Tuesday, January 31, 2006

We planned on discussing books tonight, dear reader, and for remembering this I deserve a dollop of Nutella and a nutritious treat. Reading is important. This claim, it’s safe to say, has been hammered into us since kindergarten, the handiwork of teachers, librarians, and dozens of tacky posters with Whoopi Goldberg exhorting the merits of literacy.

But the whole campaign always felt a little disingenuous, don’t you think? I mean, sure, books may indeed be tickets to fantastic worlds, invitations to broaden your imagination with lush verbal portraits, except tickets and invitations seldom exceed a sheet of paper. When that pass to Hogwarts balloons to the tune of 700 pages, it makes you wonder whether reading is as effortless as your library would have you believe. There’s investment involved. Let’s say you stumble into a clearing and find The Two Towers, resplendent in its 400-odd pages, along with its DVD counterpart. Which one would you choose?

Another reason for reading is arguably more selfish than a desire to picture orcs on a battlefield. Books fuel your communicative confidence like you wouldn’t believe. Your self-expression plateaus after a certain point because the context that informs you–your classes, workplace, prison cell–settles into its own predictable rhythm with its own predictable vocabulary. A good book is an out. What I need to do now is decide whether I want to walk to the bookstore. You know, the hermeneutics of laziness and all that.