The life that matters

In some ways I am reading the novel as I walk, or nap, or drive to the store for milk. When I am away from the book it lives its shadow life, its afterlife, and that, as the believers have always insisted, is the only life that matters.

Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies

Writing doesn't just happen while words are being put down on paper or on a screen. Writers write while they are walking, driving, reading, preparing a meal or even sleeping. Writing stems from thought, and thinking, much of it at the subconscious level, can take place anywhere at anytime.

What is true for writers is also true of readers, as Sven Birkerts points out in his book The Gutenberg Elegies.  You don't stop reading when you put down the book, at least not if the book has in any way engaged you. If it's a novel you are reading, you may wonder why the characters did what they did. Or what will they do next? What is the significance of this or that in the plot? A work of nonfiction, especially something full of ideas, might provoke thoughts of another kind. Can this be true? What does it mean? What does it mean for me? How does this change what I think about that?

Birkerts calls such thoughts about a book its afterlife. A good book's life does not end when the last page is turned. Like a pebble tossed into a pond, it produces ripples. These ripples may continue for minutes, hours or days. Sometimes they can affect us for the rest of our lives. We never stop reading the book, even if we never open it again.