Why Reading Slumps Happen: Understanding Attunement and Attachment
Summary
TLDRThis video delves into the common yet often overlooked issue of 'reading slumps,' where personal taste clashes with a book's content. It explores the concept of attunement, drawing parallels between literature and other art forms like music. The speaker discusses how societal expectations and media influence can create a disconnect between what we think we should enjoy and what we genuinely like. The video suggests overcoming reading slumps by experiencing books firsthand, unfiltered by external opinions, to find true literary enjoyment.
Takeaways
- π The video discusses the common issue of 'reading slumps', where readers find themselves unable to enjoy a book as expected.
- π€ A reading slump often occurs due to a mismatch between a reader's expectations and the actual content of the book.
- πΆ The concept of attunement is introduced, illustrating how it applies to various forms of art and media, not just literature.
- π΅ Attunement to music can happen quickly or develop over time, and is compared to the process of becoming attuned to a book.
- π©βπ The video references Zadie Smith's experience with Joni Mitchell's music, highlighting how personal and societal influences can affect attunement.
- π The act of reading involves interpretation, which can create a barrier to attunement compared to more direct media like music.
- π The book 'Hooked on Art and Attachment' by Rita Felski is mentioned, providing insights into the psychology behind attunement to art.
- π The shift from a 'reading public' to a 'media public' is discussed, noting how it affects the way we engage with books.
- π The video suggests that overexposure to media can create expectations that lead to reading slumps, by judging books before experiencing them.
- π‘ A solution proposed is to resist media influence and read books without preconceived notions to find genuine attunement and enjoyment.
- π The video ends with a sponsorship message for brilliant.org, promoting their platform for learning critical thinking and AI.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the video?
-The main topic of the video is the problem of a reading slump, which is a situation where a book lover finds themselves unable to enjoy their current read and is unsure whether to continue or pick up something else.
What causes a reading slump according to the video?
-A reading slump is caused by a mismatch between the reader's expectations of a book and the book itself, often stemming from a tension between what one thinks they want to read and what they actually want to read.
How does the video relate the concept of 'attunement' to reading slumps?
-The video suggests that 'attunement' is a process where one becomes connected to a piece of work, and a lack of attunement can lead to a reading slump. It involves a personal alignment with the material that may not always align with external factors like bestseller lists or popular opinion.
What is the role of personal taste in experiencing a reading slump?
-Personal taste plays a significant role in reading slumps as it determines what a reader genuinely connects with. If the book does not align with the reader's personal taste, it can lead to disengagement and a reading slump.
Why does the video mention the works of Zadie Smith and her experience with Joni Mitchell's music?
-The video mentions Zadie Smith's experience to illustrate how attunement can change over time and that initial resistance to a piece of art can eventually transform into appreciation, which is relevant to the discussion of reading slumps.
What does the video suggest as a solution to overcome a reading slump?
-The video suggests resisting the influence of media and preconceived notions about a book and instead, to immerse oneself in the reading experience without prior judgments or expectations.
How does the video connect the concept of attunement to other forms of media besides literature?
-The video connects attunement to music, suggesting that the process of becoming attuned or attached to a piece of music is similar to that of literature, and this concept can be extended to other forms of media as well.
What is the role of the media public in influencing our reading choices, as discussed in the video?
-The media public influences our reading choices by providing immediate access to images, sounds, and reviews, which can create a gap between our expectations of a book and the actual reading experience, potentially leading to reading slumps.
Why does the video recommend reading a book without prior knowledge of its content?
-Reading a book without prior knowledge allows for a more authentic attunement to the material, free from external influences like reviews or marketing, which can skew one's perception and enjoyment of the book.
What is the significance of the book 'Hooked on Art and Attachment' by Rita Felski in the video?
-The book 'Hooked on Art and Attachment' is significant as it provides theoretical insights into the concept of attunement and attachment to art, which the video uses to explore and explain the phenomenon of reading slumps.
Outlines
π The Enigma of Reading Slumps
This paragraph introduces the concept of 'reading slumps,' a phenomenon where readers find themselves unable to enjoy a book as they normally would. It discusses the internal conflict between what one thinks they should like to read and what they actually enjoy, often leading to a mismatch between expectations and reality. The speaker also touches on the idea that our tastes can be influenced by societal perceptions of culture and high art, leading to a struggle with self-image and literary preferences.
π΅ The Power of Attunement in Music and Literature
The speaker explores the concept of attunement, using music as an example to illustrate how it can take time to develop a liking for a piece or an artist. They mention Zadie Smith's experience with Joni Mitchell's music, which initially did not resonate with her but eventually grew on her after a period of resistance. This anecdote serves as a metaphor for how readers can become attuned to books, suggesting that the process of reading and interpreting text can act as a barrier to immediate enjoyment, unlike music.
