The Philosophy of Reading

“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.” - Angela Carter

I had the unique experience of being brought up by a librarian who was married to a teacher, both of whom were raised in families of ministers, teachers, artists and writers. Lest I forget, there were nurses, machinists and master carpenters in that mix, too – all very practical people who believed strongly in the power of education, thinking, and creativity. As my very blue collar husband would likely say, you need to think well to do construction work, too! His low tolerance for stupidity in any form aside, I think it’s safe to say I was brought up in a family culture that valued reading, learning and thinking.

I am a bibliophile of extreme proportions, though I am not as extreme as some people I have known. I know people who will snap up any book around if it’s available. I would have to say I have some more discriminating tastes than that, but I still LOVE to read. Give me a good book and I am golden. Give me an interesting series and I’m in heaven. Give me a fascinating series with good writing, interesting characters, good plot lines and, well, is there such a thing as beyond heaven? Cuz that is where you will find me.

My education in Literary Criticism as well as the analytical way my mind works has set me up so that I look at fiction differently than many people. I analyze it. I can’t help it. I am totally aware of suspending disbelief, of scanning characters for behavior that doesn’t seem to match their motivations, of looking for foreshadowing, etcetera. That’s part of what makes it fun for me.

I want to welcome you into my bibliophilia for a while, if you want to come. This is where I might lose you, I know. My mind is cluttered and crowded, but I think it holds some treasures amongst the junk. My own obsessions with books and “modern mythologies” are pretty obvious once someone gets to know me. My husband has learned to just shake his head and “tsk tsk” at me when I’m thinking about these things. He’s also fond of using the phrase “the things you watch/listen to/read” while he’s shaking his head.

Something interesting has been occurring in recent years. I have noticed that the new myths of our generation seem to be coming, not just in epic novels, but in television shows and movies as well. The new ancestors of Greek myths are coming to us now as epic television serials and movie sagas. And, now, too, I see that we have some books that are doing the same thing as J.R.R. Tolkien, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens.

I am not exactly sure where this blog is going to lead. In the tradition of the writing craft, though, I’m going to follow where the characters (or muses) want to go. Right now that appears to be blogging about my literary obsessions. I don’t doubt I will also freely be giving my opinions about life. As a writer, what I have struggled with the most has been this feeling that I haven’t really had anything to say. So, maybe this blog is going to be about me finally feeling like I’ve got something worth saying.

Oh, and, by the way:
 "If you can read this, thank a teacher!"

"Begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end; then stop" Lewis Carroll

...and so I shall. 

I've been writing little tidbits for myself for as many years as I can remember knowing how to write. In my younger days, there was no such thing as the internet, and then there was, accessed by programs like "Gopher" (if anyone remembers THAT). Then came the advent of PCs and then laptops and fancy phones that made it easy for anyone with half a brain to post any thought that came into their half-brain.  I sat thinking one day that I have at least that much brain, so why am I not posting my own thoughts and hurling them out into the great unknown along with millions of other people?

Virginia Woolf wrote a lot things. Amongst them was a long essay written in 1929 called "A Room of One's Own." As an undergraduate English Major at Shippensburg University, I studied this story along with many others in literature classes. What I recall so poignantly about it was that the woman just wanted a space to be by herself, to think and just BE who she was, unrelated to and without consideration for anyone else - to not be defined by her position or role in society.  (And because her husband could not let well enough alone and just had to check on her, it didn't work. She felt smothered and ultimately smothered herself in the gas oven of the rented room...but that's not really the point, actually.)

The point is that we all need some space to be ourselves - to "find" ourselves, I suppose, although, as a piece of "flair" from Facebook once touted "We do not FIND ourselves, we CREATE ourselves".  Life is by degrees complicated, messy, infuriating, ingratiating, feral, boring, and generally incomprehensible.  I have lots of thoughts on this, as do others. I don't see why my ideas on the whole realm of existence should be any less valuable than others. I've spent 35 years living in it, thinking about it, trying to maintain it and wrestle it into the shape I want it to be.  And as an English Major, I spent many days and nights writing about it, discussing it ad nauseum, and searching out the meaning with the help of friends and a pitcher of Yuengling Lager.  That's at least as valid as most other "philosophers" out there. So, I figure I will post my ideas and cast them to the digital winds. Then "Good or bad. Come what may" (Shakespeare's MacBeth), I suppose.