I haven't read a book for pleasure in a long time. A very long time. I had deemed it too much time to take away from my busy schedule when time was precious and working hard so important. I don't know why today, I decided to re-introduce myself to the wonder of literature. Perhaps I was feeling romantic. Maybe it was because I actually curled my hair today and put on real clothes (not the fake clothes I had grown to be so comfortable in before....ya know....the sweats and the over-sized t-shirt look. Or my personal favorite: just hanging out in my sports bra and underwear all day in my room. Whatever, don't judge.)
And oh the books I read. I lost myself in the flow of thoughts and stories, of other people. I picked up books at random, read short stories and philosophical essays. I flipped through a few pages of a book about assholes (Titled: Assholes: a theory), an entire novel dedicated to defining who an asshole is, why they are the way that they are and how best to deal with such a person. I read poetry of authors I'll never remember (I think James something-or-other was one of the authors) and immersed myself in the middle of adventures.
One book, grasped my attention as I, amused, set down the "faker's guide to analyzing literature".
The Lost Art of Reading: why books matter in a distracted time by David L Ulin.
I was hooked.
I pictured myself sitting there, cross legged on the floor, David L. Ulin preaching the words I read, myself nodding, doe-eyed hanging onto every word he said. He spoke of his love of books and of reading. Of how his son said that reading is dead. Nobody reads anymore. And as if to validate such a statement, a young girl of 14 walked by me with all her little friends saying, "As if I read, guys. Come on. You know I don't. Why are we in a crummy bookstore anyway?"
Here it was. This man understanding, echoing my own thoughts and frustrations about the human race. I wanted to clap and cheer as he discussed how society is so enraptured with technology and how we, like drug-addicts of a new kind of drug--crave the constant feed. The quick news. The gallant of information at our fingertips. We want our technology and gadgets to know us and to know us intimately. We've become restless and distracted, no longer able to sit down and read--to go through the process of an unfolding story, the development of characters--to learn something about ourselves as we watch the struggle of the author also trying to find his own self-discovery upon the pages he writes. He spoke to me about the beauty of literature, of how he found solace in books and came to understand what it meant to be a writer as well as to read. I found myself sending text messages to my own inbox of some of my favorite passages in which I fully agree and so admire how beautifully Ulin puts into words what a book means and does.
Such as:
"...I'm not talking here about posterity, which is its own kind of fantasy, in which we regard books as tombstones instead of souls. No, I'm thinking more of literature as a voice of pure expression, a cry in the dark. Its futility is what makes it noble: nothing will come of this, no one will be saved, but it is worth your attention anyway."
And isn't it? He goes on to speak of a book he read, an author whom I'm kicking myself now in regret as to not recording or remembering. This author spoke of a place in a book. Never before, said Ulin, had a place described so beautiful and fully on a page actually resemble so closely the place in real life. In other words, he stood upon the ground in which this author had stood once before and captured in a story, and knew the place well from what he had read.
"This is what language, at its most acute, can do. It can collapse the distances, brings us into not just the thought but also the perceptions of a writer, allow us, however fleetingly, to inhabit, literally his or her eyes. Sure, its an illusion, a trick of ink and paper; sure all literature, all art is construction, a creation, flawed and flimsy, an attempt to rerender, in symbols, the substance of who we are. Still there is a nobility to the gesture, not at least because it is preordained to fail. This is what the postmodernists don't get, that if literature is a game, it is a game of serious consequence in which we communicate across an irreconcilable divide."
The book continues, discussing the tendencies of men who have tried to reduce poetry and literature--analyzing it to bits, digging out deeper meanings that perhaps the author never even intended in the first place. He muses over this idea of a process, of the writing process and how authors are always asked what kind of step-by-step process did they go through to create such an inspiring, insightful tale. But alas, there is no step-by-step formula. No intrinsic path to follow in order to become a great writer. When a writer creates, he struggles, he wrestles with himself, he seeks to discover something about himself about his own views and perceptions. He writes because he wants to know. He wants to know himself.
I have written plenty of short stories in my time and have started a few books I thought for sure I would finish easily. Once I presented some of my writings to a creative writing class. I found myself extremely amused as they picked out what I had written, declaring either ingenious parallels and hidden symbolism or stating that I had taken some philosophical view and was trying to make a point or teach a lesson. What I did, however, was simply capture pieces of myself and my character, perhaps even my beliefs and trials at the time on a page. I was letting them know me.
Ulin had already won me over. He was beginning to take examples from politics and propaganda, reading material that can easily fool the mind if one does not question what he is being told. I was half way through the book. Anxious to hear the crux of his argument, why reading was so important in such a distracted era, all romantic notions and fancy play on words aside. A ring. A tone. An interruption. A voice echoing throughout the store. The Bookstore was closing. I had no money to buy the book and no longer had time to finish it. I know you are probably as dissatisfied to hear so as I am. I can give you no fulfilling conclusion as to why it is important to read and to read many things. No satisfying sentence to the build up I've now rehearsed to you as it had been rehearsed to me by Ulin. At least...not yet....