π Navigating the Media Public and Reading Expectations
In this paragraph, the discussion shifts to the impact of the 'media public' on reading habits. The speaker contrasts the historical 'reading public' with the modern, media-influenced audience, where information and entertainment are often consumed visually rather than through reading. This shift has created a gap between the perceived appeal of a book and the actual reading experience. The speaker advocates for a return to the practice of reading a book without prior judgment or knowledge, to bridge the gap between expectation and reality and to potentially avoid reading slumps.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Reading Slump
π‘Attunement
π‘Tumin
π‘Expectations vs. Reality
π‘Media Public
π‘Critical Thinking
π‘Bestseller Lists
π‘Cultural Mismatch
π‘Book as Central Medium
π‘Openness to Experience
Highlights
The video discusses the uncommonly addressed issue of 'reading slumps' among book lovers.
Reading slumps occur when a book doesn't align with personal taste or current desires.
The struggle with reading slumps involves a tension between expected and actual reading preferences.
Sometimes our imagined cultural preferences don't match our genuine reading tastes.
The video introduces the concept of 'attunement' as a way to understand why we connect with certain literature.
Zadie Smith's experience with Joni Mitchell's music illustrates how attunement can develop over time.
Attunement can lead to a transformative experience, changing our perception and appreciation of art.
The video contrasts the immediacy of music attunement with the complexity of engaging with books.
Bypassing the media's influence can help in genuinely connecting with a book's content.
Rita Felski's personal experience of discovering 'The Unconsoled'ζͺη»ι’ε δΊθ§£ε³θ’«εΈεΌοΌhighlights the joy of unexpected literary attunement.
Critics' reviews can sometimes misalign with an individual's personal attunement to a book.
The video suggests resisting the urge to look up books online and instead reading them first to form an unbiased opinion.
The concept of 'media public' is introduced, explaining how it affects our preconceived notions about books.
The video concludes by encouraging viewers to be open to reading experiences without preconceived judgments.
Sponsor segment on Brilliant.org highlights the platform's focus on critical thinking and interactive learning.
Transcripts
today's episode is brought to you by
brilliant.org and welcome back to
another video and today we're going to
talk about something that's not commonly
talked about in the book Community or
it's not really talked about anywhere
else so I hope in this video I get to
use some of little tip bits from my
recent research into this kind of
question that I think every book lover
is currently struggling with or have
struggled with at some point in their
lives and this problem right here is
none other than the problem of a reading
slump so just a set of saying sometimes
you're reading a book everything is
going great you enjoy a book you can't
wait to finish the book you can't wait
to wake up the next morning or the next
evening to read the book again but
sometimes you're run into this tricky
experience kind of reading slump where
what you're reading isn't exactly
aligned with your personal taste or
isn't exactly aligned with what you want
to be doing at this moment and something
just isn't working right and when this
happens you secretly think to yourself
should I keep reading this book or
should I just run off and do something
else or should I pick up another book
sometimes we're simply unwilling to let
the book go and we find ourselves stuck
in this kind of limbo mode where we
can't pick up another book and at the
same time we can't really work up to
courage to finish this book in our hands
and that ladies and gentlemen that's a
reading slump for you and generally
speaking reading slumps happen when
there's a mismatch between your
expectations of the book and the book at
hand or in other words it stems from a
tension between what we think we want to
read versus what we actually want to
read because sometimes what you want to
read could be quite different from what
you think you want to read because as we
know as imaginative creatures we all
would like to think that we're better
people than we actually are so in our
heads we want to be the kind of person
who enjoys the Poetry of b or we want to
think of ourselves as people who can
just enjoy a play by Shakespeare and aai
you know something High cultured but as
the writer Robert es carpet observed the
cultured man who knows Rin would never
be so full hearty as to admit that what
he really loves is T hence sometimes we
find it really hard to put down a book
that we think we enjoy because we can't
swallow our pride because we can't
really allow ourselves to think that
we've somehow misjudged our own taste
but the same observation also raises new
questions so why is it the case that
sometimes our hearts are drawn toward
different works of literature or
different material for consumption or
different music or different films while
other times we just kind of feel like
you know what's on a bestselling lists
they don't really tickle our fancy what
are these mysterious mechanics that are
going on behind the scene and why are we
drawn to certain books and not others
and how do we use this mechanism to our
advantage and to find things that we're
actually going to enjoy and for that let
us dive into this discussion about how a
tumin works why are we drawn to certain
things and not others and just as a bit
of a side note I will be drawing a lot
from one of the books that I've read
recently called hooked art and
attachment by R felsky even though the
content of this book is quite amazing
and quite interesting to read and there
are some really really Illuminating
