To read is to wander

To read is to wander in a direction, to yield to a current.

Heather Cass White, Books Promicuously Read

Heather Cass White

To read a book for the first tune is a kind of wandering, as Heather Cass White suggests in Books Promiscuously Read. That is, we don't know where a book is taking us. We wander to discover what's around the next corner or over the next hill. We read to discover what the author has for us next.

Sometimes, as when we read a thriller or a mystery, surprise is the whole point. But even in more serious novels and most nonfiction, there is a sense of wandering and discovery. We read books in hope that they will be, at the very least, interesting. There will be something we have never encountered before.

We can often be disappointed, of course. Often there is nothing interesting at all around the next curve in the road or over the next hill. Similarly the next chapter of a book can be a letdown. Wandering involves risk, which is why so many of us prefer to read books by authors we have come to know and love.

White's next metaphor, "to yield to a current," is slightly different. Wandering suggests free will, making choices. You can always turn around or take another path. Floating down a stream, however, implies, as her phrase tells us, "yielding." Which is most apt when it comes to reading? Are we wandering or yielding?

Any metaphor can be taken too far, and perhaps it doesn't really matter. In any case, I like the idea of reading as a kind of discovery. As Forrest Gump says about chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.