The last few posts I was amazed and grateful for how many people read them. They were so serious, but they were about things that really do make me feel peace, contentment, and happiness. So this week it is time to lighten the mood, and write about something I am very passionate about and take seriously (mostly). Reading.
I love to read. When I was young, you would always find me reading something. Late at night I would stuff towels under my bedroom door, so anyone looking wouldn't see the light. I am not really sure that that worked. I may have been caught a few times. Anyway, I love the feel of books in my hands, and I am very proud of my "library." Hubs tried to make me get rid of some books when we moved. I don't believe he was expecting the fight and tears that ensued. However, I did cave on a few and gave them to a second hand place. I cried. Don't get me wrong. I love people, but I have only a few true and loyal friends. Books are where I find my constant and unchanging friends. I have a personal connection and memory with each book I own, even the ones I haven't read yet. I can laugh and cry with Anne Shirley of the drama of childhood. I can ride on a broomstick with Harry Potter. I can gain wisdom from Jane Eyre. I can fall in love and marry Mr. Darcy as Elizabeth Bennett *sigh*. I can ask questions about society with Jem and Scout Finch. I can solve a murder with Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. I can learn how eat right, exercise right, sleep right, I can learn about religions. How much we have to learn from a book? I can escape my reality by reading a book. I can find friends who would understand me in a book. Mario Vargas Llosa said, "It is the food of the rebellious spirit, the promulgator of nonconformities, the refuge for those who have too much or too little in life." I have many times gone to books for comfort, release of stress and pent-up emotions, but also to share in my joy when I did not have a human friend nearby. I have gone to books for confirmation and justification of beliefs and have feelings reciprocated. In my loneliest times of life I was caught with a book in my hand.
"The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul--books." Emily Dickinson.
The excellent, excellent essay I am quoting by Mario Vargas Llosa entitled "Why Literature?" it was written in 2001. I highly recommend reading it. It will convert you to the world of words. It talks about technology, and the downfall of society without literature. I wish I could quote the whole thing, because he explains so well why we need literature in our lives. You can feel his passion for it. I wrote an essay on Llosa's essay once back in 2003, and although I received an A, it fell short of really convincing people to read more. Still there are a few points I would like to make taking a bit from this essay and my own essay.
1. Reading helps bridge the gap between societies, people, cultures, histories etc.
"Literature has been, and will continue to be, as long as it exists, one of the common denominators of human experience through which human beings may recognize themselves and converse with each other, no matter how different their professions, their life plans, their geographical and cultural locations, particularities of their lives, to transcend history: as readers of Cervantes, Shakespeare, Dante, and Tolstoy, we understand each other across space and time[...] We learn what we share as human beings, what remains common in all of us under the broad range of differences that separate us. Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusive nationalism that this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal[...] Nothing teaches us better than literature to see, in ethnic and cultural differences, the richness of the human patrimony, and to prize those differences as a manifestation of humanity's multifaceted creativity." (Llosa)
Okay in a nutshell, literature is a common ground for many people and cultures because not only can you learn about all of our differences but you can embrace them. Because of this knowledge you can avoid fear and hatred of those differences and escape the prison of racism and prejudices. A society without literature is a society that "jeopardizes its freedom."
2. Reading helps shape nations
I seem to remember, and I am not going to look it up, but the best way to dominate a country and take over is to take away the people's freedom to read and to educate themselves. An uneducated person is not going to have the know how to overthrow a throne. Hitler destroyed thousands upon thousands of books that challenged his political views and agendas, or anything that was Jewish. Also because Hitler himself was not an intellectual it would be "smart" to educate the youth in his beliefs and ways and in all things German. The youth were taught Nazi propaganda and were in great physical condition, but they did not know basic math, science, or basic reading and writing, some not even knowing how to capitalize their names. But these kids knew how to follow orders and fight for the fatherland (taken from this site here). Scary to think of it. But it is how he planned to create a new Germany. This sounds a lot like the book "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. Hmmm... the book was written after WWII. Also, think of how the world changed when women started to become more educated and were allowed to read. Perfect illustration, in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Belle is a reader. She is intelligent, and the townsfolk even sing about how she always has her nose stuck in a book. She doesn't fit in with the simple, uneducated folk in the town. They wouldn't be able to hold a conversation with her. Then you have Gaston who says it all with this short video clip. He does have a simple and unenlightened view about women and their place.
And today in our educated and literate world, we now have women who are vying for the office of US President. For US history the last few years have been unprecedented.
3. Reading is fun and will give you the riches of knowledge.
Reading opens your minds and allows freedom of imagination. As mentioned before you can choose between the werewolf or the vampire, ride the back of a dragon, or whatever it is you want to do, but reading is for knowledge as well as pleasure. You can learn so much about a person by reading a biography. You can learn about politics, religion, cultures, history, so many more things. It also teaches you how to think and how to communicate your thoughts. Words are so very important for society and a person. I cannot imagine trying to communicate through a series of grunts. I need my words. I need my written words. Llosa says, "A person who does not read, or reads too little, or reads only trash, is a person with an impediment: he can speak much but he will say little, because his vocabulary is deficient in the means for self-expression." This is one of the reasons why I started writing this blog, was to learn better how to express myself in a educated and precise way, and to increase my vocabulary. I have learned a lot writing this blog, because I have had to extra reading and research, and I come across so much more than I share. It is beautiful.
4. A computer will never replace a book.
I cannot stand reading a screen. It gives me a headache. Of course dropping the book on your head (which I have done) can do that too, but it is so much more fulfilling than to have your eyes hurt from a screen. Besides what are blind people supposed to do. Sheesh. I love the smell of books, that a tablet just cannot give you. Plus I like to write notes in the margins and underline phrases and words that I like. I enjoy flipping through a book, an experience again that a tablet cannot give you. One of my most beloved books has all the pages taped together. It is falling apart. I've read it so many times. Llosa says (and I agree), "I cannot accept the idea that a nonfunctional or nonpragmatic act of reading, one that seeks neither information nor a useful and immediate communication, can integrate on a computer screen the dreams and the pleasures of words with the same sensation of intimacy, the same mental concentration and spiritual isolation, that may be achieved by the act of reading a book."Of course, if you are like Hubs, who does not like the feel of the books in his hands, then by all means please purchase a tablet, or the kindle app, or iPad, or whatever device it is that you use to read. Please please read. I would rather you read by those means than not at all. Or if you enjoy, like I do on occasion, to listen to audio book. They are great for long car drives or trips. Still there is something to be said about owning and having a book. It is an intimate and personal experience.
There is so much to this essay of Mario Vargas Llosa that I cannot comment on it all, though I wish I could. Mostly I just wanted to express how important the written word is. Even in math and science you need to be able to read and comprehend. The more you do it, the better you will become. Reading is something we should all make a priority at some point in our day. Maybe if it is just for 15 minutes before we fall asleep. If I do that, I tend to be the "just one more chapter." type, and then poof it is three hours later.
Life without literature is what I imagine hell to be like. Or the setting in the book, Fahrenheit 451 (remind you of Nazi Germany at all?) which maybe I should read again because I hated it when I first read it in fourth or fifth grade. Society would be dead, and we would become obsolete without literature and words. Shakespeare would have been just another dude if it weren't for words. Movies would be nothing without words. Treasure the words, the books, the literature. Set yourself free.
"If we wish to avoid the impoverishment of our imagination, and the disappearance of the precious dissatisfaction that refines our sensibility and teaches us to speak with eloquence and rigor, and the weakening of our freedom, then we must act. More precisely, we must read." Mario Vargas Llosa.
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