Slowing down with Dickens
A new Christmas tradition
Hello, snowmen and women!
Tomorrow, paid subscribers will receive an email of some of my favorite things that make for wonderful Christmas gifts. Upgrade to paid ($30 / year) to get this goodie and so much more in the new year.
Move over, beach reads. December is here.
Last December, I read Dickens for the first time. Stumbling across phrases like “to make a mull of it” placed me in a different century — one where time moved contrary to the breakneck speed of modern life.
It was my friend Annie’s copy of Great Expectations, full of annotations from her time as an English grad student at Georgetown. The 544-page classic was intimidating. Not because of its length (I started Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive last year), but because of its 163-year-old prose. The Victorian English scared me more than the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. It’s simply not a beach read. It’s a December read.
The machine fast-tracking your reading
Many modern novels encourage speed reading. Simple prose makes progress feel effortless and short chapters release dopamine like a gumball machine. It’s not just the books themselves. Other players push you toward Mario’s boost pads.
Audiobooks make it as easy as a click to double your “reading speed.”
Social noise like #BookTok can rush you to finish a book while it’s still relevant.
Publishing companies want you to finish fast so you can pre-order the next book in the series.
Streaming services want to finish the series so you can watch the show.
But out of all the forces putting pressure on your reading speed, I believe Goodreads is the biggest culprit.
I love Goodreads, but I’m afraid publicizing our private leisure is heightening our social pressure to perform. In January, Goodreads will relentlessly ask for your reading goal. It doesn’t give you options for different goals, like exploring new genres or reading new authors. It makes one request: provide a number.
When a single number is your core measurement, growth is implied by increasing that number year-over-year. You’re encouraged to pick up the pace. And when everyone around you is doing the same, a single number is enough to kick off the comparison game.
Shoutout to my brother who gives Goodreads a goal of 1 just so it’ll shut up.
Classics help you step off the machine
I started this December with 34 completed books. I was tempted to pad my stats by cramming some easy end-of-year reads. But once I realized the absurdity of that thought, I knew it was time to slow down. Thankfully, the Christian tradition of Advent encourages me to do just that.
Advent is when followers of Jesus reflect on God coming to us in person. It celebrates the moment Eugene Peterson described as, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”
Advent doesn’t allow Christmas to sneak up on you. It’s four weeks of contemplation. You’re encouraged to let your imagination travel 2,000 years in the past to ponder what it would be like to have God in skin visit you. It’s also a time to anticipate him coming again. Advent is a training ground for learning how to wait with hope.
During Advent, we light candles to see time melt away. We sing hymns that help us reflect on the birth of Jesus. And, for two years in a row, I read Dickens.
Similar to your favorite Netflix series, Dickens published his novels in serial installments. Some weekly, some monthly. (Fun fact: This made Dickens one of the earliest writers to popularize the cliffhanger.) The serial installments forced his readers to pause and process. They literally couldn’t rush to the finish line of the story like I’m so often compelled to do. They had to learn how to wait with hope.
Stories that have stood the test of time can’t be rushed because they’re often riddled with unchanging realities of human nature. Dickens’ stories focus on morality, the human struggle, and redemption. Through story, he advocates for social reform around shortcomings we experience today, like inequality and ineffective institutions. And the prose of old, good thinkers like Dickens invites us to pay attention. Here’s an example of Dickens breaking the fourth wall to help us slow and see:
“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.” — Great Expectations
Dickens’ stories helped the common person discover the realities they experienced but didn’t have words to express. And discovery requires us to slow down enough to see.
Shift gears this holiday season
Beach reads urge you to race through stories to be a part of a social moment. There’s a time and place for them. But December reads encourage you to slow down and soak up stories that resonate with human history. They’re not concerned about you finishing fast. They’d rather you enjoy the warmth of well-woven words.
I kicked off this December by starting Dickens’ David Copperfield. Since it’s 900 pages, it’ll be the only book I read in December (and maybe January). In the bustle of the season, I’m experiencing more than a story — I’m changing speeds.
With every page, the story slows my world, inviting quiet reflection. The language is so clever and the plot so elaborate that I have to move forward with the caution you would take in approaching a wild animal. I simply can’t binge-read Dickens with football on in the background. It deserves an ambiance as quiet as a candle and my wife reading next to me.
The decision to shift gears feels like a rebellion against the urgency we can so often feel during the Christmas season. But I believe slowness is the necessary pace to experience what Advent has to offer: hope, peace, joy, and love.
Like a Michelin meal, rushing through Christmas devalues the experience. My encouragement would be to find a practice that helps you shift gears this holiday season. For me, that looks like spending time with Dickens. Instead of binging, he invites me to chew and digest.
After all, Advent is for savoring.
— Luke
P.S. If you're in Atlanta, check out Dad's Garage improv show Invasion: Christmas Carol.
The comedy club takes Dickens' classic tale and shakes things up by throwing in a surprise character from pop culture. The best part is it's a total surprise for both the audience and the cast. Last year, at the show Sarah and I attended, one actor hilariously channeled Carmy from The Bear. We loved it so much that we decided to make this show our new Christmas tradition.
P.P.S. And if you’ve never read A Christmas Carol, do yourself a favor and read it here.
“God bless us, every one!”