Is it OK to read Infinite Jest in public? Why the internet hates ‘performative reading’

“Are you reading alone?” one asked. “I could neverrrr,” the other said, and then uttered the universal mean girl slight: “I wish I had your confidence.”

This criticism confuses me. Of course I'm reading alone. The last time I read in a group was probably my freshman year in high school.

And we’re not talking about Colleen Hoover’s latest or a romantasy title; the books that qualify are capital “L” literature: Faulkner, Nabokov, Franzen. The heavier the better.

I'm running into so few readers these days, especially in the younger generations, that to most of them there is no difference between a Faulkner book or JK Rowling. They have so little contact with books they can't even sort them into categories.

I'm interested in knowing what other people are reading when I see them and will glance at the cover to see if its something I might want to add to my own reading list. However I do nearly all of my reading on an ereader so I can't say I return the favor. I never bother the people reading though. While they are sitting there in the same room with me, their minds are in another place, another world. Why would I want to drag them out of that chosen alternative to this hard reality?

1 comments

“Are you reading alone?” one asked. “I could neverrrr,” the other said, and then uttered the universal mean girl slight: “I wish I had your confidence.”
This criticism confuses me. Of course I'm reading alone. The last time I read in a group was probably my freshman year in high school.
And we’re not talking about Colleen Hoover’s latest or a romantasy title; the books that qualify are capital “L” literature: Faulkner, Nabokov, Franzen. The heavier the better.
I'm running into so few readers these days, especially in the younger generations, that to most of them there is no difference between a Faulkner book or JK Rowling. They have so little contact with books they can't even sort them into categories.
I'm interested in knowing what other people are reading when I see them and will glance at the cover to see if its something I might want to add to my own reading list. However I do nearly all of my reading on an ereader so I can't say I return the favor. I never bother the people reading though. While they are sitting there in the same room with me, their minds are in another place, another world. Why would I want to drag them out of that chosen alternative to this hard reality?