why does studying literature kill the joy of reading?

and how I rediscovered a lost passion

Andi’s Note: Fairies, this month’s surprise for you all here on Mayumi Writes is our first ever guest post with one of the writers I most admire and respect for their incredible talent in writing, Abha Ahad. One of the advocacies of this publication is to be able to share the many stories of writers here on Substack, may it be about their struggles and how they have had overcome it or how they navigated their passions, dreams, and everyday experiences. Through sharing these stories, this publication hopes to inspire, connect, and foster a community among readers and writers alike, who might relate. Take your time in reading and if ever this piece has resonated with you, feel free to share your thoughts. Anyway, carry on now, let your wings fly and enjoy!

About Abha Ahad: Abha Ahad is an independent journalist based in Delhi, India. She reports on gender and technology and writes girl online, a newsletter reporting on the evolution of digital girlhood.

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When I was young, like most of us, I was also the kid who had her head buried inside a novel. Once during a two-month summer break, I read 72 books. This summer reading spree became a family legend that still gets fed to my screen-addicted Gen Alpha cousins. However, the secret behind this incredibly productive summer was rather sad. It was the summer my grandmother was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. And I wanted a distraction from wallowing in the morbidity of it all, of course. What better distraction than books, right?

Since I was a toddler, I have loved stories. I like to think it was because of the bedtime stories my Dad used to tell me.

Every night, he’d ask me –

“Do you want an original story or one from the Arabian Nights?

“Original.”

“Do you want a story about land, water, or sky?”

“Land.”

“Do you want a story about the forest or the village?”

“Forest.”

He’d make up a story on the spot and never did he repeat a plot. I still think of his imagination with awe, especially when I suffer from writer’s block.

I had always wanted to be a writer. My grandfather was one. When he passed away, major dailies in my state carried heartfelt notes from people his work had influenced. I also wanted people to cry reading my stories.

My family was (is) not a huge fan of this idea. “Writers are melancholic people,” they said. Well, my grandfather was definitely a melancholic human being. They weren’t happy when I told them I wanted to go to college to study English literature. But they believe in free will, so they let me do that.

I cried with joy when I got into my dream college to study my dream major. I was happy thinking that nobody could ever reprimand me for reading novels anymore. Novels weren’t going to mess with my academic work now. They were my academic work.

My joy would soon turn to frustration. I would soon realise that reading books is not the same as studying literature.

Now don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed so many aspects of my degree. I enjoyed studying World History, Philosophy, and Film theory. I mostly enjoyed the nuanced discussions my class would have on virtually anything under the sun. My literature training also perhaps made me a better writer, even though I didn’t end up being the kind of writer I wanted to be.

One thing that irked me about my major was the lack of choice. When I was reading for fun, I could choose what I wanted to read. I could judge the book by the cover and leave it unread if it was too boring. As a literature major, I had to read a book again and again to make sure I got all the Easter cookies my examiners thought the author hid in the texts. Another factor was that reading novels became homework. Instead of an activity I could look forward to at the end of the day, reading became a chore – something I had to do no matter how tired or uninspired I was. That really affected my relationship with a hobby I had nurtured ever since I learned my ABCs.

So, when after three years of forcing myself to read medieval European texts and the world classics, I finally graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English literature, I stopped reading. I didn’t pick up a novel for the next year and a half. I was still passively reading for work – magazines, news articles, social media posts, research papers, and occasionally excerpts from celebrity memoirs. I told myself that my love for reading had been killed, that I peaked early as a reader, and that I should just stick to writing features and reports and bury the hope of ever writing a readable story. I had almost made peace with that fact when I did something that changed the trajectory of my reading journey – quitting my job and moving back home.

In late 2023, I moved back home with my parents for health reasons and decided to take a career break. I was still contributing features to an outlet here or there, but largely I was just rotting in my bed. When the new year started, I realised I had nothing to do. I was already tired of Instagram and had already binge-watched every show on every streaming platform! So I decided it was time to go back to reading. “Read 12 books,” I wrote in a journal entry titled 2024 To-dos.

It was scary.

One of the reasons I was okay with not reading as much as I did before was because I had convinced myself I could always go back. Now what if I start reading again and realise that I couldn’t? What if I had really lost my passion for stories? What if I could never be the girl with her head buried inside a novel again? What if I could never escape from my mediocre life and get lost in a universe somebody across the world had carefully curated for me to escape to?

At first, I only read non-fiction. As a little girl, I was never a fan of non-fiction but working as a journalist made reading such books a part of my job. By September I had completed my target of reading 12 books, but I was yet to read a novel. All that changed a few weeks ago.

The news of Han Kang winning this year's Nobel Prize for Literature reminded me of the emotions I felt when I first read “The Vegetarian.” When I first wrote it, the unique perspective on human bodies, mental health, and how all of it connects us to the natural world around me had a profound impact on me. So last week, I read it again. And just like the first time, as I finished the last page, I felt some emotions I hadn’t felt in a few years. I felt an electric wave pass through my body – it was the joy of reading being reinstalled in myself. Since then, I have read two more novels. Turns out, I can still read a book cover to cover. I just needed to be reassured and Han Kang definitely rose to the occasion.

If you are a literature major (or not) who somehow, somewhere lost your passion for reading, let me remind you that it isn’t lost, just misplaced. Don’t beat yourself up over it. When the timing is right, it will return to you. If you are impatiently waiting for it to return, pick a book you once loved and it might just decide to come back to you prematurely.

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