The Layering of Reading

What we read influences us in the order that we read it

This week, I’m looking at the ways in which the texts we read interplay with one another, as well as with the world around us and other modes of reading. This is the first of my essays in which you will encounter a paywall - I wish to avoid giving you a jumpscare when it appears, but you can read about half the essay for free before you get to it.

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A recent read

I’ve been thinking about the layering over of reading lately, and how it challenges, defines, and directs our thinking about the world and our place in it.

To start, let me give you the example that led to me thinking about this at all. I was reading Landscape and Englishness: Second Expanded Edition by David Matlass for my coursework. In this book, the author talks about the rural landscape and how rural walking became fashionable in certain modes of thought, as well as how that layered over with traditionalist views - wanting to preserve the English countryside for the “right” kind of Englishman. This was before the Second World War, when the preservationists were taking cues from a certain German political party (though they were very quick to declare they hadn’t really admired them at all, not long after).

This played very well against the book I had read shortly before - We Were There by Lanre Bakare, a book all about the history of Black Britain outside of London. Many of the chapters are about other citites, but there is one chapter centred around the countryside and rural landscapes, particularly focusing on Black rural walkers. Reading about the place of Black British citizens in the countryside - and how hard certain forces work to prevent them from having one - gave me much-needed context for the ideas in Landscape and Englishness, allowing me to figure out further thoughts around it.

This book in itself also layered over the current events on the news: while reading about how Liverpool’s history of racism and police brutality led to a certain climate, I was also reading in the news about certain decisions taken by the police. Releasing the name of a suspect early on in an investigation allowed them to try to prevent riots of the kind that had happened a year before, when no name was released and rumours of the suspect being Muslim led to widespread violence. Trust in the police is, clearly, also a huge factor in certain communities (not only in that area, but also further afield). All of this context allowed me to understand more clearly what was happening in the country I live in, drawing on accounts from the past that I had never learned about elsewhere.

We’re always drawing on the things we’ve read before as we read. Reading is an act of understanding - and that understanding can be different for every reader, based on the knowledge they hold prior to the reading. It can even be different each time you read a particular text: I think about the times when I rewatch an old favourite film or television show, only to notice an actor who is now hugely famous - but at the time of my first watching, was not known at all. Their presence is recontextualised in my head and the show or film becomes almost a historic document, dating back to a time before this person demanded top billing. It delights me every time, for reasons that I’m not quite clear on but enjoy nonetheless.

(Note: in a literary context, a script can also be a text; a film can be a text; a plaque on a wall can be a text; a tree can be a text, if you squint hard enough.)

I’m an avid mystery/thriller reader, for another example. So many times, now, I am able to guess every single twist coming up in the novel, which always disappoints me a bit. It gives me some pride, as it means I know what I’m about; but it makes me feel like I’m smarter (or more likely, just better-read) than the author, particularly when it’s a debut, which is a bit of a let-down. I want to be fooled. But when I’ve seen so many of the myriad ways an author can deceive a reader, and figured out all of those tricks, is it really fair to expect that I can be fooled? I am layering all of the other books and films I’ve seen and read in this genre over what I read next, using them as context clues to spot the telltale giveaways.

My husband did this to me, once. I was reading aloud the first book in my Serial Investigations series, Bloodless, and forcing him to listen to me so I could get an outside opinion. I introduced a side character, and -

“He’s the killer, isn’t he?”

That reveal wasn’t set to come for about another forty thousand words, but yes, he was right. Plenty of readers since then have let me know that they couldn’t guess who the killer was until it was revealed, but my husband was reading through layers of context clues to make his guess. Only it wasn’t reading of books or films or TV shows that helped him out in this case: he was reading me. He knew my habits and ways well enough to spot that this would be the way I would describe someone I was trying to shove into the background to avoid notice, and knew, therefore, that he needed to pay attention. He layered his understanding of this new text against knowledge gleaned through countless prior readings of the person beside him.

So, what do we do with this information about layering?