly change their relationship to books.
Alrighty, I have to read this essay. I’m pretty sure I’m an intuitive reader, but I’ve crossed over into mechanical plenty of times I’m sure. Interesting. It sounds pretty funny as well (unintentionally… the best kind)…
Aw bless you are so kind, Stefanie. I’d love to think this is tongue-in-cheek, but I expect Wharton meant every word. She was good buddies with Henry James, who suffered mightily from being high lit, low sales and who probably irritated every mechanical reader who was ever born. She would have taken his part quite strongly, and wished for a more informed and enlightened audience for his work. (He really did go on and on about it.) What’s also entertaining/depressing is how nothing changes. People still have this argument over the reading world without any sense of final resolution to it.
Oooh, thanks for this, Stefanie. I’m looking forward to the essay now.
My sister isn’t a reader. In fact, she started a thread on a local message board just last night about why she didn’t like books: fiction is just lies, info can be located easily and quickly on google, she has enough imagination that she doesn’t need a jumpstart from anyone else’s imagination, blah blah blah. She’s 65, she’s dyslectic, she’s never going to change. Fortunately (because she’s in hillbilly country, where there are still people perversely proud of their lack of book-learning) last night she was unable to find anyone who would agree with her.
So anyway, I do kind of agree with Wharton that SOME will never be readers, but I hope they’re but a small subset, because I really do want to keep a democratic mindset here.
To everything there is a season.. A time to laugh, a time to cry.. A time to read intuitively, a time to read mechanically. I loved the essay keeping in mind who wrote it and when. And I do agree with litlove- Wharton meant every word of it! For me the metaphor lies in the nutritional quality of the read. We sometimes read “literature” that is packed full of vitamins and protein and makes us healthy and strong. Then at other times we just can’t pass up a drive through.. Although we know it’s not good for us we relish a bit of cerebral junk food and dive into Grisham or Patterson (god forbid!) It’s blogs like this were we can go through our literary rehab…
My, my.
The Menace of the Mechanical Reader – like a bad horror movie from the 50s or something.
Well, I wouldn’t go so far as saying she was tongue-in-cheek, but some of the transportation or food images she uses do suggest that Wharton was adding sarcasm to snobbery… I see this more as the written equivalent of the complicit smile shared with other intuitive readers at the expense of mechanical ones!
What’s so cruel about this essay is that there’s quite a bit of truth in it, but that the only consequence she seems to derive from it is “bar the idiots from reading” is mindblowingly cynical. Education anyone?
And I would stick with my initial idea of taking this as fair warning against the temptations of mechanical reading, to which I am certainly not immune. You remember writing recently that you wanted to spend more time with books, Stefanie? That would be a good exemple of an intuitive reader trying to further her relation with the books she reads, wouldn’t it? A little more constructive than Wharton’s attitude…
Confessions of a mechanical reader
I want to be an intuitive reader. I want to “get it.” But I know I’m mechanical. And I don’t need an intuitive elitist to tell me I’m excluded from the club – I already know it.
But the more I read the more discerning I think I get, the more I am able to recognize good writing. Perhaps there is also a process of development from mechanical to intuitive. I wasn’t born royalty, but might still enjoy the benefits via marriage…
Alright, off to read the essay!
The Vice of Reading, what a day to discover Stefanie So Many Books for the first time! Mechanical readers vs. the intellectual elite? My guess is I’ve been both in my long lifetime. Probably a mechanical reader in my youth and when forced to read certain texts while in school and later in university. Nothing so boring to me back then as an assigned text on Russian history. When I could read whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, a true literary wallow, the real reader was born. I am never without a book, known to carry a slim volume of poetry in an evening handbag at a black-tie event – after all, who knows how dull an evening might be? Of our six sons, three love books at the same ‘fanatic’ level as myself; two are ordinary book lovers and one does not like to read except rarely. My husband considers himself a reader but since his ‘wallows’ are solely in medical journals and the sports page, I don’t consider him a true reader.
