I've found that I can't read without a pen to underline these days, and I can't decide how I feel about it.
I am super into having a pen while reading. There is something about being able to write in the margins, underline things and interact with something while reading. But... Second hand books with underlines....nope. Authors/editors that put them in for me....double nope. The best is coming back to what you wrote years later and having the "I was an idiot" reaction. Watching your interpretation of the world change over time is nearly as good as getting to interact in the first place.
Hah, this is so true! Or sometimes I come back to something I wrote and I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. I used to take notes transliterated into Tengwar (the Elvish script from the Lord of the Rings universe), and now I'm just completely clueless as to what is going on!The best is coming back to what you wrote years later and having the "I was an idiot" reaction.
I always wanted to learn Tengwar...but that skill is right alongside my conversational Klingon and Japanese. Not good. Not good at all.
You pretty much nailed it for me. Underlining myself is kind of like breaking the book in, but I won't take someone elses book that's been broke in.
I'm really excited about the "I was an idiot/did I actually think that?" phase.
I've never felt comfortable marking in books. I like to try to keep them in good condition and I wouldn't even know what to mark if I tried. I'd probably just end up underlining the whole thing which is as effective as not underlining anything. If I'm studying for school I'll write notes in a separate notebook and jot down the relevant page numbers if I feel I'll need to re-read the section.
Whenever I have a pen in my hand, I can never decide what is actually important enough to underline. Thus, I underline probably too much. This is especially apparent in my school books. I'm scared to try and reread my copy of "The Brothers Karamazov" because I think it's riddled with unnecessary underlines and jotted notes.
I've always been bad at distilling information down into concise, neat points. I'm bad at organization in general and even my own thoughts are hard to narrow down. A long time ago a close friend said I turn everything into a novel. I think that's part of why I don't know how to underline sparingly and am wary of marking in books. Too much of the context seems important to me and not just the big points that others might highlight. I often have trouble discerning where the context ends and the actual main point begins. It's something I've been working on for a long time but I think learning how to be concise will be a lifelong struggle, including in my note taking. For some it seems to come more naturally than for others but at least being conscious of it I can work around it better than when I was younger.
You should do whatever you want! Seriously though, different people have different preferences. I personally like writing/underlining in most of my books, except if I really want to preserve the book in some way (like my first printing of The Shining, I'm never marking up that shit!). I feel like having markings and dog-eared pages signifies that I love the book and it has impacted me in some way.
Personally, I don't much mind underlining. The only time it irritated me was when I picked up a second hand copy that clearly somebody was assigned in some sort of class, where they underlined a full three quarters of the sentence of every paragraph for a hundred pages. Surely that's not the best way to note all of that information. It's actually kind of fun seeing what other people thought was really important, especially if it seems trivial to me. It's like somebody came through time to point to one passage and say "Hey, look! Look here!" One of my second-hand history books has a lot of scrawled notes of disagreement (or contradiction) in it, and it was entertaining to have half a mental argument with the margins now and again. Whoever wrote them was very narrow-minded. I didn't agree with some of the author's interpretations or implications but I hardly think writing "wrong!" in the margins with an arrow pointing to the offending passage is the correct way to discuss things.
I used to hate it/be terrified of it, and then I read on a blog I followed that the person underlined a lot in her favourite books. I'd never really liked the thought, but the more I read, the more I fell into the underline camp. I usually do it with a pencil, though, and if I want to underline a whole paragraph I just put a line beside it instead of underlining all of it (seems like a waste). I usually underline beautiful phrases/metaphors, and whatever is uniquely and especially well articulated. Recently, I was reading The Hours, which is a very light book to read, but is also a dense net of references to Virginia Woolf's books. Read and re-read, it's quite rewarding (as is VW, though in a different way), and I really wanted to outline a bunch of things but it's not my copy :( When studying, I definitely underline. It actually helps me focus, too, and when I have to re-read for exams I know that the key points are already underlined.
