Back in high school English classes, I still remember the insistence of teachers that we annotate the books we were assigned to read. It was always with the mindset that it would allow us to more easily find meaningful or thematic passage that we might forget after getting through the whole thing, and some even required regular check-ins on our books to make sure we were highlighting and writing in the margins throughout.
For some reason, I always hated doing this, and still do. I’m not sure what it is, but the idea of marking up a book I’m reading with brightly-colored markers or scribbling random thoughts onto the side of a page has always felt off to me. Maybe I’m too sentimental when it comes to the quality of a book to go through with something more akin to graffiti for my liking. I also was always under the impression that taking the time to annotate a text would interrupt the natural flow of reading you get into with a good or engaging book, thereby lessening the overall enjoyment of the reading experience.
So it might then seem somewhat contradictory of me to espouse the benefits of keeping a commonplace book for the various books in one’s possession. Don’t worry, I have my reasons!
First off, a definition might be in order; commonplace books are a way of compiling knowledge, usually by writing information into journals or blank-page books. Think of it as jotting down anything interesting that you see, hear, or learn through the day so that you can then remember it later. It can literally be for anything and everything, a repository for anything its owner wants. And lately, I’ve been in the habit of using this practice when it comes to the books I’m reading.
The process is as simple as it sounds. Whenever I’m reading and come across a line or passage I think is important/thematic, I write it down on any spare piece of paper around. Normally this is in a notebook or journal, but I’ve also used the Notes app on my phone when needed. Other people use flash cards and store them all in an empty shoe box. Anything that allows you to write the quote down will do.
The reason I’ve found this habit so beneficial, while still avoiding the idea of annotation at all costs, is due to the tangibility of actually writing out the words from the page. If I were to simply highlight a passage I found profound or laden with meaning, then I would have only recognized the fact that it was so, potentially without having taken the time to fully work out why it might be so. Meanwhile, the act of writing each and every word contained in that passage involves significantly more focus. When you start transcribing, whether you realize it or not, you are inherently thinking about the words you are writing, seeing how they flow with each other and convey the intention meant to be expressed. Essentially, it forces you to expend more time thinking about what you’ve been reading than you might have otherwise, which gives you more opportunity to think about how its meaning applies to the book as a whole. By the end, you’ll have a whole list of different quotes to draw not only food for thought from, but inspiration for your own creative endeavors, all compiled together in one place rather than scattered about in need of searching through the book.
Not only does this give you more time to reflect on what the author is trying to say in these moments, it also allows the ability to savor the wordsmithing employed in the construction of such an idea. You can get a real sense for how the author went about shaping the sentences or passages in question, both the tools of rhetoric employed as well as the artistry involved. I’ve found this to be an immensely helpful tool in my own writing attempts. Seeing how a simple idea or sentence can be expressed in so unique a way really inspires me to try and emulate the same sort of mindset when constructing stories of my own.
It’s gotten to the point for me that I can noticeably realize the difference in my understanding of a book if I have or haven’t kept up with a commonplace book while reading. Several months ago, I was listening to Gene Wolfe’s first book in his Book of the New Sun series, The Shadow of the Torturer, and because I only had it in an auditory medium while I was mostly driving, I lost out on so many of the smaller, though no less important details interspersed throughout. Meanwhile, I’ve just started reading a physical copy of the sequel, and already have several different passages written down, and feel like I have a much stronger grasp of the various themes and motifs being employed to build up the speculative world than I had previously.