The Pleasures Of Reading Aloud

Andy doesn’t really read. He loves books, he loves words, but he’s a busy, physical, practical boy. Time feels better spent down the barn, with tools and a car to butcher and piece back together. His hands need to be constantly moving, solving problems, creating things that I couldn’t even imagine doing. There is the perseverance of him, the tenacity, the fact that every word needs to be read, thought about, understood, before moving onto the next one. It’s demanding.

I am much more emotional with my reads. Whole chunks of text can be read in an instant, impressions and feelings are more important than specifics. I devour books, race through them, gallop to the end. Sometimes, I must admit, I miss things.

So, we’ve started  a new routine. For both of us. I read aloud. To me, to him, out loud and with plenty of stumbling, and re-reading, and the gradual building of confidence, the application of tone.

And it is wonderful. He hears stories he never would have before, tucked up next to me and warm with it. I see parts of the tale that I missed before. I appreciate the turns of phrase, the linguistic choices, the lilting lifts and falls in the prose. Books blossom before me. It is sensual too, intimate somehow, like a deep cultural connection is growing between us. The listening and the sharing buoys us. When it is cold and dark and miserable outside, I am grounded by the sound of it, the words in my mind that are tripping off my tongue.

Oh, but it is a pleasure.

The current read: Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov