The Joy of Reading
There is this Gilmore Girls episode where one of the main characters, Rory, is showing a girl around the Yale Library. Rory walks up to the old books, takes one out of the shelf, opens it, and then extends it towards the girl, saying, “smell that! That is just the best smell in the world! I love it!! Don’t you love it?!!” Well, Rory, I happen to love it.
It's Sunday morning, and I get up out of bed. (I am a young elementary school child.) Go ask mom if I Can watch TV? No. It's Sunday. Just find something quiet to do. So I walk around our little apartment, bored, trying to figure out what to do. No TV. Brownies are off-limits. I see my mom's bookshelf, full of books from her college days and then just books that she likes and has collected over the years. I wander over to the bookshelf and take an old black book off the shelf. The corners of the cover are twisted in like they've just met up with a curling iron. The edge of the binding is slightly frayed. The blackness is undergoing a graying process; it is more black with gray spotches than it is just black- like my grandpa's hair. With the book closed, I can see the pages in between the front and back covers. They are uneven. I run my finger along the uneven, yellowed pages, feeling the texture of the book. I am in love with this book and I have not even opened it yet. It has texture and substance. It is interesting.
I open up the book. The words aren't typed in what we know as Times New Roman, but they are typed in what I know as Courier New. Intriguing. I continue to look at it. There are blue lines under the text and words written in the margins. I turn the page over and feel the back- I can feel the lines and words! The handwritting is nice, but the letters are slurred togethor. Sort of like a combination between print and cursive- the sort of combination that many people resort to when writing by hand in a hurry. There are many phrases here and there that are underlined. Many little phrases written off to the side. Circles around some words. Sometimes the lines turn from being straight to being squiggly. Sometimes the circles take on the shape of boxes. They all form a sort of jungle-gym, and I can feel them embossed on the other side of the page. I close my eyes and run my fingers across these embossed markings. I pretend that I am blind. However, I realize, If I were really blind, I would actually understand what I'm feeling. I then wonder, Why are these things underlined and drawn on? What makes that phrase so important, and that one ignored?
I lean closer to the book, I don't remember why, I just did. And then I discover the best part of old books. I lean in. Breath in. There it is. The loveliest smell in the whole world. It is a deep, warm smell. Strong like perfume. I think of the color brown. And of pot-pouri. It is a heavy smell. I smell the book, and then an army of molecules came surging towards me, ready to both please and overwhelm my olfactory senses. My eyes are closed. I take another breath- deep and slow, filling my diaphragm and then lungs with the savory scent. I want to read this book. I want to know what it has to say. And with that, I hopelessly dive into this world of books. I've fallen in love, and can't climb out of love. Nor do I want to.
That thought- I want to know what [this book] has to say- has influenced my reading. Various qualities of a book attract my initial attention. Those qualities can vary from the smell, the cover drawing, the title, the summary, the opinion of others... However, what secures my attention is when a deep curiosity is aroused. I want to know how Mr. Darcy and Lizzy fall in love. I go crazy trying to figure out what secret Mr. Rochester is hiding from Jane. Mr. DeWinter from Mrs. DeWinter. I pull my hair out wondering how it is that the little strings drawn on the cover are (theoretically) the basis of our universe. Once I have this yearning curiosity that makes my soul feel like it will be wrenched out if I don't satisfy it, well, that's when I pick up a book. And don't put it down. Until that curiosity is satisfied.
At the age of five (maybe four, maybe six), I had my baby blanket tied around my neck. It used to be pink, but is worn now, so much, to the point that it is white. I ran back and forth in the apartment with Baby Bear, my beloved panda bear who had gone everywhere with me since the age of six months (he would even be a princess with me a couple of halloweens later). I was a superhero. I was saving the world from... who knows what (I certainly don't remember)? And what did I have in my hand? The Random-House French Dictionary. Pocket sized.
"Mom, how do you say 'cat' in French?"
