“We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind.”
Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life
I have enjoyed reading and rereading this quote. First time around it seemed as if I got it, short and sweet. Second and third times around I really tried to get my head around it!
It is a habit of mine to read in bed. Oftentimes I will just go to bed early so I can sit and read for ages. It is a very rare or a very late night when I don't read. It is such a transition to sleeping for me; a habit ingrained over many years I guess and I really like the quiet, gentler time that it is. Somehow reading in bed leads me to sleep.
Which, when I think about it, is why I like the quote and the way it ties reading in bed into dreaming and therefore sleeping. That transition notion again as well as the sense for me, of dreaming as a halfway state.
But I think the quote is actually saying more about reading - that it is a halfway place where our minds are intertwined with another's; that our action of reading is linked inextricably to what was happening in somebody else's mind. That reading itself is a practice that is halfway between living and dreaming. Oh my.
The closer I look the trickier this quote gets, and I think I'd better leave it there before I find even more complications to ponder!
A recent sunset - a burning orange transition from day to night. This marks month two of Jennifer and Julie's search for the rainbow (Roy G. Biv) and other colours too. Pop on over to their blogs if you'd like to see what orange others found; or to join in.
Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life
I have enjoyed reading and rereading this quote. First time around it seemed as if I got it, short and sweet. Second and third times around I really tried to get my head around it!
It is a habit of mine to read in bed. Oftentimes I will just go to bed early so I can sit and read for ages. It is a very rare or a very late night when I don't read. It is such a transition to sleeping for me; a habit ingrained over many years I guess and I really like the quiet, gentler time that it is. Somehow reading in bed leads me to sleep.
Which, when I think about it, is why I like the quote and the way it ties reading in bed into dreaming and therefore sleeping. That transition notion again as well as the sense for me, of dreaming as a halfway state.
But I think the quote is actually saying more about reading - that it is a halfway place where our minds are intertwined with another's; that our action of reading is linked inextricably to what was happening in somebody else's mind. That reading itself is a practice that is halfway between living and dreaming. Oh my.
The closer I look the trickier this quote gets, and I think I'd better leave it there before I find even more complications to ponder!
A recent sunset - a burning orange transition from day to night. This marks month two of Jennifer and Julie's search for the rainbow (Roy G. Biv) and other colours too. Pop on over to their blogs if you'd like to see what orange others found; or to join in.
Hi Fiona- What a wonderful quote to ponder and a gorgeous sunset. Just looking at your photo warms me up and I could use that today since the windchills are below zero (Farenheit)!
ReplyDeleteHmm a bit too cold for me Julie - instead we are having a flood and the remnants of a cyclone - no sunset like this today! It was a stunner tho and made me get the camera out for sure. I do love orange...
DeleteWhat a striking orange sunset! Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteTotally amazing - it was ablaze Sharmon and I caught it! Today just mist and torrential rain...
Deletefiona, i like this, i think...you've got me just a wee bit worried. i can hardly remember a night i didn't read in bed. ok, just got it: read only dead writers, that should keep us safe!
ReplyDeleteI know I know - it can get scary and do your head in Velma! I think if you just go with it easy it works, when you think it gets hard, and then you think again and find a way thru - phew! Reading in bed is a must.
DeleteI have long thought that Anna Quindlen sneaks into my house and observes my life to get material for her writing. Much as I admire her novels, her columns and essays have rung most true from the time I was a young mother to the tragedy of September 11 and beyond. Most recently, when she wrote "I have the feeling I may be cut out to be an old woman" in "Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake," I nodded my head in agreement yet again.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I can't imagine going to bed without a book ...
Hi Liz! nice to mee thou here. Don't you just love it when you think somebody has almost hijacked your life and is somehow living it? She seems amazing and I am keen to read more. Bed and a book just seem to go together so naturally... go well.
DeleteI don't have one word for this sunset...it speaks for itself...beautiful!
ReplyDeleteIt was simply stunning - you know how you have to stop and almost just breathe it in to appreciate it? Sigh...
DeleteLove your "burning" sunset! - eric
ReplyDeleteIt seemed on fire, or ablaze, or burning or... what amazing colours they were and how lucky to view it and capture it, and have a little bit of it forever...Thanks Eric.
DeleteThis week's quote is so rich and deep - just like the sunset you so beautifully captured. As Eric says, indeed it seems to be "burning." (I can't think of the last time I saw a sunset so intense!) As for Anna Quindlen's words, to me the first part seems lovely and simple and easy to grasp, but it's the second half that's more complex...and is maybe easier to intuit rather than try to understand in the usual realm we exist in! Definitely food for thought...
ReplyDeleteBuona lettura : )
I think you got it better than me! The colours were amazing, and it took my breath away a little bit. Thank you for helping describe exactly how I felt about the quote - and the second part - you are right you intuit it rather than rationalise it. Once your try to think about it, it does your head in! Thanks Lisa, go well.
DeleteHi Fiona,
DeleteBeautiful quote, beautiful thoughts on the subject, beautiful sunset.
Thanks Roxanne - the sunset was gorgeous and the quote well worthy pondering! Go well.
DeleteThe heat in that picture is very palpable. beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYes Maya - it was warm and the sky looked ablaze...sometimes nature just delights you doesn't it? Go well.
DeleteYou have warmed us well - the sunset is extraordinary! And so too is the quote. Reading in bed has a wonderful peace about it, morning as well as at night now I'm retired ... indeed, for me, it is one of the great joys of this stage of life.
ReplyDeleteHappy to send a bit of warmth your way Margaret/Charlton! The sunset was special - as is reading in bed. I like the notion of reading in bed in the morning as well!
Deleteit takes weeks for to read a book because I often fall asleep midway through a page and embellish the story in the dreaming space. ... til the next when night it takes ages to find the place where I was because the bits I remember are dreamed of rather than read... I finally get back to the page where the dreaming set in read a few more pages, fall back into the dream and lose my place again...
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful description Mo - how the reading and the sleeping and the dreaming all interact...weave themselves into something, and slowly reveal...
Delete