The following quote is from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’:“To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.”
To what extent does this describe you?
This quote doesn't reflect my views on reading. I talk about why I read in the "About Me" section of my blog. This is what I said:
What I love about reading is that it can transport you into your own world that seems so real. Reading for me is also a way of prioritising myself - you can shut off the 'real world' and live in your own alternate universe for a period of time. I love the power of language and what authors can do with it - I am constantly surprised at just how talented people are that can write novels and sometimes I wish that I was in their ranks.
I agree that reading is a movement from one world to another, but it isn't necessarily a comment about the place one has left. I don't think that to want to move to another world and have some escape means that your life is insufficient in some way. It might mean that you are stressed, it might mean you have an imagination you want to exercise, it might mean a lot of different things.
If you have time to sit and spend time reading, I suggest that you have a pretty sufficient life. Think of all the people out there that are not educated enough to know how to read. Or all those people out there living in poverty that could never afford a book.
Reading is special, and there are many reasons why I love it, but I respectfully disagree with Birkert.
Originally posted 25 February 2010 Page Turners
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