I consider reading itself - a state of art. It not only takes a skillful author to produce a great book, but also a skillful reader to comprehend it. “The dear good people don’t know how long it takes to learn to read. I’ve been at it eighty years, and can’t say yet that I’ve reached the goal” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Here is some traits, a good reader, in my opinion, should have:
A masterful reader must know how to extract from a book everything valuable it can offer. From different kind of innovative thoughts to simply learning new words.
Reader should adapt his reading method to each book. Someone who doesn’t know how to do that, will quickly run through “Einsteins’ theory” with the same pace he is used to run through his morning news paper.
What do you think? Do you agree? If so, what else would you suggest to someone who wants to improve his reading skills?
I made a longer post arguing a bit with the OP, but if you don’t mind I’ll say here— you’re joining OP in assuming that authors have a single clear intent in writing the text, and your job is to uncover that and then read obediently along. But a good university literature class, especially in poetry, will hopefully be emphasizing things like the legitimacy of reader reaction, the importance of ambiguity, the impossibility of divining authorial intent etc. The text has no life apart from the intent of the author? Derrida and Bakhtin want a word!
It’s a bit reductive…