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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
DNF @ 14%
It makes no sense to me that an essay with the intriguing title of “Reading Teaches Us Empathy, And Other Fictions” would spend 25+ pages summarizing and analyzing a book by Some White Dude (yes he won the Nobel Prize but I have never heard of Peter Handke and do not care enough to read that many pages about him). It seems like the author actually wanted to talk about separating the art from the artist and the politics of art but pretended to frame it in terms of empathy instead. Man, I would have loved to read an essay actually breaking down the concept of reading teaching empathy. I did enjoy the snippet describing reading as “an ethical protein shake” building the muscles of empathy in us, with writers of color as personal trainers (though you can tell Castillo doesn’t lift weights as protein shakes alone don’t build muscle lol). Wish she had spent more time on that.
The author’s writing style is also just so pretentious and exhausting to read, with tons of asides causing long, meandering sentences. I was reading almost every other sentence at least 3 times to try to understand what tf the author was trying to say. Makes sense that a person who grew up reading European classics would write in a way that regular ol’ me who grew up reading Sarah Dessen and That HP TERF wouldn’t understand lmao. There was also a little bit of millennial internet speak in here too (it is TRULY AWFUL in the Acknowledgments and Works Cited sections, god) and man, as a millennial myself, I’m just so tired of millennial “humor” in serious nonfiction.
I skimmed through the rest and it seems like Castillo spends a good portion of the book talking about media I’ve never heard of or have no interest in, and I’m just not the kind of person who enjoys reading analyses of media I know nothing about. I thought this book was going to be more general, so this was a major disappointment. I’m annoyed I took the time to go to a more distant library branch just to pick this up lol
It makes no sense to me that an essay with the intriguing title of “Reading Teaches Us Empathy, And Other Fictions” would spend 25+ pages summarizing and analyzing a book by Some White Dude (yes he won the Nobel Prize but I have never heard of Peter Handke and do not care enough to read that many pages about him). It seems like the author actually wanted to talk about separating the art from the artist and the politics of art but pretended to frame it in terms of empathy instead. Man, I would have loved to read an essay actually breaking down the concept of reading teaching empathy. I did enjoy the snippet describing reading as “an ethical protein shake” building the muscles of empathy in us, with writers of color as personal trainers (though you can tell Castillo doesn’t lift weights as protein shakes alone don’t build muscle lol). Wish she had spent more time on that.
The author’s writing style is also just so pretentious and exhausting to read, with tons of asides causing long, meandering sentences. I was reading almost every other sentence at least 3 times to try to understand what tf the author was trying to say. Makes sense that a person who grew up reading European classics would write in a way that regular ol’ me who grew up reading Sarah Dessen and That HP TERF wouldn’t understand lmao. There was also a little bit of millennial internet speak in here too (it is TRULY AWFUL in the Acknowledgments and Works Cited sections, god) and man, as a millennial myself, I’m just so tired of millennial “humor” in serious nonfiction.
I skimmed through the rest and it seems like Castillo spends a good portion of the book talking about media I’ve never heard of or have no interest in, and I’m just not the kind of person who enjoys reading analyses of media I know nothing about. I thought this book was going to be more general, so this was a major disappointment. I’m annoyed I took the time to go to a more distant library branch just to pick this up lol
I have tried several times to read this essay collection, and I continue to fall short. These essays are too long and kinda overwritten. Little was new to me (which, I know, is the point), but I prefer more terse essay collections. I think I will read a few essays I am most interested in, and leave the rest. I wish I could read in full, but sadly I cannot.
challenging
emotional
informative
medium-paced
These essays go so hard. Please read this book.
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
"it feels impossibly hard and incalculably stupid to commit to that love, to bear it and be borne by it, but that is what i feel—it is the wellspring that reading leads me to, every time. loving this world, loving being alive in it, means living up to that world; living up to that love. i can’t say i love this world or living in it if i don’t bother to know it; indeed, be known by it. it’s that mutual promise of knowing that reading holds us in—an inheritance that belongs to us, whether we accept it or not. whether we read its pages or not."
in 'how to read now,' elaine castillo beckons us toward understanding that who we read, why we read, and how we read is and always will be political. that not only is who we read important, but also how we interact with these works, how we unpack the systems we live under, the privileges we're coming from while reading, and the ways these influence every decision we make, including what we are choosing to read, amplify, and canonize.
this book is one that will stick with me for a long time, that i easily see myself returning to again and again.
in 'how to read now,' elaine castillo beckons us toward understanding that who we read, why we read, and how we read is and always will be political. that not only is who we read important, but also how we interact with these works, how we unpack the systems we live under, the privileges we're coming from while reading, and the ways these influence every decision we make, including what we are choosing to read, amplify, and canonize.
this book is one that will stick with me for a long time, that i easily see myself returning to again and again.
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This felt like a cool genius friend yanking me out of a dull literature class to attend a great art film festival, and accurately and exhaustively roasting the class's entire reading list on the ride there. And later, getting me home with a pile of better books containing many little sticky notes.
informative
reflective
challenging
reflective
medium-paced