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Why do we read?
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Mon, 03/16/2009 - 14:47
The true reason remains the inscrutable one - we get pleasure from reading. It is a complex pleasure and a difficult pleasure. It varies from age to age and book to book. But that pleasure is enough. Indeed that pleasure is so great that one cannot doubt that without it the world would be a far different and a far interior place from what it is.
Virginia Woolf
This quote I would like to share with you (thanks to Philip Prowse for pointing it out on 13 March 2009 on a conference in the Netherlands).
I would like you to try and motivate what reading means to you. For me it is a necessity: I get physically unwell if I do not have the time to read a book for some time. Do you recognize this feeling? But why is that?
I have always been an avid reader despite the fact that my family did not read: I cannot remember I have ever seen my father or mother finishing a novel. Neither did my sisters read as much. But I did and do.
What is this pleasure that some of us get out of it?
Tue, 03/17/2009 - 02:13
#2
Hi Christien and Rachid!
Such an interesting question!
I read because I want to find out more about myself, to face alternatives, different choices, encounter issues that make me feel reassured and share views, or those that make me feel uncomfortable and challenge my ideas. I read because it gives me pleasure and food for thought.
I read, as Rachid has put it, "to overstep the limitations of real life"
Or, in the words of Emily Dickinson, because
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
(which brings e back to poetry!)
What are your reasons?
Graciana
Tue, 03/17/2009 - 06:00
#3
Hi all,
Reading is what makes you understand yourself and understand what is happening to people you have never met, reading is what makes you go places and travel the world and see your image in foreign mirrors in spite of the fact that you are where you have always been.
Tue, 03/17/2009 - 09:28
#4
Hi Pilar, Graciana, Mustapha, Christian and all
Honestly, you are doing a great job here. You are discussing in a very succinct and elaborate way the preoccupations of a good if not ideal teacher. You are right because reading is what gives sense to one's being. With no reading we can not write and we can not be informed of what life for our counterparts is. In this sense, reading makes us travel beyond the borders of time and space in order to see, taste, imagine and visualize the human experiences that have preceded ours either in order to benefit ours or to pick lessons that can by no means contribute to our welfare and well being.
Reading also broadens the scope of one's thinking. So while speaking, one does not speak from vacuum / scratch but draw on references to consciously or unconsciously bacy up what one is saying. Reading is a NEED today because we seem to have drawn a kind of rupture with it due to many reasons known to you sure. Recently, I received a book from a person so much dear to my heart based in Germany and the book is entitled "TWILIGHT" by Stephenie Meyer whose cover is so much revealing. Two hands carrying a red fresh apple and giving this apple to you, dear reader. I said to myself, "This may be a sign cause I do not read as I used to". The cover is also evocative in that it compares reading to a sort of food that the spirit and the mind need to stay alive. Suffice us that the first word revealed for example to the Prophet of Islam was "READ". " Read in the name of thy Lord". As you can see, reading is a duty and an obligation from a religious perspective. The doors of knowledge are locked but can be opened by too much reading. If you are addicted to reading, be sure that you have the key and one day you are going to enter and discover the beauty and the infinite tranquility reading can vouchsafe you with.
With best wishes for you all.
Rachid.
Wed, 03/18/2009 - 18:48
#5
Hi all,
Nice contributions all of you!
I hope some other people will be tempted to post things as well - will you all be in Cardiff? It would be nice to meet each other in person.
Fri, 04/03/2009 - 20:37
#6
Hi Christien & Everyone
I have been reading some interesting threads you have contributed with. I guess you must have been very busy as an IATEFL Conference moderator.
As for your question: "Why do we read?" I would like to share this view: firstly, reading is very much a life skill. In fact, we read for different purposes.We read when we want to get information; when we want to be up-to-date within specific themes; whenever we feel we can learn from others, from their advice or sensible suggestions; and above all for pleasure!
I have always kept a profound relationship with books for the real pleasure and good company.I think we all should be grateful to the authors for their devotion to writing! The best way to respect their work is reading what they have written for us!
By the way, have you ever read "The Joke" by Milan Kundera? This was my latest purchase on a 5 day - stay in The Czech Republic this week.
Best wishes
Maria
.
Thu, 03/19/2009 - 02:39
#7
Hi Christien,
This topic is really the root of it all, it made me think about the possibility of making students curious about what they can find in books. And, if I am lucky enough, make that curiosity a never ending feelng!
Unfortunately, I won´t be there. But, tasting it from far away Argentina, the topics sound a real challenge. and a good chance to share and update your ideas.
Cheers,
Graciana
Hi Christien,
Your question "Why do we read?" is a very big one!
When you ask this question, it's as though you are wondering "why do we write?", because reading is the organic outcome of writing. Civilizations owe their existence to writing/reading. Reading is a human need for many considerations, be they psychic, social, or even anthropological.
-I do read fiction because it's a means to overstep the limitations of the real life.
- I do read because I want to see life from different points of view ( Virginia wolf's, H. James', George Eliot's, James Joyce's...)
- I do read fiction because I feel I am Immortal there.
What about you? ;)