Good Readers
I don’t consider myself a reader or a writer. My brother and I shared a room since we were kids until high school. My father placed a small library in the middle of our separate beds, hoping on day either my brother or I grab a book and read it. We didn’t. The library was filled with books related to historical events and literature, and both my brother and I were and still not interested in these types of books.
When I read a book, which I rarely do, I attend to search for articles or summaries online about the book I am intending to read and what the people think of it before reading the book itself. I believe is that is what Nabokov is trying to say when he said “if one begins with a ready-made generalization, one begins at the wrong end and travels away from the book before one has started to understand it.” I should always give the author a chance to explain him or herself by reading the book before reading general ideas, which could give me a different idea from the author`s. Another thing I believe is that Nabokov wants the readers to be explorers and isolate ourselves from this world and enter the new world that has been created by the author. He stated “we should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already knew.”
“A good reader, a master reader, an active reader and a creative reader is a re-reader.” Nabokov gave us the simple step to become a better reader which is re-read. My opinion is re-reading at least twice is a part of reading and to fully understand the book I intend to read. Also, I believe being interested in a certain book makes it easier for me and faster to read and understand it. When I read a book or an article related to a subject I am interested in such as medicine and the human body or...