I’ll make a point of reading the Wharton essay but for now I’m in the camp with ‘litlove’ and believe that Wharton’s relationship to Henry James played a role in forming her concepts of ‘mechanical readers.’ To me, better ‘mechanical readers’ than no reading at all.
Loved the website which I found via today’s WSJ and Cynthia Crossen’s column.
What did I tell you Stephanie? You made the WSJ today- will be interesting to see what happens in the blog.. more the merrier!
I agree with litlove also – I think she meant every word of it. Pretty entertainingly worded at that. I have to admit that she echoes some of my sentiments at times but I wonder how many books that I read would fall under her construct of “recognized trash”? Thanks for the link, Stephanie!
Wow, this essay looks like an amusing read. There is something that “feels” right about the idea of born readers and mechanical readers. But I’m not sure that those two categories necessarily fall neatly into the “reads literature well” and “reads literature poorly and should only stick to bad books.” In any case, reading Wharton’s essay should get me thinking about it….and right in time for the new classics circuit round.
Perhaps Wharton was once seduced by a junk book that she enjoyed illicitly in secret places, and she wrote this essay as a kind of penance.
I love your blog! I discovered it today, too, from the WSJ article. I lived in lovely Minneapolis too until a couple months ago.
I posted about this essay on my blog today and linked back to you. I’m interested to see what my friends think of it.
Sylvia, you are right, intelligence isn’t democratic, but I agree with you that there is no harm in encouraging mechanical readers to try to improve their reading by selecting good books. I think Wharton would be appalled by a world that where death threats could stop a book from being published. And isn’t peptonized great? I love that word!
Charlotte, I agree, there is a mechanical reader lurking in all of us. It is so easy to slip into the habit because it is such and easy habit to have!
Abbi, your example is quite a compelling argument in Wharton’s favor and I must admit to you being right. I think we should encourage everyone to read, but clearly, there are some who take to it like a duck to water and others for whom it will always be a chore.
Dorothy, I like your take on the essay, types of readers makes sense. The ones who want to improve their reading should be supported in that. And will I be whipped if I say the people who don’t want to read should not be made to feel badly about it?
Daphne, oh yes, I’d class you with the intuitive reader. But I think we all slip into mechanical now and then.
Litlove, I’ve been doing some investigating after your comment and you are right, Wharton was not being tongue-in-cheek. She could be a rather, er, assertive person. The argument rages on and will continue to rage on as long as there are readers and non-readers. Hopefully there will be lots of readers for a very long time!
Susan, wow, it doesn’t even sound like you and your sister are really from the same family! Amazing how things like that work out. I too hope that the ones who will never be readers are a small subset. Number bear it out, but we can keep hoping that will change!
JeanShin7, I love your metaphors! I wonder if we can argue that good literature makes you thin and junk books make ou fat? Imagine, the Virginia Woolf diet, lose 10 pounds in 10 days!
And thanks for letting me know about WSJ, it was a pleasant surprise!
Heahter, LOL, yeah, a classic black and white possibly as horrifying as Creature from the Black Lagoon or The Blob
Dadeo, exclusive clubs aren’t fair and that’s why Wharton’s essay chaffs me a bit. I find it admirable that you are developing as a reader. I think even people who call themselves intuitive readers could always work at being better too. It’s not a competition. The point is to enjoying reading and that is something everyone can do.
happyclam, hello and welcome! There are few worse things than forced reading. What a slog that can be even for people who love to read. I love that you carry poetry in your handbag to black-tie events! It is always good to be prepared!
Carrie, one person’s trash is another’s treasure, right? Still, I hope I somehow manage to find a balance between trash and the good stuff but I wouldn’t want to ask Wharton for her opinion!
Maire, I hope you found the essay an amusing and thought-provoking read. You are right, there is something that feels right about it but it gets buried in the meanness and snobbery.
andalucy, LOL, maybe you are right. I’ll bet Wharton secretly loved sensationalist fiction or something like that. Thanks for you kind words and the link! Too bad we couldn’t have connected before you left Minneapolis.
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