Blatant Berry: Escape from Reading

As I age, my eyes founder, like the rest of my body. New limitations set in until I can no longer deny them. The act of reading was always hard work for me, but now that it is more difficult, I look at it with a different attitude. Much like the patrons described in the opening lines of “Tapping into Media” (p. 22), I never “loved” reading, the way so many people declare they do. It is especially true among those you encounter if you spend your life around libraries, books, and librarians.

I was intellectually motivated, so the ability to read fast and still comprehend the content was important to me, but I always tried to avoid or minimize the need to read.

In this new phase of my life, I have begun to view the progress of media and information technology as advancing my liberation from reading, or at least from much of the guilt and drudgery I associate with it.

As a young man, I was often ashamed to admit my dislike of the act of reading. I was frequently embarrassed to answer questions from pedantic colleagues with, “No, but I saw the movie.” Now I have neither embarrassment nor guilt about turning to other formats for the story or the information.

Modern media, made exponentially more reachable these days via the Internet, have brought ease and efficiency to my “reading.” They have made receiving facts, wisdom, and even fiction and poetry not only easier and more efficient but much more entertaining and delightful. I enjoy the stories and poems now more than ever, especially when they are set to music and/or acted out in color. I don't miss the books, the heavy printed tomes. I was never one to claim to love the heft, the feel and touch, or even the aroma of the printed work and readily embrace the convenience and accessibility offered by ebooks, with their increasable font size.

Of course, I still read and enjoy books, newspapers, and magazines. But now I see the act of reading as a kind of last resort, something I turn to when no other means or format is available. I see reading as a time-consuming, inefficient, and increasingly problematic way to get ideas from another human into my consciousness.

I am sure some folks will see this as a confession. After all, in our culture and our educational system, reading, especially of books, is on a pedestal all its own. Those who don't partake of its pleasures, and who don't express their joy in the act, are somehow seen as intellectually inferior. Indeed, as I grew up, all the approved book lists, all the forced, assigned reading, only heightened my dread of reading, especially of books.

I'm not sure I ever finished James Joyce's Ulysses or Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, even though I often said I had to those who told me they had. After all, to have read the “classics” was a badge of learning. Forced to read Tom Jones as an undergraduate, I struggled. I felt compelled to suffer Henry Fielding's every aside, every word. I didn't love or enjoy Tom until Albert Finney brought him to life on the screen. At college, I pushed myself to finish that book and hundreds of others, certain it was somehow “wrong” to quit a book before the end.

The many formats that translate the lifeless typography into colorful moving pictures or lively sounds with feeling, tone, and attitude have made reading much less work for me now and nearly always much more pleasing. Both sound and image give the words more color, more life, and, yes, deeper meaning. It is obvious to me why Shakespeare performed is preferable to Shakespeare read alone. The same is true of nearly all poetry. And now, with the licenses and freedoms that accrue to senior citizens like me, I don't have to apologize for my preference for newer, easier formats, or feel guilty because I've put down the book to watch the movie.

We librarians would be fools if we didn't take advantage of the liberation the new media have given us from our ancient role, chained to the codex book and the hard labor of reading it and toting it around. Though books will always have an exalted place on our shelves, there's a great deal more we can offer, both in our stacks and on our library web sites. It is clear to me that among our most exalted professional missions is to make sure these new ways to receive entertainment and information are accessible and available to everyone. That can only lead to more widespread enlightenment, even for those who, like me, need sometimes to escape the printed page.