I find it takes me out of the experience. I get so absorbed in my books that I'll forget I even had a pen, leaving me with many half-marked books. If there's something that strikes me enough as wanting to remember, I'll write it down; otherwise, if I'm having trouble understanding the meaning in a passage, I'll reread and slow down to chew on it a little more. I hate underlining more than highlighting, because dark pen tends to scratch out words more. However, as a student buying textbooks... You can get used to anything.
Like OP, I need to underline when I read now. It keeps me focused on the book. It also forces me to re-read, to slow down and appreciate the words. This is mostly true of long/dense books; the first novel I seriously marked was Ulysses. Some books I can't mark because there would be too much underlining (The English Patient), but in that case I also don't have trouble focusing. I can't mark a book with a perfectly clean spine. But I love finding underlining and marginalia in used books, and I generally try to buy used. For some of the books I love, I have two copies: one marked, one clean (a loaner). The only thing that bothers me about underlining and marginalia (now that I've gotten over my knee-jerk need to keep books clean) is embarrassment if I lend books I marked on years ago, because I was an idiot.
One line of Alberto Manguel's "Ideal Reader" essay goes:
"Writing on the margins is a sign of the ideal reader. " I read the essay for a literature class in high school. It's a really nice essay--perhaps more of a poem, even--but honestly, it made me feel pretty inadequate. I've always wanted to be the sort of person who writes in the margins and does other things that make me "an ideal reader," but...I never have. And of course that's something silly to feel insecure about, but nevertheless it makes me feel, I don't know, less intellectual? Less like I have a truly deep connection with a book, maybe. Like a lot of you have said, it's mostly because I don't know what to write. Aside from books where I have to take notes for class or whatever, I don't really think of things that are worth writing down. So what do you guys write in your books? Your reactions to things, questions you have? And when you underline, why do you do so? Because a line sticks out to you for a particular reason--because the language is striking, because you actually plan on returning to that page and want to find that quote?
For some reason, a lot of my underlining seems to be character focused. Like I'll underline passages that I think show defining attributes or descriptions of characters. However, I also underline striking passages. Ones that are written really well, pose an interesting thought, or seem to be linked to some sort of theme. In the end, this is probably why I underline too much of my books. I feel like the whole mess is probably driven by the notion that, at some point, I might need a quick reminder of certain aspects of the book, whether it's for an essay or simply just to remind myself.
Unless I'm reading a particularly nice edition, I almost always underline and make marginal notes with pencil. I've actually come to enjoy seeing other readers' marginalia in library and second-hand books. Sometimes just a question mark in the margins to let me know that I'm not the only one who doesn't understand what's going on can make the reading experience more enjoyable. I frequently use the highlighting feature of my Kindle, as well, and I like being able to see all of the sections I've underlined in a list. I turn off the 'see what other people have underlined' feature some time ago, but I've been thinking about turning it back on recently.
Highlighting in kindle I feel much better about. It allows for me to quickly come back to things without leaving a permanent mark. However, I really love finding old inscriptions in books. Like there's something about an old message shared in a book between two people I'll never meet that I find haunting in a interesting way.
I cringe at the thought, but I suppose between that and highlighting, it's the lesser of two evils.
Depends on the book. If it's something I'm reading for pleasure I won't do it. I might stick a bookmark on a page if I want to remember something. I marked the crap out of The Kingdom of God is Within You. But even the last self help book I read I used Post Its to mark passages. I like to keep my books in good condition for no reason. Their best life after me is in a thrift store, they don't have a resale value to speak of. Just some weird neurotic thing I have about books being special. Except textbooks. They're the most expensive and everyone hates them because they're so expensive.
That's my issue. I feel like if I'm reading for pleasure, I should just leave the pen alone and enjoy the book. But I'm the same way, if I feel like I'm going to reread the book, I shouldn't ruin the perfect condition. I don't go to college for a month yet, so until next week I'm blissfully unaware of textbook costs.