Extended Tasting

You can read and eat food in very similar ways: you can go quickly and wolf it all down, or you can go slowly and savor every bite. With food, you can take a bite and roll it about in your mouth for a prolonged period of time, and with reading you can also take a prolonged look at a sentence – this is close reading. You analyze the text and go deeper to see what the author was trying to say, not what the author said. You can then capture the true meaning of the text and also see how the author cleverly used language to get that meaning through.

You can’t close read every text. No matter how much you read Harry Potter, it still means the same thing. Yes, you can savor it for a bit, but it doesn’t go that deep.  By contrast, some books are onions with layers upon layers of meaning – just read The Things They Carried if you don’t believe me. Now, some may think here that all that about literature is good and true, but doesn’t food just get soggy when it sits in your mouth? Some does, some, like hard candy, slowly dwindle as they dissolve in a most pleasurable way. It is not too uncommon for food to also change as it sits there in your mouth – after tastes, for one could be stronger. And what is the king of this taste-time-layering?

(https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1600&bih=775&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=gobstopper+inside&oq=gobstopper+inside&gs_l=img.3..0.15976.17293.0.17515.7.5.0.2.2.1.111.489.2j3.5.0....0...1c.1.26.img..1.6.395.UyGU1kBb8o8#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=uBFX-uI08mf-uM%3A%3BBJwQIGLnNN1DhM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Frookery.s3.amazonaws.com%252F1079500%252F1079955_3e9c_625x1000.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.worth1000.com%252Fcontests%252F17587%252Fcolor-blind-7%3B624%3B415)

That's right, a gobstopper. Sit a gobstopper in your mouth and it changes color over and over again: the longer you savor it, the more you get from it. If you don't savor it, you get a lot more out of it.

But a gobstopper taste-changing effect isn't that common, is it? Well, that is only one kind of food you may want to eat slowly. Ice cream is another great example. Do you take a bite and swallow? NO!!! Only people who don't know how to properly enjoy ice cream do such a thing. The best way to eat ice cream is to let it melt in your mouth - slowly, saving the taste of it as it melts and then you drink the molten greatness. Some books may not change meaning as you look at them longer, but to fully get what it says takes time. You can breeze through and entirely miss the deeper meaning, or you can let the words melt before your eyes to drip into a painting that displays a beautiful picture.

Now, don't get me wrong. You don't want to savor everything. Hot chocolate? Take a swig and let it sit in your mouth for a time, and soon you learn why it's called hot and this happens:

(https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1366&bih=683&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=freaking+out+gif&oq=freaking+out+gif&gs_l=img.3..0l2j0i5l8.9344.10536.0.10869.12.11.0.0.0.3.134.1005.6j5.11.0....0...1c.1.26.img..6.6.621.6Kab8lvntAA#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=Nlv2sBOkdRWnWM%3A%3BUBNEK0mBFCxIlM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252F24.media.tumblr.com%252F275d0f60edc067d6863673d5b67631f5%252Ftumblr_mgk2z00IKD1r8624lo1_500.gif%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.tumblr.com%252Ftagged%252Ffreak-out-gif%3B500%3B281)

Basically, be careful you don't burn yourself reading either. While it isn't quite as painful, there comes a point when the curtains are just blue (please pardon the French; there seemed to not be a cleaner version). In the end you just get a completely wrong interpretation that mars what the author meant to say. Be careful.

What is the point of all this? Why does it matter at all? Well, eating and reading are similar activities. From eating, it is clearly evident by everyday experience that some foods are more pleasurable to eat slowly, and some foods are more pleasurable to eat quickly. This then makes sense out of literature - some books are meant to be read straight through, others require thought and analysis to really get the most out of the reading experience.