Reading in Parallel
Dear Reader,
Another form of reading, quite different from reading in series, is reading in parallel. In this form of reading, the reader balances several books or articles at once.
Well, that might be too limiting. The reader could read merely two books in parallel, and it’s possible to have a larger number of works held in balance. (There’s an upper limit, though, as at a certain point you’re just shelving a book for a moment while you focus on balancing the others.)
Typically, though not necessarily, reading in parallel is done without any deep intention. Maybe you don’t want to sit there with one author’s massive, meandering book without some interruption, some respite from the onslaught of words.
I recently found myself reading three books in parallel that should absolutely not have had the interplay they did. Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker, Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan, and Francis Su’s Mathematics for Human Flourishing make for a strange group of readings. Somehow the books helped illuminate aspects of the others.
Nassim Taleb spent 21 years as a quantitative trader and since then has found himself both an eclectic reader (he prefers the term “flaneur” but we all prefer things in life) and a distinct authority in probability. In probability, he tackles matters practical—not surprising given his time as a quant—while grappling with the mathematical and philosophical. As an eclectic, Taleb ranges over considerable territory, handling some bits better than others, and his book practically falls into various genres of self-help at times, which makes for a rather bizarre reading experience. (This might be why I started picking up other books…) If you asked Taleb whether the vita activa or vita contemplativa matters more, he’d probably pretend to not understand the question but then side with the vita activa.
Michael Lewis’s first book is a riot. (Perhaps literally.) Here we have the trading floor gone nuts. For me, reading Lewis helps to explain Taleb’s particular style. The whole “rough and tumble” aspect that purportedly is the trading floor and industry provided me context within which to understand where Taleb’s aggressive style comes from. The whole time, Lewis’s first-person account shows him trying to figure out what the meaning of the whole trading world exercise is. Aside from getting paid, that is. The entire book is set in the vita activa.
Mathematics for Human Flourishing is all about mathematics and how it relates to “the good life.” Thus, Su’s book kind of rounded out the other two reads. Taking its cue from virtue ethics, Mathematics for Human Flourishing explores just how studying mathematics might have particular virtues and what those virtues mean. Taken against Taleb’s practical math and Lewis’s (admittedly) garbage financial math, Su’s math provided another way to think about what mathematics means in society, one largely influenced by the vita contemplativa.
Frankly, three largely different views on math alone would have been fun. But that they weren’t mathwonk or statsnerd or other mathematical sub-realm that starts to resemble Dungeons & Dragons in its byzantine hierarchy—that made it all the more fun. And their intersections with math and each other’s narratives were so satisfyingly unexpected that the experience was simply richer than any of the books could have provided individually.
Not every parallel read turns out so perfectly. When your reads are collected in a non-specified pile, you don’t necessarily expect them to comment on each other in any significant way. But when they do…
I should note that some readers do think of reading in parallel as possessing a specified list, but I actually plan to discuss that type of reading tomorrow, giving it a different name. The categories don’t matter too much, but for our purposes, parallel reads are those books that you just happen to be reading alongside of each other, rotating through one and then another as the muse moves you. You can have intended to read each book; it’s just that you hadn’t planned on reading them together. Serendipity is the land of parallel reading.
Happy reading to you all,
Kreigh
P.S. These will fit better with tomorrow’s theme, as I’m suggesting them together for you. But for me, as I experienced them organically, they were indeed parallel reads. One of my readers mentioned that National Geographic had also opened up some of its material for free, and further commended this story on animals who “socially distance.” It’s an interesting piece, though I must admit most of it struck me as ostracism of the ill as opposed to how we’re approaching our physical distancing with the ill-as-yet-unknown. That makes it all the more fun as a read, however, because you get to ponder where the animal world does and does not intersect with the human world, such as they may be divided. And you also get to weigh whether we humans would wish to be full imitators of what is observed in nature. That National Geographic piece goes well with Anastasia Berg’s light philosophical ruminations over at The Point. (Yes, I finally gave in and started reading their quarantine journal.)
P.P.S. I think The Point is taking over my beat. They recently released yet another online series, one that literally parallels my own: “’Reading Room,’ a biweekly collective column on reading and life.” The first post, “Making Contact,” surpasses anything I’ve written thus far. If you’d like ruminations of academics—I nearly wrote “professionals,” but I can at least make that claim just as well as they—I’d suggest giving it a chance. I won’t be offended if you prefer their musings to my own. I also found “Making Contact” a fitting coda to Berg’s aforementioned piece.