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Welcome to Back of the Napkin, musings from Serviette for the cultured world. We graciously challenge you to read to the end.
We are, unfortunately, in a reading recession. According to a recent essay in The Atlantic, reading is at an all-time low, with fewer than half of all adults reporting that they read a book of any kind in 2022. What’s more, today’s bestsellers boast sentences that are (on average) one-third shorter than they were a century ago, highlighting modern audiences’ overwhelming preference for simplicity.
Once upon a time, literature was a prized form of currency. It’s hard to reconcile the current state of affairs with the age of ancient Greek patrons of the arts or with the era of the author as the dominant form of celebrity. There was a time when Charles Dickens received the same international response we now reserve for pop stars and A-list actors, after all. Perhaps the most well-known library in all of human history, the Library of Alexandria—may she rest in peace—was built with the ambition of becoming a repository for all knowledge. Now, one wonders which artifacts of the algorithmic age deserve shelf space beside Aristotle and Euclid.
The article calls to mind an interview with author David Foster Wallace:
“Reading requires sitting alone by yourself in a quiet room,” he begins. “I have friends, intelligent friends, who don't like to read because they get—it's not just bored—there's an almost dread that comes out, I think, here about having to be alone, and about having to be quiet.”
This certainly rings true in an era defined by short-form content and the illusory nature of online interactions. Somehow, we’re reading more than ever—tweets, news headlines, texts—while losing our ability to actually read. This “explosion of textual fragments,” as The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch puts it, has left many of us unable to think deeply about writing or synthesize longer texts.
Still, there are beacons of hope. Take the handful of book clubs across the country dedicated to reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, one of which finally concluded in 2023 after reading and discussing two pages a month for 23 years. Upon finishing, its members picked it right back up and started again from page one. One member called the experience “the most fulfilling thing in [his] life,” with another adding, “In the course of a meeting, I have 30 different Wikipedia tabs open. You’re always learning about some new historical figure, or event, or some poet. It really just feels like my brain just took a shower. It’s so refreshing.”
While Serviette isn’t necessarily advocating for a multi-decade approach to reading, it’s certainly a comfort to know the juice is worth the squeeze. We thank you for doing your part to combat the literacy crisis.