by Rick Blechta
I have two sons. One is an avid reader. One is not.Recently I got into a discussion about reading with my non-reading son. His first comment was, “I don’t know when I last read a book.” I have a good idea that it was way back in 2006 and he read my novel When Hell Freezes Over which I had dedicated to him. His assessment, by the way — if I’m remembering correctly — “It was pretty good.”
To me, 14 years (and counting) with not one book read is appalling to contemplate. I love him just as much, but I don’t understand how he does not enjoy reading. If you’re visiting Type M, I naturally assume you are an avid reader. Am I right in feeling this way towards someone?
I decided to engage him on this subject. “Why don’t you enjoy reading?”
“It takes too long. I enjoy movie and TV shows much better and I don’t have to commit so much time to it. Reading is boring.”
While I picked my jaw off the floor, he went on to say that watching movies accomplishes the same thing anyway. “You’re still watching a story, and movies can do it so much better — and quicker — than books.
I couldn’t disagree very much with that, except I don’t think watching something unfold in front of your eyes is necessarily better than reading a description of the same thing and then having to imagine it. First off, you’re involved; you’re supplying something that’s needed. Watching a movie, you’re completely passive in that regard.
And that’s the crux of the matter: use of imagination. With a movie, you’re watching a director’s imagining of the story being presented.
Extending this idea further, it’s this way with an performing art. You’re a non-involved viewer of someone else’s imagination.
I’ll put on my musician’s hat on here, if I may. Watching a performance of a symphony orchestra, as an example, is to experience a conductor’s interpretation of the musical works being presented. In effect, the conductor is “playing” the musicians. But there’s also something hidden, something magical at work here. Each musician in the orchestra is also adding their little bit of imagination to what they’re playing — within parameters, of course. It is a wonderful thing to sit inside this mass of artistic humanity and experience the energy that is produced when humans work together to make music happen. In the best of circumstances, it is breath-taking.
The same sort of thing goes on when a movie is filmed, or a play is staged, whatever. Actors often talk about the experience of bouncing off their fellow actors’ performances.
However, for the audience, it doesn’t change. One remains on the outside looking in. The energy can be felt sometimes, but really can’t be participated in.
With books, though, the reader must participate. Imagination is required to interpret what the writer has first imagined — and that is a very wonderful thing, isn’t it?
Now, to figure out some way to get my son to enjoy reading as much as I (and his older brother and my wife) do.
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By the way, the typeface used to set When Hell Freezes Over’ in the cover above, is my non-reading son’s hand. I turned it into a font. I call it Jan Casual.
