I was thinking about reading and it occurred to me that it is the same as listening to music. There is this quote by Frank Ocean that goes, "When you're happy, you enjoy the music. But when you're sad, you understand the lyrics." I think the same thing goes for reading, although it doesn't necessarily depend on happiness or sadness.
Sometimes when I'm reading I can almost feel my thoughts colliding and merging with the words on the page in this wave of understanding. And other times I read and the words feel like skipping stones just skimming the surface of my mind. I think this difference is important to understand because both ways of reading cause different levels of understanding. Although the former may seem better, I don't think that's necessarily the case.
Whatever it is; a novel, a poem, an essay, or a story, I believe each piece has many layers. When I'm reading with a deeper level of understanding I am unearthing the cold, wet, earthy sand from underneath, and when I am reading with this lighter, “skipping stone” understanding, I am scooping up the dry, dusty, pure sand from the surface. One isn't better than the other, they are just different.
Just as you can focus on 2 aspects of a song; the beautiful sound of the language and the music, or the actual meaning of the lyrics, the same goes for reading. The words can enter my mind and sound beautiful, but this doesn't mean that have I fully understood the meaning. In contrast, the meaning can register in my brain, but I may have completely overlooked the beauty of the language and the way the words sound when meshed together to form a sentence or a series of sentences.
In other word, there is no single correct way to read or interpret a piece. This, I believe, is what makes reading so wonderful.
