“A literary book shows your vision of your role in society”
Book Week starts again tomorrow: ten days in which bookshops and publishers put Dutch literature in the spotlight. The perfect opportunity to show off that one classic. But do students still read literature? “A culture of pride in reading is gradually emerging in the lecture halls.”
You have to search high and low to find students with a book on the Roeterseiland campus. And then suddenly you find one. In the Coffeestar in building J/K, Jara Nijveen, a student of interdisciplinary social sciences, is completely immersed in a book. “I’m reading the Chestnut Springs series. It’s a romance set in the Canadian countryside. It’s actually very bad, it’s pure escapism, but I enjoy it.”
She has been reading avidly again for the past three months. “I used to read a lot, but I lost that passion because of the pressure of my studies. I set myself very high standards: if I read, it had to be literature or something related to my studies.” As a result, she stopped picking up books altogether. “I’m very happy that I’m reading again. It gives me peace of mind and it’s a great way to avoid being glued to your phone. Although I am a little ashamed, because this book is so bad!”
For years, alarm bells have been ringing about the decline in reading among young people. Reading skills among young people have declined sharply within a single generation. The most recent PISA figures from 2023 show that secondary school pupils are reading less and less, reading less well and enjoying reading less and less. Some of those secondary school pupils are now at university. Do students still read literature there? And if not, is that a problem?
There are no figures on how many UvA students read in their spare time – let alone what they read – as some questions among Dutch language and literature academics quickly reveals. Nevertheless, based on their experiences, a number of Dutch language and literature scholars dare to say that students read less in their spare time than they did a few years ago.
Uplifting
Jan Rock, university lecturer in Dutch literature, agrees. “That’s not to say that students have no connection with stories and fiction,” Rock qualifies, having taught the course The History and Future of Reading for many years. “The ideal image of reading has simply changed. The image of reading, sitting quietly in a corner reading a novel, is historically determined. That is an ideal of civil society: a responsible citizen reads literature. The socio-cultural code that reading should be something uplifting has always been part of reading.”
But that image of reading is now outdated, Rock argues. “The media landscape has changed. Films, television series and stories on social media have taken over the most important role of storytelling.”
New ideas
Whether it is really true that students read less literature, complex texts with multiple layers, than they used to, is something the historian in Rock doubts. “Even in the past, only a fraction of the population read literature. In the 1950s and 1960s, the heyday of reading culture thanks to the paperback revolutionThe emergence of inexpensive books that you could take with you anywhere., the question was also: who actually reads these books in their entirety?”
However, according to Rock, students’ understanding of complex texts has definitely declined. “Complex texts can really be experienced in literature and novels. For students, text is increasingly becoming something that rolls out of AI, but that does not mean that new ideas emerge from it.”
And so, according to Rock, it is important that all students read more literature. “Precisely because literature requires intellectual effort to delve into the complexity of a story. A good book gives you new ideas and different perspectives; it stimulates your thinking.” Didactician Rock knows that a compulsory reading list for students will not achieve this. “But we do need to make it clear to students why novels are worth reading.”
Jara Nijveen recommends: The Alchemist, Paul Coelho, 1988. “This book reminds you that your dreams are worth pursuing, even if the path seems uncertain. Coelho shows that the greatest treasures are often not found at the end of the journey, but in what you learn about yourself along the way. There are so many beautiful lessons and pearls of wisdom in this book that I am sure it will resonate with many others!”
Jan Rock recommends: The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas, 1844. “A 19th-century adventure novel that shows how trust and fake news work in social processes. A book that is still relevant today and that doesn’t shut you off from what’s happening in the world, but makes you think. How do we view others? And how do we deal with ever-lurking violence?”
Ties Bergen Henegouwen recommends: Leonard and Hungry Paul, Rónán Hession, 2019. “A book about two men in their thirties who lead small lives but still make big leaps throughout the book, which is very comforting. It is light-hearted, sharp and cleverly written, and on the one hand it is about nothing, yet it leaves you with a fresh perspective on what a “successful life” is today.”
One novel per week
For Ties Bergen Henegouwen, a master’s student in Dutch language and literature, freedom of choice in reading is also important. “I work at a bookshop, where for a while I was obliged to read two books a month for the Book of the Month. I stopped doing that after a while and now I can throw myself back into what I really enjoy reading.”
And that means almost one novel a week, from literary publishers such as Das Mag, Van Oorschot and Koppernik. “Many of them are quite short, too.” For Ties, literature is the place where you can experiment most with ideas about the world. “It broadens my mind. It helps me to understand the world better. By mirroring what happens in literature, I also train my own thinking.”
According to Ties, the world would be a lot more superficial without literature. And what’s wrong with that? Ties: “Haha, you’ve got me there. Essentially nothing, of course, but I think I would get less satisfaction from such a world. I would say that depth, sentiment and critical reflection would be lost. Then we would be less able to understand ourselves and the world.”
The book as a fashion accessory
At the same time, according to Rock, there is also a counter-movement going on in the lecture halls. “I have been teaching at the UvA for twenty years now and I notice that a culture of pride in reading is gradually emerging. It’s cool again to walk around with a slightly older book.”
“With a literary book, you show your vision of your role in society,” Rock explains. “That you are willing to take responsibility and try to understand the complexity of problems. That you don’t just accept the news media as truth but need in-depth stories.”
The trend of demonstratively reading a classic in public places is also known as performative reading. One of Rock’s students recently wrote a paper on this, entitled: the book as a fashion accessory. This is however nothing new, Rock adds. “In the 1960s and 1970s, it was also quite a statement if you had Turks Fruit with you. Whether people actually read it is, of course, another question.”
According to Rock, what it really comes down to is that “citizens want to ensure that they keep their minds, spirits and emotions sharp”. “Literature is suitable for this, but other forms of imagination and culture can also serve this purpose. Such as music or art.”
