About a decade ago I was doing my doctoral studies in education technology. As well as the obligatory, ambient research reading I recall doing a lot of "challenging" reading during this time: Steinbeck's East of Eden (after which I got my first tattoo), Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style (which shaped my love of careful words), Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North (the first horrific book I was unable to put down.)
Time passed, life changed, and my non-fiction reading became surrounded by "self-help" and "smart thinking" books. Reader, I feel almost unforgivable shame. I do not think these books embolden empathy for others, or bring diversity of opinions to the centre. I think they reduce the world down to what I experience, and what I can (or should) control. They are redeemed largely by giving me fluency in a language that a lot of people use. To weald the authority of billionaires from decades past.
More time passed, and reading phased in and out of my priorities. Dating, moving my body, and working for higher and higher salaries consumed my attention and time.
The books I was reading became less "challenging". By which I mean they contained ideas that were already familiar, or over-abstractions (read: simplifications) from complex experiences or histories. The fiction I read included Serious Award Winners, and I worked through (long) series of acclaimed speculative fiction.
I feel lucky that books have stayed with me, forming such a core part of my self and my identity. But none of it felt "challenging" in the same way.
Partly, I think it's because a particular horizon can only be expanded once. Objectively speaking, fiction about individual characters coping with systemic economic collapse, and rare narrative streaks of humanity or redemption is not unique to Steinbeck. But I first encountered it with him. I was challenged by the repetitive bleakness, and then rewarded by a streak of mostly humanist faith that still lives with me (in this case, literally on me.). Perhaps this is unfair, he won the Nobel Prize in literature - but I only learned that after my world had re-formed itself.
I don't think anyone should be reading Beowulf or Infinite Jest or Chaucer or Shakespeare just because they are challenging.
People can read books for whatever reason they want. I'm just glad we keep writing them and reading them. By no means am I committing myself to anything. Sci-fi&fantasy and memoir&essay have bought me so much joy already this year. I have been recommending Tom Cox's Ring the Hill (a collection of nature-inspired non-fiction pieces) to anyone who will listen.
But afters years of reading at the whim of my interests and enjoyment, around other parts of my life, I think I missed the unique ability of books to challenge and change me.
Earlier this year I read Man's Search for Meaning - a mere 150 pages, in which Frankl describes, quite matter of factly, his experiences as a Jew in several Prisoner of War camps during the Second World War. This is challenging reading. He then goes on to explain how this formed the idea of Logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy. Another challenging idea.
Presently I am reading David Bentley Hart's All Things are Full of Gods. A more substantial five-hundred page exploration of the philosophy of mind and consciousness, presented as dialogue between Greek gods. This follows off the back of a few books exploring theology and world religion. These have all been challenging reading.
Unlike during my postgraduate studies, when a lot of my total reading felt challenging, the idea of reading something "challenging" feels far more optional now. Which is probably why I just didn't do it.
Also, I don't know know what to do with all these thoughts I have. Should I be taking notes, or highlighting the book? Should I march through dense prose or linger on unfamiliar ideas?
There is something about reading "challenging" books that feels unique and worthwhile to me at the moment. I am enjoying it, and I am grateful for a brain that is interested in grappling with some of it.
See other articles