Photo by Amy Tran on Unsplash

Sometimes very small tweaks can help us to more mindfully ingest reading material. With books that weave through ideas over pages and that you may read over longer periods of time, it can be useful to have anchors on which to pivot your line of thinking. Whether you are studying literature as part of a course, writing book reviews, or simply reading for pleasure, this easy and quick strategy can help you to get more truth and joy from your texts.

I usually take notes while I read books, but the notes are rarely lengthy or detailed. If I’m conducting research or teaching the text, I might go back to passages marked or points I’m synthesizing and write a whole lot more. But usually on first reading, I merely make small underlines or star markings, sometimes write a word or two in the margins, and create an exquisite list of words: a lexicon.

This strategy that I learned more than twenty years ago is magnificently simple yet effective. Cambridge Dictionary tells us that a lexicon is:

(a list of) all the words used in a particular language or subject, or a dictionary

When I make a lexicon for a book, I don’t list ‘all the words’…this would be pointless. But I do make a shortlist of relevant language to help understand the essence of a book’s meaning and message.

The classroom

One of my favorite professors in college used to make a communal and impromptu lexicon at the beginning of nearly every lesson. We often came to class armed with having just read at least one complete book. She would assign typically a full novel per lesson, so two or more a week. Because I had to read them rather quickly to keep up, I didn’t have time for the kinds of notes I took in other literature classes, at least not on the first read.

To orient us, she would begin with a lexicon on the board. She would start with a word or two of her own and then grab ideas from the room. This list of words or short phrases were repeated words in the text, motifs, emerging themes…or anything similar that seemed worth noting. At the start, we didn’t give it much explanation, maybe a sentence or two to clarify what we meant or where we had seen it. Then, throughout the lesson, we would come back to certain words on the board, linking them to quotes or questions, considering the nature of dichotomies, or discussing the relevance of context or authorship.

With my students, I have done the same. We would start a high school or university literature class with this type of lexicon. Often, I would have students write the words themselves, passing around whiteboard markers, to get everyone engaged before the lesson began. It gave all students some initial ownership over the ensuing discussion of the text.

Making your own

Even by using this strategy yourself, you are gaining ownership over your reading rather than passively allowing the words to flow through your brain. I do it myself with any book-length material but especially novels. The simplicity and lack of organization allows my mind to come back to the list with fresh ideas; we have to then make the connections and follow through on lines of reasoning.

Rarely are novels set in linear lines of thought (even if the chronology is linear). By accessing points of language, dichotomies, motifs, and characterization, we start to see the way an idea moves in the text. We start to develop true themes that emerge over time, though the author may not present a clear answer. This is the joy of the novel: to find our truths in the in-between, just as we do in life.

Where you make your list is up to you. If you are a student or teacher, you might make your communal list in front of the room or on a Padlet. For a book club, you might do the same on a big piece of paper or a shared Google doc. For yourself, you might use a notebook, piece of paper used as a bookmark, or even more conveniently and simply the front or back empty pages of the book.

I tend to start in the book itself. This way it is there for me to come back to anytime. Sometimes years later, I find these lexicons and they help me to go back to a text I will teach or simply use a short quote or allusion from for a story. The lexicon helps me access the text again as a kind of orientation. I enter the world of thought I had whilst reading it.

As I read, I sometimes change a word into part of a dichotomy or make an arrow to show the evolution of ideas. In the example from Gary Shteyngart’s latest novel above — Our Country Friends, discussions about scripts later evolved into ideas of performative dialogue and actions in real life. Further, the allusions to Russian dramatist Chekhov later on make it clear that the text is also allegorical in nature. The intriguing notion of ‘fame’ for several characters turned into ‘infamy’ and the effects a lack of privacy can have on an individual (even through social media when one has escaped to the quiet country during the pandemic…).

After I finish, if I am doing more with the book for myself or a publication, I can use the lexicon as pivot points. I always start in by hand in some way, whether in the book or a notebook, so that moving onto more complete thoughts is documented and part of the thinking process. I think through writing, even simple words. Once it moves to my computer, I start expanding on the word or idea in different ways.