I had been in that bookstore for 4 hours or so, sometimes standing, most times leaning against the shelves, often sitting on the floor. All those books. All those people with something to say. Some story to tell, an idea to get across, a piece of themselves to show to the world. It boggled my mind. It made me thirst for more. I feel so silly to not have divulged in this craving before. So much knowledge and experience in the world....all in one bookstore, even. In one library. And I hadn't the time before to fully immerse myself. To be within and without. To be a part of and apart.
That is the beauty of books. Of reading. Surely, there is time to spare to read.
*grateful for a day well spent and for the insightful books, philosophers, poets, essayists, and authors that have graced this world*
The Lost Art of Reading: why books matter in a distracted time by David L Ulin.
I was hooked.
I pictured myself sitting there, cross legged on the floor, David L. Ulin preaching the words I read, myself nodding, doe-eyed hanging onto every word he said. He spoke of his love of books and of reading. Of how his son said that reading is dead. Nobody reads anymore. And as if to validate such a statement, a young girl of 14 walked by me with all her little friends saying, "As if I read, guys. Come on. You know I don't. Why are we in a crummy bookstore anyway?"
Here it was. This man understanding, echoing my own thoughts and frustrations about the human race. I wanted to clap and cheer as he discussed how society is so enraptured with technology and how we, like drug-addicts of a new kind of drug--crave the constant feed. The quick news. The gallant of information at our fingertips. We want our technology and gadgets to know us and to know us intimately. We've become restless and distracted, no longer able to sit down and read--to go through the process of an unfolding story, the development of characters--to learn something about ourselves as we watch the struggle of the author also trying to find his own self-discovery upon the pages he writes. He spoke to me about the beauty of literature, of how he found solace in books and came to understand what it meant to be a writer as well as to read. I found myself sending text messages to my own inbox of some of my favorite passages in which I fully agree and so admire how beautifully Ulin puts into words what a book means and does.
Such as:
"...I'm not talking here about posterity, which is its own kind of fantasy, in which we regard books as tombstones instead of souls. No, I'm thinking more of literature as a voice of pure expression, a cry in the dark. Its futility is what makes it noble: nothing will come of this, no one will be saved, but it is worth your attention anyway."
And isn't it? He goes on to speak of a book he read, an author whom I'm kicking myself now in regret as to not recording or remembering. This author spoke of a place in a book. Never before, said Ulin, had a place described so beautiful and fully on a page actually resemble so closely the place in real life. In other words, he stood upon the ground in which this author had stood once before and captured in a story, and knew the place well from what he had read.
"This is what language, at its most acute, can do. It can collapse the distances, brings us into not just the thought but also the perceptions of a writer, allow us, however fleetingly, to inhabit, literally his or her eyes. Sure, its an illusion, a trick of ink and paper; sure all literature, all art is construction, a creation, flawed and flimsy, an attempt to rerender, in symbols, the substance of who we are. Still there is a nobility to the gesture, not at least because it is preordained to fail. This is what the postmodernists don't get, that if literature is a game, it is a game of serious consequence in which we communicate across an irreconcilable divide."
The book continues, discussing the tendencies of men who have tried to reduce poetry and literature--analyzing it to bits, digging out deeper meanings that perhaps the author never even intended in the first place. He muses over this idea of a process, of the writing process and how authors are always asked what kind of step-by-step process did they go through to create such an inspiring, insightful tale. But alas, there is no step-by-step formula. No intrinsic path to follow in order to become a great writer. When a writer creates, he struggles, he wrestles with himself, he seeks to discover something about himself about his own views and perceptions. He writes because he wants to know. He wants to know himself.
I have written plenty of short stories in my time and have started a few books I thought for sure I would finish easily. Once I presented some of my writings to a creative writing class. I found myself extremely amused as they picked out what I had written, declaring either ingenious parallels and hidden symbolism or stating that I had taken some philosophical view and was trying to make a point or teach a lesson. What I did, however, was simply capture pieces of myself and my character, perhaps even my beliefs and trials at the time on a page. I was letting them know me.
Ulin had already won me over. He was beginning to take examples from politics and propaganda, reading material that can easily fool the mind if one does not question what he is being told. I was half way through the book. Anxious to hear the crux of his argument, why reading was so important in such a distracted era, all romantic notions and fancy play on words aside. A ring. A tone. An interruption. A voice echoing throughout the store. The Bookstore was closing. I had no money to buy the book and no longer had time to finish it. I know you are probably as dissatisfied to hear so as I am. I can give you no fulfilling conclusion as to why it is important to read and to read many things. No satisfying sentence to the build up I've now rehearsed to you as it had been rehearsed to me by Ulin. At least...not yet....
I had been in that bookstore for 4 hours or so, sometimes standing, most times leaning against the shelves, often sitting on the floor. All those books. All those people with something to say. Some story to tell, an idea to get across, a piece of themselves to show to the world. It boggled my mind. It made me thirst for more. I feel so silly to not have divulged in this craving before. So much knowledge and experience in the world....all in one bookstore, even. In one library. And I hadn't the time before to fully immerse myself. To be within and without. To be a part of and apart.
That is the beauty of books. Of reading. Surely, there is time to spare to read.
*grateful for a day well spent and for the insightful books, philosophers, poets, essayists, and authors that have graced this world*
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