(Above is an audio recording of the blog post)
There are two ways of reading a book. You can read it to understand what the author says with it. Or you can read it to see what you can do with it. The first mode is reading for the sake of understanding, the second for creating. What we all remember from education is the first one. Here the book tells you what to think. I, however, argue that the second mode of reading goes a level deeper, approaching the heart of education, in that it concerns how to think.
Gilles Deleuze distinguishes these two modes of reading by how you look at the book. It is either ‘a box with something inside’ that signifies, or it is ‘a little non-signifying machine’ (Deleuze, 1995, pp. 7-8). With the book-as-box, the only question is ‘what does it contain?’ It is a question absent of subject, absent of you, since the book-as-box is the same for every reader. The book-as-machine, on the other hand, prompts another question. To Deleuze that question is: ‘Does it work, and how does it work?’ (1995, p. 8). Now the book does not contain something hidden, it is an instrument to be used. And an instrument must be used by someone. Here enters the subject. ‘How does it work for you? If it doesn’t work, if nothing comes through, you try another book’ (Deleuze, 1995, p. 8). The book-as-machine puts you at the heart of reading it, not its author. Reorienting reading like this is the first step in using books to train your own thinking.
It entails reading Immanuel Kant not for Kant-in-himself but for what Kant can do you for you. Using Kant as an example is no coincidence. Kant wants us to mature, to discover our ability to think for ourselves. ‘Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance from another’ (Kant, 1992, p. 1). Returning to the book, the first mode of reading becomes an immature mode in that you are reading the book with the sole guidance of its author. So, who is to help you mature in your reading? You, of course. Otherwise, you would simply substitute one guide for another. Kant emphasises how our immaturity is self-imposed, and the only way out is Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own understanding!’ (1992, p. 1). That, to Kant, is true enlightenment. It should be the end goal of any education. But do not take Kant at face value on this, of course. Dare to disagree, to disrespect, to enter the book and mentally wrestle with the man himself.
This is where reading becomes a creative activity. By entering the book, digging through its pages, finding the paragraph that works for you and wrenching it away to another use, to your use, is how you transform yourself from a passive reader of understanding into an active reader of creating. To Arthur Koestler, it is precisely this engagement that constitutes the creative process. Creativity to him is the ‘act of wrenching away an object or concept from its habitual associative context and seeing it in a new context’ (Koestler, 2014, pp. 488-489). Becoming a creative reader is therefore not just seeing the book-as-machine, it is daring to open it up, rummaging through its parts, and finding the one piece that will help you build your own mental machinery.
The book here ceases to be about thoughts and starts to be about thinking. This does, obviously, entail reading many books, because what you are building is your own mental machinery out of them. If that is to be a truly original piece, then its elements must be both numerous and heterogenous. No one can guide you in this endeavour. Remember, the guide is a dangerous figure for your newfound maturity. Nevertheless, what can help is a way of looking at the many books you read. When Aristotle’s works of logic, his writings on how to think, were collected into a single edition it was given the title Organon. Organon is the Greek word for “instrument”. These works of Aristotle are instruments to think with. I argue more books should be thought of as an Organon.
This has in no way been about diminishing the first mode of reading. It has, however, been an attempt at diminishing the act of reading too respectfully. With ‘creative reading’ I propose a way of reading a little more rebelliously. Here you too are at the heart of the book, battling it out alongside its author, conquering the spoils to be used in your own expanding mental machinery. But it is not a violent struggle with winners or losers. It is a way of approaching the author as equals, not thinking about their book but thinking with it.
References
Deleuze, G. (1995). Negotiations. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kant, I. (1992). An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? Hackett Publishing. https://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/kant_whatisenlightenment.pdf
Koestler, A. (2014). The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe. London: Penguin Classics.
