Wasted time?

 Reading is never wasted time, Ivy's father had told her.

Alice Hoffman, The Invisible Hour

Reading is discouraged in some families. My own mother often discouraged it, telling me to put down my book and go outside to play. But perhaps she only wanted more balance, more outdoor physical activity to go with all that indoor mental activity,

Other parents simply view reading, particularly the reading of fiction, as wasted time. I became a book reviewer, so my youthful reading actually benefited my career in a direct way. For those who wind up clerking in a store, laboring in a factory or building highways, the benefits of reading can be more difficult to determine. That doesn't mean there are no benefits, but they are less obvious.

Reading, especially reading fiction, puts us into the minds of other people, including those who are unlike us. It helps us feel what they feel and understand how they think. It shows us why they do what they do. Reading can make us more tolerant and more forgiving. A novel can be a parable that helps us understand our own life, as I wrote in my last post. Thus reading can benefit us regardless of what we do for a living.

But is reading ever a waste of time? Ivy's father, in the line quoted above from the Alice Hoffman novel, thinks not. For children learning to read, I tend to agree with that statement. A comic book can be as good as a classic if it is something a child wants to read and will read voluntarily. No reading is wasted time if it helps someone learn to read better.

As I rapidly approach my ninth decade I become more inclined to believe that some reading is, in fact, wasted time. Was that book really worth my time? Why did I spend hours reading that book when this other book is the one I really want to read? Or is the thriller I really want to read a waste of time when I could be reading Alice Munro or Thomas Hardy?

A friend of mine tells me she has a 50-page rule. If a book doesn't grab her in the first 50 pages, she puts it aside and tries something else. I do something similar, and I think it's a good idea, especially for those of us running out of reading time. Yet I know some books are slow to develop and will ultimately reward patience. A year or so ago I reread The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. I was bored at first, yet I stuck with it and was ultimately rewarded. It was not a waste of time.

Later I tried reading Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. I wanted very much to like it because I had enjoyed The Light We Cannot See so much. Yet I couldn't get into it and gave up after 100 pages or so. That was a waste of time. Perhaps it wouldn't have been if I had stayed with it and finished the novel. Or finishing it might have proved an even bigger waste of time.

Reading, like most things in life, is a bit of a gamble.