The Pleasant Sociability of Reading Aloud

Josh Getzler

Last weekend, I was out in New Jersey visiting my in-laws with the family. It was the end of Passover, and including my brother-in-law's family and some friends, there were fifteen people (including seven children) hanging around the house.

My youngest daughter, Ita,  had an English assignment and decided that for her report she was going to read one of the books I represent--Geoff Rodkey's wonderful and clever Deadweather and Sunrise. As something of a treat, and in order for her to get into the rhythm of the story (and because, having read it, oh, ten times already, I was pretty fluent), I agreed to read the beginning to Ita, with the understanding that she'd take over after a reasonable number of pages.

Turns out that "reasonable" meant a hundred and twenty. And it was a pleasure. Beside the actual words of the story, which are funny and at times quite beautiful and poignant (when people aren't hitting each other with rocks), a fascinating thing happened: I acquired an audience. Slowly, over the course of the hour and a half or so that I read, people found their way onto the porch.

They had all read the book already--Deadweather and Sunrise was my go-to book last summer, and my son and wife had read it when it was on submission. But there was something about the whole sociability of sitting together and hearing a story that was magnetic. By the time I got to "and I realized REDACTED (read it yourself!) was trying to kill me" and closed the book, there were eight or nine people in the room.

We spend an enormous amount of time hanging out in front of screens. We write posts and emails and text messages. Particularly when kids aren't around we rarely sit together and read to each other. Heck, the Author Reading as social event at the local bookstore has almost disappeared as publishers have realized that blog tours are generally more efficient and cost effective than sending writers on the road (except--as is the case right now with Geoff Rodkey himself, coincidentally--when they send a group of authors on tour together to visit schools and bookstores en mass).

So it was particularly fun--in a retro, quaint way--to read to Ita and the greater Jersey Shore. It helped that it was a lively book, and on a holiday where we don't use electronics so the audience was somewhat captive. And everyone walked around the house smiling for a few hours at the sheer pleasantness of the experience. Ita has not, in fact, read on this week--the return to school has taken over her free time. But it's almost the weekend, and the days are long, and I think the immediate family is going to NEED to hear how Egg escapes from REDACTED.

Comments

[Jessy Randall]

I still read to my 9-year-old daughter (because she lets me) and I find that reading aloud is a kind of meditation. My breathing and heartbeat slow down, and although my mind wanders, it's a good kind of wandering.

[Mimicross.wordpress.com]

Love this post!

And believe it or not, I actually got goosebumps when I read the part about you closing the book, because at that point, I was imagining the scene on the porch, and the magic that happens between audience and performer. (In this case, reader and listener.) The entrainment that occurs in those moments is so rich, and mysterious.

When I spend time with people (if we're not talking about our kids!) I want to make something, want to create, and I think the reason for that is to share the kind of experience you wrote about. For some reason, lots of reasons, I guess, that doesn't happen much with my family—except with my son—but I wish it did.

My son is seven, and I read to him every night. Sometimes, he reads to me. Reading aloud is such a different experience than reading silently, and I’m so happy that my son is discovering how much fun it is to feel the words in his mouth. To enunciate them, and even read them with a different accent! I’m thrilled that he already knows how much fun it is to play with words.

[Toni]

i think its refreshing that in this age of electronics, there is sometimes nothing that can compare to just opening a book and reading out loud.

[Karen Olson]

My husband has never read Harry Potter, and my 16 year old daughter is appalled by that. So every night when the homework is done and the computers are turned off, she reads Harry Potter to him before she goes to bed.