by Some primary sources simply take longer to get through than their page count suggests
Dear diary, I finally finished a genuinely dense eighteenth century travel narrative I have been working through for several weeks, a text whose archaic prose style and unfamiliar period vocabulary made for considerably slower reading than its modest page count initially suggested.
The final chapters, describing the author’s eventual return home after a genuinely eventful colonial journey, proved surprisingly moving despite the formal, somewhat stiff prose style typical of the period, a reminder that genuine human experience persists underneath even the most stylistically dated writing.
What Made This Particular Text Difficult
Beyond the archaic vocabulary itself, the narrative assumes a considerable amount of contemporary political and geographic context that modern readers, myself included despite years of specialisation in this period, simply do not carry automatically, requiring frequent pauses to properly research background details before the actual narrative made complete sense.
Why I Think This Kind Of Slow Reading Matters
I believe genuinely engaging with primary texts this closely, however slow and occasionally frustrating the process, produces a considerably richer understanding than relying purely on secondary summaries ever could, even when it takes several weeks longer than a more casual reading approach.
A Small Comparison To Contemporary Travel Writing
I caught up on some genuinely funny contemporary satire about modern travel writing conventions, an entertaining contrast to the considerably more formal eighteenth century approach I had just spent weeks working through.
What I Am Reading Next
A considerably shorter text, deliberately, having earned myself something of a break after this particular reading marathon.
More slow reading and colonial travel narratives always documented at my page.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/author/stephaniecurry/
