Re: [PING! Mr. boots] Re: paranoid?

gekko <gekko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Nine out of ten dentists agree that boots <no@xxxxx> wrote in
news:8leu9359vidgrgdikhr52j9d3drfdg3mhs@xxxxxxxxxx


Probably obvious that I've been giving a bit of thought to what
reading means to me, what constitutes a "great" book, similar
topics. There are those who read to learn, or to enjoy the use of
language, but I'm not one of them... had too much learning jammed
into the skull already, and I find that many syntactically correct
sentences and reasonably organized books read like crap. For me
it's escapism, pure and simple, a transition to another less
mundane world. I expect that's why Vanity Fair left be cold, it
was a transition into an even more annoying world than the one in
which I live.

So, reading.

Yes, an apt topic and one I'm probably going to blog about because of
an article a friend sent 'round. Or I may not. Depends on my mood.

It's become apparent to me that the reason most people read changes
over time. Sometimes they crave learning and read in order to
increase their knowledge or erudition, but sometimes they just need
to escape. Then they go back to sucking up knowledge. Or they read
nothing but speculative fiction for a time, then need thrillers to
soothe them. Stuff like that.

You'll find people who sniff and say they *never* read, but they're
always buried in some newspaper, magazine, text, or document. They
meant, of course, that they eschew fiction, but they read all the
same, and their reason for reading is different than, say, the woman
down the road who reads nothing but Romance novels and thinks "that
literary crap" is "boring."

The article to which I referred was dissing the Potter series and
lamenting that so many adults found them fascinating. Sounding the
voice of doom for all of reading-kind, it was.

Bah. People have always gravitated toward a story-teller, someone
who could help them escape. They may get that story in the form of a
movie or a TV show these days, but what's wrong with getting it from
the keyboard of a now wealthy former housewife in Great Britain?

I say more power to her.

My parents married after WWII ended. Dad was a construction worker
with ideas of perfection and a short temper. Mom took a job as the
secretary of a corporate executive. When the old man came home and
reported that he'd told them to shove the job up their ass and found
another job in a different part of the country (his gypsy blood was
generations past but the wanderlust remained strong), she put it to
him: if you make me quit this job I'll never work another day as long
as we're married. Deal. They moved. Often. I was in high-school
before I ever spent an entire year in one school, in college before I
lived in anything without wheels under it. Dad was a banty rooster
with a mind like an ice-pick, he could make anything broken work
better than new, and constantly came up with new ideas (like a
transmission with infinitely-varying gear ratios) that he never did
anything about. Mom on the other hand was soft and cuddly, a master
of the Voice (Heinlein readers, yes that voice), and a loving
stay-at-home Mom who read to the baby raised in virtual isolation and
taught him to read long before he entered school.

I've always loved reading. I remember that my earliest ambition was
to become a writer, to create stories. Damn shame I have no talent
for storytelling. I hope someday to learn.

I respect those who can tell a story. If they employ language with
elegance in the process, all the better. I see no reason why "great
literature" has to be elegantly written pointless boring drivel;
perhaps it is a reflection of my own shallowness that I consider much
of it to be exactly that.

I've enjoyed the Harry Potter books. The wife calls them "children's
books". I read them for enjoyment, and in hopes of picking up some
hints of how storytelling is done. I hope that "former housewife"
makes zillions so she never has to stop telling stories.

--
The sane answer to insanity is madness.
.

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