insights in here but I actually would
not recommend you to read this let me
read it for you because this is quite
dry and academic and at certain points
you won't even know what the hell you're
reading so unless you are also uh in the
field of uh doing research or doing
academic work I wouldn't really put you
through this reading experience just um
listen to this video if you're
interested I'm going to list this book
in the description down below as a bit
of a citation moment but other than that
sit back and relax so a tumin an
attachment this is something that's
quite Universal that's not just limited
to literature or not just limited to
high art it's also something that you
can experience when you attached to a
piece of music attached to a piece of
film or attached to a really funny TV
show so at first let's pick a medium
that's a lot more immediate than
literature to kind of understand how
this mechanism Works take music for
example sometimes you get lucky you
listen to a piece of music and you think
to yourself This is Amazing why haven't
I heard of this piece of music before
and let me stalk this artist on Spotify
straight away because I want to listen
to everything that they have to offer by
other times it takes a little longer for
us to get a tune to a piece of music
maybe the timeing is not quite right
maybe you've dated someone who liked
this piece of music and now uh you make
your mission to dislike that piece of
music but sometimes even when you're not
immediately attuned to a piece of music
after a while or if you listen to the
music 20,000 times and someday if you
really decide to get into someone's
music and you make your mission to like
that piece of music a tumin can happen
again you can get attached to the piece
of music through a kind of conscious
process and this is what happened to the
writer Zade Smith he her New York
article some notes on a tumin Zade Smith
described her complicated relationship
with Joanie Mitchell's music because as
a woman of color she's not exactly the
kind of person who grew up with the
demographic of the kind of people who
would enjoy Jony Mitchell's music and
eventually when zady Smith went up to
college she was bombarded by people
basically saying to her what's wrong
with you why don't you like jie
Mitchell's music because you know she's
one of these amazing musicians back in
the day and this is probably cheing your
experience too maybe there's that
musician that everyone's talking about
or everyone's raving about but you're
sitting there thinking that like I think
I'm an idiot for not liking this
musician why am I not connected to their
work and in those situations you can
either resist to work or try to really
fit in and get into it but in Zade
Smith's case she decided to resist jny
Mitchell's music and perceived her
albums as tuneless discordant a white
girls warbling that was a little more
than noise pretty harsh judgment I know
but that's not really the end of the
story after a decad la effort of
resisting Joanie Mitchell's music Smith
was in her 30s and she found herself in
a car uh driving with her husband to a
wedding in Wales and coincidentally
Joanie Mitchell's music was playing on
the radio but that was the last thing on
Zade Smith's mind at the time she was in
a foul mood and as the article had it
she was craving a sausage roll from a
gas station so she wasn't really in the
right heads space to really think about
the music but then she looked out at the
window watching the scenes passing by
her listening to the music and she found
herself humming Joanie Mitchell's music
and in a moment of Attunement as I
remember it some flooded the area my
husband quoted a line from one of Lucy
poems I began humming a strange piece of
music humming Joanie yet not conscious
of the transformation so what happened
there was a sudden moment of Attunement
she learned to appreciate a piece of
music or a musician that she didn't
previously like and these moments tend
to go beyond a music itself sometimes
you find yourself living in a fresh new
reality after you've learned to
appreciate a new piece of music new
piece of art and in a case of reading a
new piece of literature when you get
lucky sometimes you can read the first
line of a novel and get immediately
sucked in you're Bewitched you can't
wait to turn to Pages you can't wait to
finish the book and you can't wait to
tell everyone about the book and those
moments they tend to make up some of our
Fondest Memories when it comes out to
reading like those rainy days under the
cover like those uh long nights when
you're eting with a lamp underneath your
bed sheet but as we get older we find it
more and more difficult to click into
these moments sometimes we wonder to
ourselves have we lost the capacity to
be attached to a certain piece of work
have we lost that capacity to get really
excited about a piece of Novel well the
answer to that is not really but it is
the case that books are just a little
bit trickier to deal with than music in
the case of music what you hear is kind
of what you're going to get so a tumin
is a very straightforward process you
either like the music or you don't like
it you listen to it five times times or
you leave it in a trash but with a book
The Act of interpreting the text or the
act of reading the text that kind of
serves as a barrier between you and
being attached to this piece of work and
also there's an additional layer in his
book ocracy The Korean German
philosopher biano Han observed that from
the enlightenment to the end of the 20th
century the book was the central medium
at the time writers and journalists they
occupy the center stage of culture
whenever you want to know something
about the world a magazine or book they
are the devices that you'll turn to to
know something about the world and
whenever you want some kind of
entertainment all you have are really
cartoons and story books and novels so