"Look it up."
Do you hear that sound? The fervent flipping of pages? It comes only when one seeks desperately for that one place where the answer to the world's biggest question lies (at the very least, the answer for this very moment). "'castor, casuel, catalogue, cataracte..." (I butcher those words) "Mom! There's no cat!" I'm complaining; whining.
Mom glances up from the kitchen counter, and looks at me. She takes into account where in the book I am looking, and the words that came out of my young mouth. "You're looking in the wrong section. You're in French to English, not English to French. You need to go to the back of the book."
So I faithfully travel to the farther back pages. Categorical- it must be on this page. "castaway- n. naufrage m., rjete m." Nope, not this one. "castigate- bv. chatier, punir." Still not the right one. Am I ever going to find it? "castle..castoff.. casua... casualties... cat! here it is!!"
" Okay, good job. What's the word?"
"... chat?..." I pronounce this like the english word 'chat' which means 'to talk informally'.
Mom chuckles a bit. "Not quite. Almost. In French it's pronounced 'shot'".
"oh... wait, so cats are shots? That doesn't make sense! Poor kitties!"
Despite the fact that cats and shots are synonymous in French (which is absolutely awful), I walked around with that book, learning the language, one word at time. (Until I stopped learnng and forgot it all.) Not that I ever learned very much, but the French dictionary captured my attention, and retained it, making me wonder, "how do I say such-and-such in French?" And with that, I continued to wonder what a book contained, Do I care about what's in that book? Is it interesting? If it is, I can probably learn from it! French began my introduction to non-fiction books.
Nowadays, when I read non-fiction, it ranges from american sign language to physics. I have a book by Stephen Hawking on my bookshelf. Another two by Brian Greene- these two are about string theory- the theory that may just unite general relativity and quantum mechanics. I have a book which discusses the nature/nurture debate. Another book in which a journalist chronicles a man's love for his brother, who has become sick, and whose life must be saved. Another book which is the story of an adult man who finally develops language. ASL dictionaries; Swahili phrasebook; Spanish books; The Book of Mormon in six different languages; German. I have a Keep It Simple Stupid guide to photography. I have the Student's Handbook, which technically belongs to my whole family, but is under the care of me. I have drawing books. Various novels... and so forth.
I peer tutor in the developmentally disabled (DD) department at Kentwood High School. I really enjoy this. The teenagers there are, overall, delightful, wonderful people who are happy with their lot in life. I hear the teachers talking about something having to do with Autism, or Down's Syndrome, or teaching methods, and I get curious. "What is ______?" They give me an answer, but I still have questions. I write down whatever it is I wonder about, and then by the time I am home, I log online and head to Google. From there I google the term, and learn about it. I have a new curiosity, and I will not stop reading till that hunger is satisfied! This process of looking up things which I don't know has stemmed from my initial curiosity and love for books. When "I don't know" is my answer (and I care to get the real one), I head to the written word of what it is my question is about. It's simple. I get the feedback.
Aside from constantly learning from the DD teenagers, I also am presented with a greater perspective. Reading has always come easily to me, and often I forget that for others it is much, much more difficult to read and get enjoyment out of it. I often wonder, if I couldn't read as well, would I enjoy it? Would it hold the same feeling of captivation for me as it does now? I think it might. I see these awesome teenagers struggle to read (some especially more than others), and I think to myself, that would suck. But then someone finally gets through whatever it is he or she is reading, and it is such a happy event. Finished! Triumphed! At those moments I realize that I have that exact same feeling with reading. My little sister just about has a party when she finishes a Winnie-the-Pooh book. I feel the exact same way when I finish a Jane Austen book. Finding out what a book has to say can result in happiness and self-satisfaction- no matter what book it is or what reading level it is geared towards. Whether it has that new book smell with glossy pages, or if it is yellow and smells of pot-pouri. It matters not. I am determined to be happy- because I can read, and in turn, can continue to learn.
