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Originally Posted by sonicl

I love to read, but I think that the biggest obstacle to people enjoying reading is that they read what they feel they ought to read, rather than what they want to read. They force themselves to read Camus and Cocteau (for example) because they believe it is an important intellectual exercise, but their brains aren't necessarily ready for philosophical meanderings. People need to read the Dan Browns and the J K Rowlings in order to get their brains used to the exercise of reading and understanding.

That said, I prefer to use reading either as education or entertainment, rather than as an intellectual exercise.

yes yes yes. borges used to say that people should never read what they didn't like-- so he always had a hard time being a teacher. the only point i'd refute based on semantics is that "education" but not 'intellectual exercise". aren't they both a little bit the same? isn't reading camus for the intellectual execise an educational reason?

in that sense, if people had the habit of reading from childhood, they'd eventually "graduate" to more complex readings, not because of snobberies and afffectations but simply because tastes change with use and practice.

the same way that, as children, one used to love the taste of, say, ice cream from the truck, but as grownups, if offered good humor as dessert in a great reastaurant one would laugh it off as a prank. i remember as a little kid, i loved the smell of bacon so much i wondered why they didn't make cologne with its smell.

anyway, i've been reading since i was a little shit, and in my travels even went to grad school to read and read, to the point of nausea, so i can't inflict any more crap upon my mind-- it has to be good or else... in other words, crapola doesn't give me pleasure anymore, and these days i leave many a mediocre book unfinished, like a rancid twinkie.

a small digression to invite potential readers-- cocteau, unlike camus, was not a philosopher but a sick bastard poet. les enfants terribles is deliciously perverted. a must.