{"id":141416,"date":"2019-12-24T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T14:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=141416"},"modified":"2019-12-11T11:23:38","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T16:23:38","slug":"reading-in-the-age-of-constant-distraction-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/24\/reading-in-the-age-of-constant-distraction-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We\u2019re away until January 6, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2019. Enjoy your holiday!<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_133473\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/lsende-lille-pige-1461563182_org.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-133473\" class=\"size-large wp-image-133473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/lsende-lille-pige-1461563182_org-1024x956.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"956\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/lsende-lille-pige-1461563182_org-1024x956.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/lsende-lille-pige-1461563182_org-300x280.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/lsende-lille-pige-1461563182_org-768x717.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/lsende-lille-pige-1461563182_org.jpg 1228w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-133473\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Johan Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Laesende lille pige, 1900<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI read books to read myself,\u201d Sven Birkerts wrote in <em>The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age<\/em>. Birkerts\u2019s book, which turns twenty-five this year, is composed of fifteen essays on reading, the self, the convergence of the two, and the ways both are threatened by the encroachment of modern technology. As the culture around him underwent the sea change of the internet\u2019s arrival, Birkerts feared that qualities long safeguarded and elevated by print were in danger of erosion: among them privacy, the valuation of individual consciousness, and an awareness of history\u2014not merely the facts of it, but a sense of its continuity, of our place among the centuries and cosmos. \u201cLiterature holds meaning not as a content that can be abstracted and summarized, but as experience,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt is a participatory arena. Through the process of reading we slip out of our customary time orientation, marked by distractedness and surficiality, into the realm of duration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/08\/reading-in-the-age-of-constant-distraction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twenty-five years ago, Sven Birkerts published \u2018The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age.\u2019 Have his fears and projections come to pass? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1563,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60329],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2019"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium 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