Why I've Stopped Reading
Well, of course I don't mean altogether. I still read the news (even on paper sometimes). And I'm currently brushing up on Java Script and CSS...gotta maintain the Web presence, ya know? No, I mean I've stopped reading Books. And I don't mean How to be a Zillionaire and get Flat Abs while Hawking Vapor Ware in eBay. I mean Great Books, the ones I was told I Should read...you know, Cannonical books, the ones that will turn me into a Fine Human Being.
Years ago I tried to read some of Ezra Pound's poetry. Ezra was touted, by some in "literary" circles, as the ultimate poet...most particularly by Ezra himself. Being totally frustrated by Ezzie's density, I sought some advice on how to read him. Turns out Ezra himself had forseen my difficulty, which he proposed to remedy in his neat little essay The ABC of Reading. I don't, now, remember any of the details from Ezra's little self-help classic, but I do remember the summation I came up with for his rather prissy prescription:
How to become a Reader:
1. Learn Greek and read all the important Greek authors in the original language.
2. Learn Latin and read all the important Latin authors in the original language.
3. Learn English (well, I've really got a leg up here, haven't I?) and read all the important English authors in the original language.
Having accomplished all this, and assuming you've been able to retain it all at least half as well as Ezra did, you will achieve the enviable position of being able to read...Ezra Pound!
Given all the other things you have to do to live from one day to the next, you will also, probably, be nearly dead of old age. It's a helluva project, never mind bringing yourself up to date on whatever Important stuff has been written since old EP bit the literary dust.
I came across a statistic somewhere, years ago, to the effect that 90% of books are read by only 10% of the population. That includes, presumably, all of Barbara Cartland, production Westerns, diet, health, self-help, sports bios, and all the other books-by-the-bale type publications. The 1% of the collected output of today's publishers that might be categorized as Great books? Read by 1% of that 10%? It is still a big industry, I'm sure, otherwise even those few Great authors around these days would be publishing...where? Well, on the Internet, of course.
I was chatting with an acquaintance recently who said she just likes the feeling of having a book in her hands. I do too. It is part of my cultural upbringing. It provides a very particular frame of reference, a structure I've been trained to handle well. I can usually find some quote I'm interested in just by a sense of its whereabouts...I can usually just flip back and land within a few pages. Can't do that with a computer. Sure, you could bookmark a passage, if you knew ahead of time you'd want to get back to it. Or you could search for the relevant words, if you could remember them rather than simply having a vague sense that the author had said something, back then, that relates to what you're reading now.
But it takes practice, the endless repetition of an act that turns it into an intuition or an instinct. Today's youth aren't getting that so much anymore, and tomorrow's likely won't get it at all, given the rate at which computers are being donated to schools these days. No, I'm afraid the Days of the Book are numbered. Maybe Gutenberg is turning over in his grave?
Books have had a long and notorious history. The first books, the ancient scrolls of papyrus and sheepskin, spawned a whole new age of religion. You couldn't have "The word was God and the word was with God" until you could write down all those words and carry them from one place to the next. Old Gutenberg broke the priestly monopoly on words when he invented the printing press, and every Tom, Dick and Mary could get her or his hands on a copy and interpret the words for themselves! God forbid. Like everything else, the tools of power slowly but surely find their way into the hands of the powerless (of course, new tools are being invented all the time...Globalization, for instance), and now only the poorest of the poor are unable to read.
And write! These days everyone is (or could be) an author (yours truly, for example). Of course most people haven't got anything to say (just eaves drop on a cell-phone conversation some time...like at the airport..."I'm at baggage claim now...can't see my bag yet...wait...no...there it is...hold on a sec...umph...hey...uhh...jerk!...got it...see you at the curb in a minute."). But everyone is saying it at an exponentially increasing rate. How you gonna find the Great writers in all that cacaphony.
Well, you aren't. And besides, Greatness in authorship has been just as much an elitist move as the priestly monopoly on scriptural interpretation.
Yes, the days of the Book are numbered. Sure there will be hangers-on, just as there are folks hanging on to the declining Catholic Church. Just as there are hangers-on to every Great movement in history. Even moments of "revitalization" (know any neo-Pagans?).
Print media of all sorts is a fading fad. Are the great forests of the world glad? The reading of fiction is, for the most part, just another pointless escape, not really much better than "daytime drama" or on-line virtual worlds. Most people don't want to be "improved"...the only improvement they're looking for is in their bottom line.
As for me, I think I'm improved enough. And for escape I think I'll go and pull some weeds...they can go on the compost heap and, eventually, improve the soil a bit. Books? Well, all that aging cellulose would probably be a great mulch...if you could get somebody to shred it all!