Mixed message …

…A Weapon for Readers by Tim Parks | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Aside from simply insisting, as I already had for years, that they be more alert, I began to wonder what was the most practical way I could lead my students to a greater attentiveness, teach them to protect themselves from all those underlying messages that can shift one’s attitude without one’s being aware of it? I began to think about the way I read myself, about the activity of reading, what you put into it rather than what was simply on the page. Try this experiment, I eventually told them: from now on always read with a pen in your hands, not beside you on the table, but actually in your hand, ready, armed. And always make three or four comments on every page, at least one critical, even aggressive. Put a question mark by everything you find suspect. Underline anything you really appreciate. Feel free to write “splendid,” but also, “I don’t believe a word of it.” And even “bullshit.”

Well, I've marked up enough manuscripts in my time, and still make marks occasionally in books I am reviewing, but I don't usually feel the need to mark up books. I have always been sparing of  making marks, because I think it distracts from the attention you should be paying to the text, which is mind work, not hand work.