Why I like Wolfe, for instance

Author Zadie Smith says well something I've said badly, that the greatest joy in reading comes from the contract between reader and writer, from the willingness of the reader to work and of the writer to make the reader work:

But the problem with readers, the idea we’re given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principle is, "I should sit here and I should be entertained." And the more classical model, which has been completely taken away, is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know, who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and that the artist gives you. That’s the incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it. It’s an old moral, but it’s completely true.

(I disagree with her that watching a film shouldn't be like that as well.)

Link to podcast; link to BoingBoing.