Reading Strategies

I guess slogging through The Sound and the Fury is as good a way as any to recall my strategies for making sense of a difficult text. I really have only a few nuggets of wisdom to proffer, but they seem to help me.

The first is to reread frequently. As soon as I feel my mind wander, I pause, think about the last thing I remember reading (or the last thing that made sense to me), go back to that point, and start again. Sometimes this means backtracking a sentence; sometimes it means backtracking several pages. If I don't know where I am in the story, there is no point in moving forward.

The second is to read in small doses. At this point, I have read only half the book, and this in several sittings. As much as I would like to sit down and plow through The Sound and the Fury so that I can move on to more pleasurable pursuits, I only have the brainpower and concentration for about 30 pages at a time. Reading more than that is fruitless; I wouldn't recall a thing. It's the law of diminishing returns.

The third really goes along with the first two and that is to only read when I am focused. This morning I brought the book to my local Pain Quotidien, figuring I would spend a few hours with it after meeting with my wedding photographer. Maybe it was having all of the proofs on the table beside me, maybe I just was not in the mood for Faulker; after 2 hours, I had read 20 pages. Not too effective. This evening, however, I sat down in my quiet apartment and almost lost myself in the book, reading 50 pages in an hour and a half or so. Much better. When I am not in the mood to tackle a challenging text, it is best just to wait until I am.

My final strategy is simply to take notes. I do tend to underline key passages and circle words from recurring lexical fields in almost any book I read, but when a text really causes me trouble, I find it helpful to take notes on a separate sheet of paper. Sometimes these notes pertain to what is happening on the story; sometimes they just record my reactions to what I am reading. The notes can be helpful afterward in revisiting key themes and messages, but mostly they just keep me engaged. Responding to what I read in writing keeps me an active reader, which is crucial in getting through a text like The Sound and the Fury.