Ulin's Criticism Of Los Angeles Times: Summary

Moreover, Ulin found himself that he has lost the capability to find a certain quiet space for reading. “We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise. (Ulin 1)” Ulin found that he was in a kind of “giving up control” that he could not connect what he has read and what he was going to read; thus, he was difficult to feel into the story. When he could not filter out the noise, he was not be able to “make them part of ourselves”.
However, his job is not only limit to reading, but also other work; thus, he cannot a hundred percent focus on what he reads and has read because there are other things in his mind that remain him to do. He writes that “I force myself to remain still, to follow whatever I'm reading until the inevitable moment I give myself over to the flow. Eventually I get there, but some nights it takes 20 pages to settle down. What I'm struggling with is the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there is something out there that merits my attention, when in fact it's mostly just a series of disconnected riffs and fragments that add up to the anxiety of the age. (Ulin 1)” When he toke a book, his mind was not able to come into the story; checking e-mails, listening to music, or closing the windows also accounted in his mind. He lost the ability to find a certain quiet space, not only around him but also in his mind, to read efficiently. The result is, he found that “reading has become an act of meditation”, which is difficult to