I enjoy reading and it’s only when I’m not reading that I realize how much reading is an integral part of my life. I think that reading allow us to access perhaps, the most intricate, intimate part of the human heart and mind and bring us through journeys that are essentially about trying to reach an understanding about ourselves, about the people around us, about this immense world. Reading has certainly influenced and shaped my perspective and the manner I choose to meander my way through this world.
I first started reading when my mom would drag my sister and I to the public library so she could read her books. She technically left us with no choice but to read when she made us sit in the painfully quiet library for hours. I gradually began to enjoy the quietness of it when I started delving into the books she chose for me, largely fairy tales and fables. I especially liked the morals that came with the stories and I naively thought that everybody lived by those morals. Apparently, not. Those moments in the library were perhaps the beginning of my reading adventure.
During my primary school days, I would read what my friends were reading so we could talk about it in school. Some of the books included Enid Blyton (I vividly remember Pretty Star the Pony and The Wishing Jug), Sweet Valley High, The Babysitter club, True Singapore Ghost stories (at some point, I actually thought they were all true and lived in constant fear) and Archie comics. They were all very interesting stories for a primary school kid and I enjoyed them. Those books were certainly entertaining but I absolutely did not see its relation to the world that I was in. I read to escape, to not listen to my maths teacher drone on about multiplication.
Secondary school was when I started choosing the books I wanted to read because I wanted to and not because of a reading trend or so I could have a topic of conversation with my friends as I did in primary school. There was an exception though, I was forced to read Malay novels at some point because everybody (specifically my Malay teacher and my mother) kept harping about the importance of the Mother Tongue. That aside, I started venturing into romance novels (skipping all the sex excerpts because they were so lengthy!) and books by John Grisham and Anne Rice. I especially enjoyed the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice and clearly remember my friends dissing the fantasy of it all. And guess who’s reading Twilight now? Betrayers. My upper secondary Lit texts included An enemy of the people by Arthur Miller and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. At first, I didn’t see the relevance of those texts but as we progressed through the texts, I was introduced to the idea of universal themes and realized that a text could be located at the other end of the world but it can still resonate with me. I was especially captivated by An enemy of the people that challenged the notion of a society being right all the time and it was perhaps the first time that I realized the impact books can have on people. It was also my secondary school Lit teacher that introduced us to The Little Prince and it’s been a book I turn to every time I feel like I need to just remind myself of what’s important, real and true.
I didn’t read as much as I wanted to during my JC days because I was struggling to keep up with school work. One of the more prominent lit text we did in JC was the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe. I loved the way he manifests darkness (both literal and metaphorical) in his stories as well as his representations of the human pysche. Apart from the compulsory Lit texts, the only other book that I remember reading was Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and I promised myself never to read books that has the power to make one bawl their eyes out . Of course I broke that promise. I started to read books that dealt with loss, death, the holocaust and abuse. It was something about the raw portrayal of pain especially the kind of enduring pain and suffering and the individual’s ability to triumph it that really intrigued and sometimes inspired me. Eat Pray Love IS NOT one of them.
My reading list in Uni included books that tended to challenge and question the status quo. I really liked Dr. Poon’s Postcolonial Lit module reading list, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Freire that was recommended by Dr. Warren and also the Southeast Asian and local texts we did. I’m made more aware of the (sometimes insidious) mechanisms that drive our world and the potential and power of social action.
I’ll sum up with a quote I found online and which I thought truly represented the power of books and the beauty of reading.
“Books may not change our suffering, books may not protect us from evil, books may not tell us what is good or what is beautiful, and they will certainly not shield us from the common fate of the grave. But books grant us myriad possibilities: the possibility of change, the possibility of illumination.”
— Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night
Hey Alfie, Your point about reading so that you could talk to your friends about it. It points to the social and communal nature of reading.
ReplyDeleteYour mom, then your friends provided a community, an incentive for reading. What kinds of communities do you suppose our students have or not have? After all, acceptance and enjoyment may encourage us to do some things.
ReplyDeleteBased on my experience in my practicum schools, there is an implementation of a reading period in the morning and yet, it seems like a chore for students and teachers generally have to walk around and ensure that students are reading because they'd rather be staring into space than reading. The importance or the pleasure of reading is not emphasized during the reading period, rather students are just asked to read without understanding why they should even be reading. So, while there seem to be effort to create a supportive reading environment, students are not made to truly understand and appreciate the benefits of reading. There are also no follow-up activities like having students write in their reading journal etc.
DeleteI think because we live in such a technologically modern world, video games become their basic form of entertainment. Such fast-paced games grant instant gratification as compared to books which require sometimes a few days before it can impact us. As such, books tend to be left behind in today's world where it's cooler and more satisfying to play video games or to surf the internet. If students do read, it might be because they're encouraged or influenced by their parents.
Perhaps, Lit and English teachers then can create a supportive reading environment in our classes and strive to influence and encourage our students to read.