Expanding the lexicon

Let’s use the example above to see how we can expand this lexicon. Although a fairly long novel, let’s reduce it for the moment to just fifteen words and phrases adapted slightly from my list in the back pages:

• pandemic (sickness, disease, weakness)
• old / young
• water / cleanse
• library
• city vs country (& nature)
• poverty (& arbitrary money from fame?)
• Russian / Korean / American (esoteric language)
• algorithms
• love vs lust (& social media)
• special / fame vs infamy
• script (the Actor, acting, stage, dialogue/conversation)
• Chekhov!
• secrets, childhood
• writing → publishing, success…

First, you can find patterns within the book. I’ve already stuck some of my words together, either as dichotomies (city vs country) or linked motifs (acting, stage, etc.) or linear thoughts (in the last case). Some of the words that stand alone now stick out to me.

Chekhov is a big one. He is mentioned in passing several times; with writers, actors, and Russians around, it’s no wonder. As Laura Miller in Slate tells us:

A handful of characters cooped up together in a rundown country estate, complaining about cold samovars and unfulfilled dreams, falling in love and drinking too much and confronting one another over ancient betrayals: This was Chekhov’s dramatic element, but who knew it could also be Shteyngart’s?

The way Shteyngart examines the human condition in both familiar and farcical situation, creating a crucible of emotion through intense dialogue, is homage to Chekhov. Perhaps he explicitly includes the Russian dramatist to make sure we don’t miss it.

What about algorithms? The novel mentions them in regards to a social media app one of the characters has produced. Through a photograph, it determines whether or not you are in love with somebody else. This idea brings up ideas about AI controlling our thoughts. It also makes us question what it means to be human if a phone app can simply read our thoughts or influence us so strongly. (The famous “Actor” has a crisis because of it.) And it makes us wonder: if we are so easily readable, are we all just mapped out molecules without any free will at all?

Now let’s look at some of the words placed together. Creating dichotomies that may then be broken down, helping us understand the tensions in the text that may reflect those of society or ourselves. They may also help us understand if an author is reinforcing or subverting a certain method of thinking or boundary line.

Old / young seems an easy enough thing to tackle. List out the differences and it seems obvious what might go in each category. But our youngest character, Nat, only a child, also acts like an adult sometimes, perhaps playing a role. Don’t all children do this? And why? Then there is a generational gap between the other adults and one writer named Dee, who was also a student of the host. Does age change the way she sees the world? Does it influence her understanding of the pandemic? Of motherhood? Of success? Of money? All these issues and more come up. And with the mention of characters’ deceased parents, further generational questions are brought up. Since sometimes the older characters also act like children, it is both an indictment of their behavior and an acknowledgment that this is normal, that we all feel like children sometimes, whether a bit lost and naive or a bit hopeful and playful.

In investigating the other words and phrases, further questions can be brought up. A strategy might be to find related quotes to highlight or write the page numbers on the lexicon as you read. Going back to the original language will have more of the answers…and further questions.

I was interested by the city vs country dichotomy upon first reading, but hadn’t thought about what Shteyngart had been getting at. Too much was going on with the characters to take time to consider it. Going back to the text, I learn more and am able to connect it to other motifs and themes in the novel.

A quote from the first half of the text examines how the city denizens are fairing in their pandemic countryside abode:

He had come here to dissolve — his words, not ours — but it was the city that was dissolving behind him. If she wasn’t here, if she didn’t make him happy every day with her predictable banter and nosiness, with her unexpected love for Senderovsky’s little girl, he told himself he would leave for Elmhurst at once.

But he stayed. They all did. Even as the indolence of the country life made them slower, softer, wobblier on their feet.

The text could be interpreted in connection to metafiction (“his words, not ours”) or love or conversation (“banter”). By now focusing on the country vs city notion, instead we can learn why they “stayed.” Perhaps the city had drowned out their true selves. They had been hiding behind the noise. Friends for decades only now realize they love each other. They all take time to cook for each other, time to really talk without other places to be, time to read each other’s writing. They often walk the country roads, talking more deeply as they do and observing small things, both in the nature around them and in themselves.

By reducing a book to a lexicon, we may paradoxically expand to great truths like this. We may find the subtexts of the book and allow our minds to form a path of ideas through the mysterious language of fiction.

If you use a similar method, I would love to hear your take on it in the comments. Or try this one out, and let us know how it goes. Where does it lead you? What do you discover? Reading is about discovery and forming our own ideas through the labyrinths we create.