Reading Is a Wonderful Solitary Activity

Reading is a great solitary activity, but it was not always so. I see the rise of the novel as taking place along a trajectory that includes Richardson's Clarissa and Pamela. This is where readers suddenly had the luxury of time, not just money, but time to consume these long narratives in solitude. It was a puritanical culture. The idea of inward light was driven through the culture; up until this point, we'd been living in a culture of oral tradition,. We would read tales aloud or we would recite them from memory. They are scripture because of the collaboration that we have with the author. Even if the text before you isn't overtly spiritual, we can designate Anna Karen