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When you’re reading, the words of the book borrow the voice in your head. Words need a voice.

At a certain point early in the first chapter I became aware that I was having or was about to have a heart attack. As long as I kept reading I didn’t have to think about this too much. When you’re reading, the words of the book borrow the voice in your head. Words need a voice. The voice they use when you read is your voice. It’s the voice your thoughts talk in. So if you give the voice to the book, your thoughts have no voice. They have to wait for the ends of paragraphs. They have to hold their breath until the chapter breaks. At a certain point early in the first chapter I became aware that I was having or was about to have a heart attack. As long as I kept reading I didn’t have to think about this too much. When you’re reading, the words of the book borrow the voice in your head. Words need a voice. The voice they use when you read is your voice. It’s the voice your thoughts talk in. So if you give the voice to the book, your thoughts have no voice. They have to wait for the ends of paragraphs. They have to hold their breath until the chapter breaks. So the lords and the ladies went to the joust, and the Saxon guy threw meat to his dog in his hall, and the other Saxon guy ran away, and the Jewish guy spoke to his daughter, and I was having a heart attack, and the Knight Templar looked down from atop his warhorse. He had an evil gleam in his eye. I read at a medium pace. Too fast and the voice in your head can’t keep up with the words. That’s what your thoughts are waiting for. They catch the voice and flood your head with news of the catastrophe unfolding in your body. But if you read too slow, then it’s not just the chapter breaks you have to watch out for. Now you’ve got holes and gaps between the words. Maybe in some situations that’s a good thing. You can savor the words. The words come swaddled with silence, like expensive truffles come swaddled, each one separate, while cheap chocolates are packed next to each other with their sides touching. In a reading situation like mine you want the words packed next to each other with their sides touching. Because silence isn’t delicate truffle-swaddling in that situation. It’s heart attack holes. It’s not even silence. Every second the book isn’t talking, your thoughts are talking, urgently, telling you about this heart attack you’re either having or about to have. So I read at a medium pace. A constant, medium pace. I developed a technique where I’d read over the chapter breaks, and run the paragraphs together. I didn’t pause. Sometimes I’d feel myself speeding up—the voice in my head began slipping on words. But I didn’t lose it. I slowed down. Not too much. I kept the pace medium.

— Michael Clune, Pan (Penguin Press, July 22, 2025)

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