How am I engaging with literature now? Do I take notice of best-of lists, recommendations through newspapers, or influencer “what I read this month” posts? How much can I say I am developing my own taste, led by my own choices and interests?
Partly in response to Izzy’s comment in class about self-conscious reading, and in engaging with the three readings from this week, these questions feel important to keep in mind. Each author, in some way, engages with ideas of literary or scholarly accessibility and democracy. The “canon” is, in some ways, expanding through a widening structure of value, no longer in the sole control of established literary or cultural icons, but perhaps influenced by a self-published author or blogger.
However, as David Wright considers, the endless choice currently faced by people deciding what to read is still mediated by assessments of value. Personally, the ideal of self-directed choice feels out of reach. I know what my interests are, and I engage with media that responds to those interests, but in doing so I seem to create my own echo chamber of creative and political outputs.
Despite these feelings of overwhelm, or self-reproach at my lack of engagement with different literary or cultural spheres, the readings we have looked at encourage me to reintroduce a practice of “deep attention.” Katherine Hayles notes that although our capacity for slow, attentive, and empathetic reading is not lost, there is a need to continually and deliberately engage with literature and other cultural products that challenge what we know and what we believe.
