Current Reading: Midnight's Children

I am currently reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. I do enjoy the book, but I also confess to sometimes not quite understanding what is going on. The book is filled with an unusual kind of language that includes both erudite vocabulary and Indian slang. I am reading it both in kindle and audiobook format at the same time. I suppose that you might call this immersive reading. For me, the advantage of listening to a narrator read the book while I read the print version is that my mind is less likely to wander while reading. However, I do physically wander. That is to say, I like to walk while reading and listening. Usually I walk in the yard or around the house, so, do not worry, I am unlikely to crash into anyone while reading.

In an attempt to make this topic look a little more intellectual, here's a link with a video talking about the advantage of reading this way. While audiobooks have grown in popularity (measured in sales), there still seems to be book shaming out there. The idea being that there is something cognitively different about reading a print book that makes it superior to listening to it. Not true.  Book Riot published an article on the topic a couple of years ago. Here's an excerpt:

Reading a physical book and listening to the audiobook are two different paths that lead to the same destination. Each creates differing experiences and memories, but neither is better or worse than the other.

There’s a fair amount of research on the subject of comprehension in audiobooks vs reading. The most helpful and positive of these that I came across was that of Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke, of the University of Texas, Austin and Austin NPR’s Two Guys on Your Head. On reading: “When you read something, you are looking at symbols on a page, and your brain is busy filling in all the blanks. Like the sounds of the voices, the scene, the inflection, the deeper meaning, the plot, etc.” On audiobooks: “Because you can’t go back and reread something, you’re much more likely to do a better job of trying to extract the gist of what someone meant when you’re hearing them than when you’re reading.” Conveniently, if you click the Two Guys link, you can either read or listen to their comments. Aces.

Back to Rushdie's book.

I do not pause to look up vocabulary or think about what just happened very often, although I do once in a while. What I think what I get out of listening to Midnight's Children is a sense of the rhythm of the book. This sense of rhythm is something I would not really experience if I had only read the print version. At least that is my impression.