How Should One Read a Book?

“But you will notice the note of interrogation at the end of my title. One may think about reading as much as one chooses, but no one is going to lay down laws about it. Here in this room, if nowhere else, we breathe the air of freedom. Here simple and learned, man and woman are alike.”

This quote draws the reader’s attention back to the title of the essay, which she chooses to end with a question mark, making it clear that she is inquiring and exploring along with her reader, not providing concrete answers. This idea of interrogation, first shown through punctuation, continues throughout the essay and Woolf clarifies several more times that she does not seek to provide answers, but rather some ideas and guidance. Further, the diction in the second sentence of this quote subtly recognizes the equal ability of men and women to read. This choice echoes Woolf’s belief in women’s right to an education.

“To read a book well, one should read it as if one were writing it. Begin not by sitting on the bench among the judges but by standing in the dock with the criminal.”

Using a metaphor, this quote exemplifies her first piece of advice to readers, which is to join the side of the writer rather than sitting back as a reader. She compares the situation to a courtroom proceeding, the readers being the judges and the writers being the criminals. Using an extreme example, here Woolf emphasizes the empathy and understanding that she believes is required to meaningfully read a book.

“We have to remember that it is one of the qualities of greatness that it brings heaven and earth and human nature into conformity with its own vision.”

This line honors the authors Woolf chose to analyze to explore different styles. She explores their flaws and strengths, and then settles it here, personifying their greatness. Their greatness comes from their unique styles that are offensive to some and pleasing to others.

“Moreover, however interesting facts may be, they are an inferior form of fiction, and gradually we become impatient of their weakness and diffuseness, of their compromises and evasions, of the slovenly sentences which they make for themselves, and are eager to revive ourselves with the greater intensity and truth of fiction.”

This quote marks a turning point in the essay in which Woolf moves on from nonfiction to begin discussing fiction. After she has reviewed the potential importance of nonfiction, here her tone of distaste becomes clear as she notes where it falls short. She also reveals her own taste for fiction by noting, ironically, its “greater intensity and truth.” 

“All is violent, opposite, unrelated. But various causes, such as bad books, the worry of carrying on life efficiently, the intermittent but powerful shocks dealt us by beauty, and the incalculable impulses of our own minds and bodies frequently put us into that state of mind in which poetry is a necessity.”

In describing poetry, Woolf uses dramatic diction. Poetry, she believes, is for the reader to be reminded of their most confusing, deep, complex, powerful emotions. Mirroring her commentary on other genres, she acknowledges the chaotic, inaccessible, personal nature of poetry, but argues that when one feels such intense feelings, “poetry is a necessity.”

“Its power of make-believe, its representative power, is dispensed with in favor of its extremities and extravagances. The representation is often at a very far remove from the thing represented, so that we have to use all our energies of mind to grasp the relation between, for example, the song of a nightingale and the image and ideas which that song stirs in the mind.”

This passage dives into the energy required to read poetry well. It is the reader’s responsibility to draw connections between what is described and what is felt. This quote describes the very comparisons that Woolf is asking her reader to make while reading her essay.

“Anyone who has read a poem with pleasure will remember the sudden conviction, the sudden recollection (for it seems sometimes as if we were about to say, or had in some previous existence already said, what Shakespeare is actually now saying), which accompany the reading of poetry, and give it its exaltation and intensity.”

This quote exemplifies Woolf’s radical belief that all people have the capacity to read and write like the greatest writers or critics. Here, she puts into words the comfort that comes with reading a line that puts an indescribable feeling into words. She refers to Shakespeare, who represents the pinnacle of the English literary canon in the essay, to give her statement even more weight.

“Reading is not merely sympathizing and understanding; it is also criticizing and judging.”

This quote marks another turning point in the essay. Moving on from how one should read a book initially, Woolf moves on to what she later calls “after reading,” which is the act of “criticizing and judging” a book. This act is vital in the reading process because after feeling all kinds of ups and downs throughout, this secondary process allows one to draw their own conclusions and contribute to discourse.

“The mind seems (“seems,” for all is obscure that takes place in the mind) to go through two processes in reading.”

This line provides a caveat for her skeptical reader. It reminds her reader that, while she is willing to put forth a guess, she does not know the inner workings of the mind. This is an example of Woolf’s congenial tone in the essay.

“But suddenly, as one is picking a snail from a rose, tying a shoe, perhaps, doing something distant and different, the whole book floats to the top of the mind complete.”

Here Woolf uses imagery once again to describe the ordinary moment in which a reader can finally understand a book as a whole. Woolf demonstrates the passivity of this phenomenon. A reader cannot force this moment; it simply happens.

“When we want to decide a particular case, we can best help ourselves, not by reading criticism, but by realizing our own impression as acutely as possible and referring this to the judgments which we have gradually formulated in the past.”

After asking repeatedly how “we” should go about knowing if something is good or bad, she finally takes the stance that the only way to know these answers is to sort through “our” own thoughts and compare them to other thoughts of our own. By using first person plural pronouns, she positions herself alongside the reader in this highly personal process.

“Yet it is by asking them and pursuing the answers as far as we can go that we arrive at our standard of values, and decide in the end that the book we have just read is of this kind or of that, has merit in that degree or in this.”

In this quote, Woolf returns to her initial point about “interrogation” as a self-reflective act. It is not the answers themselves, but the questions and the act of searching for answers that give meaning to a reading experience.

“So, then—to sum up the different points we have reached in this essay—have we found any answer to our question, how should we read a book? Clearly, no answer that will do for everyone; but perhaps a few suggestions.”

Towards the end of her essay, Woolf tries to summarize what she and her reader have determined. This small review helps her “common reader” ground themselves before the essay ends. Here is the first time she answers her own question.