When you’re reading, and the author is describing colors, weather, scent, darkness/light, the environment in general and how many people are there.. how can you read fast when you’re just sitting there building this world in your head? Do you pretend to feel the temperature you’d imagine the cave (for example) being, imagine what the smell of rocks and iron would be like, think about the lives of the dwarves mining whatever mineral and wondering what they’re thinking about, or what’s getting them through the day? Do you imagine sounds? Make connections to your own experiences? Day dream? When there’s dialogue from a character do you hear it in the voice you created for them?
I feel like all of that is the whole point of reading a book, and to rush through it faster than like Eminem could do an audiobook on it is at odds with the whole point of reading as I understand it.
But maybe I’m just not understanding it correctly? Am I slow thinker or something?
by Koenigspiel
7 Comments
What a fun question. I read very fast, especially when I am engaged in the text I kind of click in and stop intentionally reading. The sights and sounds wash over me and I feel transported. The book becomes more vivid and immersive. It’s kind of like breathing naturally versus manually. I think that this is partly because I started reading heavily at a young age, but more because of my wiring. I don’t think it’s attainable for everyone and no one should ever beat themselves up for not being fast, or for struggling with reading.
Honestly, I think a good amount of this comes down to practice. At least for me personally, the more I read the faster my brain processes text. When i’m really engrossed in a book, I am fully hallucinating. The text sort of disappears. I’ve noticed through the years that I just get through books a lot faster now than say, 10 years ago. It used to be impossible for me to read a book in a day, and now i can do shortish ones easily (~200 pages)
I also read significantly faster in my mother tongue which is what makes me think its a language processing thing. I do audiobooks at 1.5 cause that’s what feels like my natural processing time.
Everyone is different when it comes to this. Don’t compare yourself to others. Engage with the text at whatever speed feels best for you. Nobody (aside from maybe goodreads) will give you a prize for reading fast.
I think peoples’ reading speed just differs. I happen to read very quickly but I think I absorb the same amount of information as other people who read more slowly (or more quickly) than me. And yes, I hear the dialogue in my head, if it’s well written it’s immersive as if I’m there – like a movie playing in my mind.
I don’t feel like I’m “rushing,” except sometimes when I go back to a book I loved as a kid and a scary scene, like the mines of Moria in LOTR, is over a lot faster than it was when I read it when I was 10, so I don’t have time to get properly frightened! But the thing is I’m not rushing past *my* normal reading speed.
This is something school gets wrong. Teachers look at reading quickly as a skill that will help you get through the English class in high school, understandably, but other than that there is no great payoff. If I read faster than you do, it doesn’t say anything deep about either of us! As long as we’re enjoying our books, it’s all good 😊
ive found that i do a lot of that image-building between reading sessions. if i stop and think about the lives of each character, I’ll lose my place and focus. instead i picture each sentence as i read it, and after I’ve put the book down, if its good, ill find myself filling in details with the musings you describe.
but if it’s like, a paragraph describing a house, or forest? i can picture that in the time it took to read it, sure. just kinda add each descriptive word to the picture as i read it
I thought speaking is slower than reading is slower than thinking for basically everyone. Images and feelings can happen in my brain much much faster than language can, and even thinking of language feels about 2-4x faster than normal speaking.
I’m not going to be “normal” here, but I have aphantasia – which means that I can’t consciously visualize in my mind, and I can’t hear voices either (though I do have an internal monologue).
So for me first of all yeah I am skimming big blocks of description because it doesn’t mean all that much to me.
But mostly for me I’m just absorbing the dialog and the plot. If something particularly interesting happens, I may set the book down and think about it for a little. But pretty much I’m just letting the book’s words run my consciousness.
I read fast, which I’ve done since I was little and can’t help. I don’t intently visualize detail like you’re describing. I still get invested in the story and make connections.
The point, for me, isn’t to have an immersive sensory experience. The point, for me, is to have an emotional immersive experience or to learn something.