What do you think?
Rate this book
The Problem of Reading
- GenresNonfictionEssaysArt
47 pages
First published January 1, 2003
2 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Moyra Davey
20Ìýbooks39ÌýfollowersMoyra Davey was born in Toronto in 1958. She earned a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal, in 1982, and an MFA from the University of California San Diego in 1988. In 1989, she attended the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Davey’s work initially featured documentary photographs of her family and friends, and later came to focus on the quiet, overlooked details of daily life: coins, kitchen shelves, and clumps of dust gathered along the floor. Depicting outsize close-ups of the fronts of worn pennies, Davey’s Copperhead series (1990), emphasizes the circulation of banal, everyday objects individuated by the accumulation of human touch. In the mid-2000s, the moving image took on a renewed prominence in Davey’s work. Inspired by her deep interest in the process of reading and writing, the artist’s essayistic video practice layers personal narrative with detailed explorations of the texts and lives of authors and thinkers she admires, such as Walter Benjamin, Jean Genet, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Davey’s own writing is central to her videos. The transcript of Fifty Minutes (2006), in which the artist reflects on her years in psychoanalysis, was published as a personal essay in the artist book Long Life Cool White: Photographs and Essays by Moyra Davey (2008), and her text “The Wet and the Dry� formed the basis of the narration of Les Goddesses (2011).
Davey’s work initially featured documentary photographs of her family and friends, and later came to focus on the quiet, overlooked details of daily life: coins, kitchen shelves, and clumps of dust gathered along the floor. Depicting outsize close-ups of the fronts of worn pennies, Davey’s Copperhead series (1990), emphasizes the circulation of banal, everyday objects individuated by the accumulation of human touch. In the mid-2000s, the moving image took on a renewed prominence in Davey’s work. Inspired by her deep interest in the process of reading and writing, the artist’s essayistic video practice layers personal narrative with detailed explorations of the texts and lives of authors and thinkers she admires, such as Walter Benjamin, Jean Genet, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Davey’s own writing is central to her videos. The transcript of Fifty Minutes (2006), in which the artist reflects on her years in psychoanalysis, was published as a personal essay in the artist book Long Life Cool White: Photographs and Essays by Moyra Davey (2008), and her text “The Wet and the Dry� formed the basis of the narration of Les Goddesses (2011).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 27, 2018
This book is barely a book. It's a long form essay considering the problem of what to read next? A noble problem, although some may find it trivial. Some may not even find it necessary to answer that question, preferring to read nothing. Or read the newspapers. Or just the headlines.
But Moyra Davey has written a very enjoyable digression on reading, one that reminds the reader of his/her first love of reading, when the day's very real particularities, the weather, the meals and the problem of chewing, fade into the background, and all one wants to do is return to those dog eared pages.
She summons help from Virginia Woolf, Barthes, Italo Calvino, Borges, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Georges Perec, and Walter Benjamin to figure out how exactly one should read. Should one read compulsively and chaotically, or in an organized fashion with pursuable goals and clear criteria for book choice. She notes that most of us, when we first fall in love with reading, we do not have this problem of "what should I read next"? There is no criteria, we simply read because our appetites are huge and insatiable.
I wish for this review to be as meandering as Davey's essay (I'm not even editing this, just writing it in one go); one thing she keeps returning to is the art of writing. Or the relation of writing to reading, of consumption with production and productivity. And how reading is always a form of writing, one must create the reality in one's imagination to fully appreciate what one reads. But it is a fraught relationship, too, as one can become wrapped in this idea of production instead of the indulgent escapism of pure reading enjoyment.
Since I've started writing Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reviews, I've read much more but my relationship with reading has also changed. I always think of the review, or at least I think of what I think of what I'm reading as I'm reading it. I don't think that's a bad thing, just that it is also a thing that changes the pureness of reading somehow. I think it's important to remind yourself that you should not read just to form an opinion on something. An opinion should be a byproduct, it should almost fall into your lap despite yourself. (This is just my opinion)
Lastly, how do I choose what to read next? Some of my friends want me to join their book clubs often, but I find that book clubs just aren't for me. You see, my problem is that I can never commit to a book because as soon as I commit to a book for a reason such as "I must read this for a book club" I lose all motivation for reading it. I immediately look for other things to read. Many other books suddenly look so much more attractive, and I want to get lost in their pages. I like that this essay indulges me by telling me that I am right! I am right to completely trust my gut and abandon books at will, and chase my next book by hunch and hunch only.
I think it could be improved, but most of my reading DOES stem from Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, at least that's where I get my first whiff of them. It comes from friending people who I trust have tastes similar to mine, and paying attention to what they're reading. And if they are reading something that sounds interesting to me, I will read a little further and see if I catch the fever for it too. This has led me to read quite a lot of things I would never have stumbled upon if I just went by "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" type of lists. Or by things the canon makers tell me I SHOULD read. Because fuck that.
Anyway, this is a good essay that might spark some of your own thoughts on how to choose the next book.
PS - You might not be able to find this book at stores, but you can .
But Moyra Davey has written a very enjoyable digression on reading, one that reminds the reader of his/her first love of reading, when the day's very real particularities, the weather, the meals and the problem of chewing, fade into the background, and all one wants to do is return to those dog eared pages.
She summons help from Virginia Woolf, Barthes, Italo Calvino, Borges, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Georges Perec, and Walter Benjamin to figure out how exactly one should read. Should one read compulsively and chaotically, or in an organized fashion with pursuable goals and clear criteria for book choice. She notes that most of us, when we first fall in love with reading, we do not have this problem of "what should I read next"? There is no criteria, we simply read because our appetites are huge and insatiable.
I wish for this review to be as meandering as Davey's essay (I'm not even editing this, just writing it in one go); one thing she keeps returning to is the art of writing. Or the relation of writing to reading, of consumption with production and productivity. And how reading is always a form of writing, one must create the reality in one's imagination to fully appreciate what one reads. But it is a fraught relationship, too, as one can become wrapped in this idea of production instead of the indulgent escapism of pure reading enjoyment.
Since I've started writing Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reviews, I've read much more but my relationship with reading has also changed. I always think of the review, or at least I think of what I think of what I'm reading as I'm reading it. I don't think that's a bad thing, just that it is also a thing that changes the pureness of reading somehow. I think it's important to remind yourself that you should not read just to form an opinion on something. An opinion should be a byproduct, it should almost fall into your lap despite yourself. (This is just my opinion)
Lastly, how do I choose what to read next? Some of my friends want me to join their book clubs often, but I find that book clubs just aren't for me. You see, my problem is that I can never commit to a book because as soon as I commit to a book for a reason such as "I must read this for a book club" I lose all motivation for reading it. I immediately look for other things to read. Many other books suddenly look so much more attractive, and I want to get lost in their pages. I like that this essay indulges me by telling me that I am right! I am right to completely trust my gut and abandon books at will, and chase my next book by hunch and hunch only.
I think it could be improved, but most of my reading DOES stem from Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, at least that's where I get my first whiff of them. It comes from friending people who I trust have tastes similar to mine, and paying attention to what they're reading. And if they are reading something that sounds interesting to me, I will read a little further and see if I catch the fever for it too. This has led me to read quite a lot of things I would never have stumbled upon if I just went by "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" type of lists. Or by things the canon makers tell me I SHOULD read. Because fuck that.
Anyway, this is a good essay that might spark some of your own thoughts on how to choose the next book.
PS - You might not be able to find this book at stores, but you can .
September 17, 2020
Warm essay, with such beautiful references. I was hooked. The pictures give a visual insight into Moyra Davey's space. It's simple and rudimentary, with a certain amount of clarity.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.