Despite my best efforts, the things people do still surprise me. And I feel like each of us should just never be shocked anymore.
Right now in the wild, a guest is wearing white to someone’s wedding.
Someone brought their own Tupperware to a restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet.
There’s litter next to the garbage can, a vehicle parked in a personally-decided spot in the lot at the mall, and someone is eating the grapes right off the vine in the supermarket produce aisle.
Nothing – absolutely nothing – should shock us anymore.
And yet, here I am. Slack-jawed and puzzled. Wondering and utterly confused.
A new trend in reading has taken hold, and I’m shocked as shit as to what I’m reading – and equally, what it turns out many are not.
According to several booktok posts, a staggering number of readers are explaining how they’re able to zip through books on the ready. It’s not speed reading. It’s not Spencer Reid before wheels up in 20. No, no.
They are only reading the dialogue of the story. Let that sink in.
Not the description. Not the prose. Not the meat of the book. Not the explanations, the litany of adjectives, the vastness of world-building. Not lineage, nor heritage; not in a box, and not with a fox – though I suppose that’s a direct quote, meaning they may have read that.
They are only reading the dialogue. The exchange of conversation between characters.
How does that work? Don’t you need to understand the context? Dear quasi-reader: My question is – does the story even make sense?
One commenter chalked up this new trend in the literary world as “reading novels like comic books.”
Never had I considered picking up an Emily Brontë and attempting to source the romance of the moors by listening to Cathy opine for Heathcliff. Never have I ever thought it would be best to forgo the imminent terror and horror of the Capitol by skipping over the description of the arena built for the tributes by Panem. Imagine how difficult it would be to truly experience Narnia if you’d only listened to Tumnus and Lucy exchange pleasantries. How unbelievably grand an imagination you must have to supersede Tolkien’s world-building, Rowling’s wizardry, Rice’s gothic noir of immortal vampires, Austen’s commentary.
My moral high ground? It isn’t reading. It’s skimming. And if you need to skim, you’re not reading the book for you.
From the gospel of Nancy Pearl: “If you’re 50 years old or younger, give every book about 50 pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up. If you’re over 50, which is when time gets shorter, subtract your age from 100 – the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding whether or not to quit. If you’re 100 or over you get to judge the book by its cover, despite the dangers in doing so.”
To sum: stop talking. Start listening. Read the words on the page. Have them narrated to you. However you consume books, take it all in. Word for word. Page for page. You’re offered the keys to an entirely new world every book you open.
Do you only read the dialogue? Let us know in the comments. Here are a few of the reactions to this ‘trend’:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Care is the Social Media Manager at Book Notification. She is an avid reader/writer, Mama to 3 adult kids, a wedding DJ, and a snob for coffee and pop culture. Her favourite book is Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. She lives in Canada with her husband and record collection.