o attention span, where art thou?
& what's that over there?
Back in March, I picked up a copy of Haruki Murakami’s doorstopper book, IQ84, at a used bookstore.
I’ve always enjoyed Murakami and I’ve read a bunch of his other (far shorter) novels, but never attempted this 1,000+ page tome. So this felt like a sign that it was time to finally try it.
This was, at least in part, a challenge for me as well. I, along with literally everyone existing in the 2020’s, have had my attention span shrunk to the size of the littlest guy in a bag of frozen peas. I liked the idea of reading a longer book that would require my sustained attention and figured it would probably be a good winter/spring project.
It turns out that I was not alone in trying to work on my attention span. Around the same time that I cracked open IQ84, the idea of “rawdogging” began to take over certain corners of the internet. The idea here is that people, namely men, will forego anything that resembles entertainment or distraction when, say, on a long flight, opting instead to stare straight ahead at the seat back in front of them. No movies, no headphones for music or podcasts, no books, no video games, no napping, no talking, and hell, some of them even forego food and water for the duration of their time in the air (plus my understanding is you can’t watch the little in-flight tracker either). This is seen as the ultimate flex somehow—that you are willing to be supremely bored and focused on nothing at all for hours on end. In other words: doing nothing for hours on end is the ultimate means of showing off your machismo.
While I didn’t necessarily intend for the timing to co-exist with this bizarre cultural phenomena (to say that I loathe the term “rawdogging” is an understatement), it did strike me as interesting that a longer attention span could be something not only strive for, but brag about in this attention economy.
As always, let’s be clear: reading a big book is not the same as “rawdogging.” IQ84 is certainly more entertaining than staring at the back of an airport seat someone has definitely vomited on recently. But the desire to commit to something I wasn’t convinced I could actually even do anymore (in my case, read a book that is thicker than my bicep to the very end) was appealing. Even if it was, as I would soon learn, more than I bargained for.
While I love Murakami’s work—which is known for its wildly surreal/sci-fi elements that read as if that hallucinogen you took hours ago just finally kicked in out of nowhere—he has certain tics that, when reading hundreds of pages, don’t hit quite the same.
He’s notorious for his descriptions of women’s bodies, for example, particularly boobs. And when a book is this long, certain things get awfully repetitive and tired. Things like, I’m sad to say, descriptions of the same pair of boobs over and over.
Plus, while I do love a sweeping epic story, there’s a reason most novels cap out at no more than 200-400 pages. There’s such a thing as too much exposition, too much character development, too much dialogue, just too much. Less is more or whatever. Murakami is certainly a brilliant if flawed writer, but even at his best, his work gets quite tedious by page 743 of 1,100-something.
Committing to the book and not, say, ditching it for something shorter, snappier, and livelier was a struggle. I typically love to read before bed, and I was starting to dread cracking open IQ84. I was looking excuses not to finish it. But my parents didn’t raise a quitter. I wanted to push myself. And push myself I did.
I would imagine “rawdogging” is similar. There is a certain amount of tedium that becomes antithetical to real thought. After all, there’s a reason our attention spans have been slowly, and then very suddenly, declining over the past decade. More mental stimulation means more excitement, more dopamine hits. And returning to the same characters doing virtually the same things over and over—or staring at the endlessly bland textile pattern on the back of an airplane seat—provides none of that.
But, of course, the experience gave me something else instead. I paid attention to how Murakami’s translator incorporated cultural descriptors where translation of an idea or word from Japanese to English proved challenging. I admired how the book, which takes two seemingly disparate narratives and weaves them together slowly, is paced in such a way that mimics the character’s own sense of time. I considered that, if this is so hard to focus on as a reader, it must have been so challenging for Murakami focus on throughout the writing and revision process.
Books are, at their core, supposed to be mentally stimulating. But to finish this particular book, I had to dig deeper into what that might mean, or what it could look like.
I would imagine “raw-dogging” is similar. If I were to try this (which I never will, I love to be entertained and intellectually stimulated on a long flight, sorry not sorry!), I can imagine that there would be moments where it feels unbearable. But then, there might also be moments of breakthrough. Eavesdropping on the elderly couple in front of me as they bicker, or a parent explaining to their child what they are seeing out the window. Making note of how the tray table latches in such a way that it is unlikely to hit me in the hip or arm when I stand up and move. The feeling of the cool recycled air as it blows across my cheek.
But these little moments require me to flex my attention. They require mental endurance and stamina that I’m not sure humankind has ever really had. After all, it’s not as if folks on long-haul flights back in the mid-1900s were completely idle on planes. They didn’t have screens, but they read books and newspapers. They chatted. They slept. And lord knows that big books like IQ84 have always existed, and someone has always complained that they were too long and exhausting to finish.
I did finish IQ84 though. It took awhile—about the amount of time I’d typically need to finish three extremely dense 350-page novels—but I got there. I’m glad I did it, even if it’s not my favorite of his books (I’m a The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle kind of girl). But it also made me grateful for shorter form reads, which I consume now with greater appreciation for their pacing and structure. And perhaps that’s the point—consuming anything that isn’t short and snappy these days can become so numbing so quickly.
So to push my attention past its usual breaking point made me feel something. And isn’t that what all writers want? For their readers to feel something when they are done with the book that likely took years upon years to complete, rather than just move on mindlessly to the next piece of content?
I felt something alright. I felt relief that I was finished. Accomplished even. You might even say I felt like I landed the plane after a long and turbulent flight without a moment’s rest.
But I’m already on to the next doorstop. Up next on my To Read Pile: all 643 pages of The Bee Sting by Paul Murray.
Pray for me, please.