So now Ariel at Bittersweet Life is asking, “What Makes a Great Reader?” He cites the example of students who complain to him that they’re being forced to waste their valuable time on To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby. The question becomes how can we teach these students, or how can we teach ourselves, to come away from worthwhile texts having learned or grown or thought deeply? How do we make ourselves or others into “great readers”?

Well, first of all, we keep assigning great books: old books, books that are esteemed, even new books, books that are, shudder, popular, books that someone else appreciates and tells us about. We assign ourselves to read whatever is pure and lovely and virtuous and praiseworthy and of good report. We make ourselves read the best literature we can find.

Then, we think–humbly. I posted this quote from A.A. Milne a long time ago, but it’s worth posting again in this context.

“One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and, if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can’t criticize it, because it is criticizing us. But I must give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don’t be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgment on my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgment on yourself. You may be worthy: I don’t know, But it is you who are on trial.”

Isn’t this true of any great book? One way to become a great reader is to remember who you are. You are the most recent in a long line of readers to come to Dickens or Tolstoy or Homer or even Harper Lee and sit at their feet and be judged worthy of learning what they have to teach–or unworthy. There are many classic authors that I am not yet a good enough reader to appreciate, but humility tells me that the flaw is in my understanding, not in the author’s work. Not that any author’s work achieves god-like perfection, but if millions have learned something from a given piece of literature and I receive nothing, perhaps I need to work a little harder. Yes, in some few cases, especially in the case of more modern literature that has not yet been judged by many generations of great readers, the emperor may have no clothes, but generally if lots of discerning readers over a long period of time say that Author X has something to give, he probably does. And I become a great reader by applying my brain to the problem of finding that something, maybe even writing about it, asking questions, thinking.

It all comes back to humility. Wasn’t that what Mr. Vanderhorst’s last question was about?