A LOSS OF LITERATURE

Mark Twain famously wrote, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” There is no advantage not only for the man, who misses out on the art of ideas and images effectively stated, but also for the larger culture. A depressing survey released yesterday in New York suggests that fewer than half of adult Americans are reading literature. This result should concern everyone.

The survey, called “Reading at Risk,” was the largest of its kind and echoes the 1984 call to action, “A Nation at Risk,” which produced and is still producing major reform to the nation’s schools. The bleak results for literature may need considerably more attention than it has received, however, because competition from other media for readers’ time is so intense. Television, by the way, likely is not the culprit – readers and non-readers watch about the same amount – but the Internet and digital devices may be another matter.

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, which issued the report, superbly defined what is at stake in the loss of readers. While acknowledging the benefits of oral and electronic media, Mr. Gioia writes, “print culture affords irreplaceable forms of focused attention and contemplation that make complex communications and insights possible. To lose such an intellectual capability – and the many sorts of human continuity it allows – would constitute a vast cultural impoverishment.”

Based on supplemental surveys by the Census Bureau, the literature results show a drop from 1982, when about 56 percent of American adults read literature, to 2002, when less than 47 percent did. The report is cautious. It observes the literature survey has been conducted only three times – 1982, 1992, 2002 – and though there was a small drop between the first two surveys, factors from demographic shifts to one-time events such as the aftermath of 9-11 and the war in Afghanistan may have influenced reading habits in 2002.

But the numbers weren’t especially good in the previous surveys, either, and it’s not as if the standard for literature was high. Respondents were asked whether they had read any novels, short stories, plays or poetry in the previous 12 months. Mysteries counted, or as the report says, “No distinctions were drawn on the quality of literary works.”

Yet across almost all demographic groups – age, sex, race, geography, education – the percentage of people reading was down. It was down especially among 18- to 24-year-olds; only 43 percent of them reported reading literature in 2002, a decline from nearly 60 percent in 1982. More disturbing, “Reading at Risk” includes data from a 1995 report from the National Center for Education Statistics showing 45 percent of American adults are capable of reading at only minimal levels.

The survey notes that a drop in reading foreshadows a decline in other areas. Readers are more likely to do volunteer and charity work, participate in sports and, not surprisingly, are more likely to attend art performances and museum shows. The correlation between reading and these activities, even if not causal, suggests that fewer people reading is accompanied by a loss of community.

The NEA should be commended for drawing attention to this problem, but the many answers required to solve it demand even more information and a lot more action. Congress should support further research into the decline of this valuable part of American culture. It should encourage and fund the NEA to examine and recommend solutions before many more Americans lose the ability to the “a vast cultural impoverishment” that “Reading at Risk” describes.