Books and Reading

I've just finished the new biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor by Artemis Cooper. One of the things that
struck me as I read it was how much reading aloud went on in Leigh Fermor's life. His mother, it appears 'loved reading aloud' so perhaps that's where he first got the habit or maybe he picked it up at the tutoring place he was sent to where 'there was a lot of reading aloud.' Or possibly it was at the school he attended in Canterbury, where his stories and 'contributions to the Walpole Society were read aloud, usually to small groups of boys gathered in the housemaster's study.'

Wherever he was first introduced to it, reading aloud seems to have provided Leigh Fermor with a lifelong source of entertainment. As a young man he lived in Romania, and in the house where he was staying, 'Le Grand Meaulnes and L'Aiglon were read aloud in the evenings.' Louis MacNeice and his wife later 'spent many evenings with Paddy, reading aloud', while Leigh Fermor and Diana Cooper spent 'days of lolling, interminable chat and crosswords, reading aloud and ... fireside meals.' Leigh Fermor and his wife even practised the habit while waiting for their house to be built, 'hunkered down in their tent, drinking Grant's Standfast whisky and soda and reading aloud from Mrs Gaskell.'

All these references to reading aloud made me wonder if it was more than merely an eccentric passion, restricted almost entirely to Leigh Fermor. Was it actually something lots of people did to divert themselves before the arrival of television? If so - if, in fact, reading aloud was a widespread pastime, I'd be interested to know if it influenced readers' preferences about the types of stories they liked. There are plenty of people who think that the earlier method of publishing novels - serialised, in bits, in monthly magazines - influenced how novels were written, but could it be that in former times certain novels came to prominence because they were particularly suited to reading aloud? If so, did that change the novel and also does that mean the novels we read now, in a world where reading aloud is little practised, are different in some way to those that were prized for their suitability to being declaimed?

Or am I leading a sheltered life? Are there households all around me where people are still reading books aloud to other adults, (and I don't think audiobooks are the same thing at all, by the way)? We're all encouraged to read to our children but maybe we'd all be happier if we all also read to each other? But then again, it might all become a tiny bit relentless. It's easy to switch the television off without anyone's feelings being hurt but telling a reader that actually you've had enough now and you'd quite appreciate silence might be a source of friction. And, if you couldn't say, 'Shut up,' would your life become one long wedding guest in the Ancient Mariner scenario? Or would you just pick up a book yourself and start reading aloud in opposition? And if there were several people in the family? And if you didn't like the same sorts of books? Blimey, the whole thing's a nightmare. I wish I'd never brought it up.