Reading thick and thin
In yesterday’s missive, Joan Westenberg explores the difference between thin and thick desires. As is often the case after reading one of her pieces, I find that it’s difficult to stop thinking about it. That, I think, is one of the marks of good writing. Thanks, Joan.
As she says, others have discussed this distinction between thick and thin desires. My own understanding of such a distinction is grounded in Clifford Geertz’s distinction, building on the work of Gilbert Ryle, between a contextually rich thick description of cultural practices, contrasted with a thin description of observable behaviors.
She frames the distinction between thick and thin rather simply:
A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it.
A thin desire is one that doesn’t.
She offers an example of each. One might have the desire to learn calculus. Fulfilling that desire leaves one a changed person — one sees and understands relationships in the world that one could neither see nor understand before learning calculus. Or a person might have the desire to check for notifications on one’s phone. Fulfilling that desire doesn’t change the person. In fact, these days, the design of the phone and software both conspire to keep that desire alive even after repeated fulfillments. (The skeptic in me immediately thought but the notification might signal the arrival of an important email that changes my life! But the satisfaction of receiving such an email is really the satisfaction of a desire significantly different from the desire to check for notifications.)
But somehow Westenberg’s rather simple framing of it struck home and put me into a mode of what I might call thick thinking. I came to a slightly different point. To put the point rather awkwardly: One might satisfy the same desire either thinly or thickly, and the difference is one that makes a difference.
I think this way of framing the point came to mind both because of my long-ago reading of Geertz and also because of something I’ve noticed recently in my reading practice. I have a desire to read. One of the books I’m reading now is Hester Kaplan’s fascinating memoir Twice Born: finding my father in the margins of biography. Kaplan writes about how she came to know her biographer father much better after he died than she knew him while he was living. Her father was rather withdrawn and didn’t talk much about his past life. Kaplan gets clues to his life and identity by reading his notes and letters, and also by reading his highly regarded biography of Mark Twain. Her parents were both writers. She grew up in a Cambridge (MA) household visited regularly by prominent writers and scholars. I know next to nothing about many of these visitors, but my reading of her accounts of them leads me to investigate further. As I read, I feel that I’m coming to know both her and her father and also the cultural world in which they lived rather deeply. My reading also changes me in more personal ways, as her account of her relationship with her father leads me to reflect more deeply on my sometimes troubled relationship with my father and my life as a father myself. Simply put, as I read I build out a larger context that envelopes what Kaplan says and brings it into my life and identity. I’d say — again, somewhat awkwardly — that my reading of this book is decidedly thick.
Contrast this with my current reading of another book, equally fascinating: In the Land of the Cyclops, a collection of essays by Karl Ove Knausgaard. My son gave me a copy of Knausgaard’s Winter several years ago. Reading it brought me into a different world. I no longer remember many of the details, but I do remember how what I read percolated in my mind for months after finishing it. So when I saw this newer collection on a bookstore shelf after hearing Zadie Smith’s enthusiastic endorsement of Knausgaard’s essays, it was an easy decision to put it on my list. But now, just over 100 pages in, I have to admit not only that I’m challenged by the text, but also that I’m not meeting that challenge very well. It’s a difficult read for me, both because of the depth and breadth of cultural knowledge that Knausgaard brings to his writing and because of the rather subtle way in which he develops his discussion. Occasionally I note observations that I think are particularly insightful, but I know that I’m not coming close to gaining the deeper understanding – the life-changing understanding — that a more careful reading would yield. I’d say that I’m reading this collection of essays thinly, a stark contrast to my thick reading of Kaplan’s memoir.
So this morning I face the question: do I set Knausgaard aside, acknowledging that at this point I’m simply not ready/able to give it the attention it deserves? Do I continue reading thinly, collecting the occasional insight? Or do I push myself to engage more deeply in my reading, with the expectation that he will once again lead me to see the world in a different way?
I’m not sure of my answer, though I know that my attachment to sunk costs makes it rather difficult to put the book away. Even so, I’m inclined to think that if I’m not ready to engage more deeply, setting it aside is the better choice.
