Reading Alone

Abstract

In the end faithful reading escapes technical prescription, which should not astonish us given the authors who have attuned us to it. Perhaps the simplest description of faithful interpretation is relentless close reading and the willingness to go where it leads you, even when you are more comfortable (intellectually, politically, or artistically) where you are—like Abraham. But that is hardly a satisfying conclusion, and I think, looking back at our attempt to hold the two preceding chapters together, we can see a better last formulation of what it means to understanding reading as an act of belief when we balance Edwards’ active reading with Andrews’ textual discipline we recognize that both authors, while pushing from different angles, require readers to remain in pursuit of themselves.¹ To read in belief is to awaken to the fact that our ethical, readerly selves are made available to us as the selves we persistently write and talk toward. It will come as no surprise that I imagine the best way to make this idea available is to reach, one last time, to the models provided by religious practice, for to be in pursuit of oneself is to be pulled back to decidedly Christian and Jewish notions of agency.