this public that banahan described was a
reading public it is not the kind of
public that gets to know the world
through all these wonderful devices that
we have around us words served as the
main mediator between events and the
public in our world however we don't
really have a reading public what we
have is kind of like a media public
where we're immediately exposed to
images and sounds before we even have to
read a single thing so nowadays we no
longer have to be well-trained readers
or readers at all to get to know the
world which is a really fascinating
phenomenon and if we apply this
phenomenon to being attuned to certain
books we want to read can you see the
problem here because we're constantly
surrounded by images and sounds
sometimes we can know a book's content
or we can judge a book by its cover or
we can judge a book by an online review
without ever reading the first chapter
of the book so what this creates is kind
of a gap between between attuned to the
digital representation of the book
versus being attuned to the actual
reading experience of the book itself
just because you really like the sound
of a book from a review or from a
clipping on Instagram or from a Tik Tok
doesn't actually guarantee that you're
actually going to like the book when you
sit down to read it and when you spend a
lot of time building up this mental
image of the book in your head without
actually reading the book when you
actually get down to reading a book you
might actually discover that you don't
really like the book that much so that's
what kind of creas the gap between what
you think you want to read versus what
you actually want to read and when you
find yourself in one of these moments
you'll find yourself in a bit of a
reading slump and a solution to that
problem here is to somehow resist all
the incoming information from the media
public and to kind of forced your into
this ritual of reading a book before KN
anything about it first and this is what
happened to the author of this book Rita
felsky when she found herself in a
bookstore on vacation so she's not
really thinking about picking a specific
book to read she picked out shu's novel
The unconsoled in an English language
book shop Without Really knowing what
the book is about immediately after
reading the first line she found herself
completely gripped by the book She was
drawn abruptly and without recourse into
a mazik narrative setting an unnamed
central European city and it was a book
that she cannot not read until the book
is done but after she finished a book
put it away and fired up her laptop to
look at a reviews critics didn't really
agree with her James Wood commented
ishiguro's new novel has the virtue of
being un likee like anything else it
invents its own category of Badness
meanwhile mishiko kutani from The New
York Times considered the book A dogged
Shaggy Dog narrative that sorely tries
to readers patience and of course it's a
sad situation to like something I like
to find out that people around you don't
really agree with you but at the same
time had felsky read that book after
reading on the reviews she probably
wouldn't have the same uh Attunement
with the book and ishiguro's story
probably would have not taken her on
this extended journey through this
really fascinating narrative had felsky
agreed with the critics before ever
cracking open the first chapter coming
back to our experience if we first of
all look up the book on the internet if
we just read everything about the book
before ever reading the first chapter of
the book ourselves it is possible for us
to judge a book by its cover or judge
the book by its reviews as to miss out
on some potentially really interesting
reading experiences and as a result we
miss out on some great opportunities for
us to get lost in a book that we love
because we're so concerned concerned
with the bestselling list we're very
concerned about you know is this the
book that I should be reading or is this
what everyone else is reading and in
order for us to combat that judging a
book by its cover syndrome it's helpful
for us to just read the book first
without knowing anything about it you
know download a chapter from iBooks for
free or read a few pages at the
bookstore because nowadays we live in a
media public and it's actually easier
for us to know something before actually
experiencing it and long story short
that's the solution to reading slumps we
need to bridge the gap between the idea
of the book or what we think we'd like
to read versus what we're actually
reading to the point where the two kind
of merge into one that doesn't mean that
we'll never ever look up a bestseller
list ever again and it doesn't really
mean that we shouldn't struggle with
harder reading material just to get to
that point of ATT tumin and attachment
it simply means being open it simply
means not letting your ideas about a
thing getting the way of the actual
thing itself it simply means removing
all the conceptions or the
misconceptions that you have about a
book and just dive head in and just
enjoy yourself if you're not into James
Baldwin right now it's okay if you're
nodding to some poet's works it's okay
give it time let your circumstances
influence the way you think and maybe
one day after a few years of living life
then you decide to pick up some poem
that you've never read or decide to pick
up James Baldwin again or decide to
tackle ulyses one more time and this
time you might just find yourself
enjoying a book that you think you would
enjoy and that's all I have to say on
this problem of the reading slump or the
art of a tuman or the art of attachment
and I hope you guys have enjoyed today's
video and before we go here just a quick
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thank you for watching today's video for
now take care and goodbye
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