What reading means to
me?
“My world is one interwoven web of
words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together”(Tahereh
Mafi, Shatter me)
Reading
means everything to me, if it wasn’t for reading, I certainly would not be the person
I am today. I’ve been to places I could never go myself. I’ve gone forward in
time; I’ve gone backwards. I’ve met people I would have never met in reality;
the good, the bad, the famous, the monotonous and the ordinary. I’ve travelled
the world and the universe and all this has happened to create the person I am
today.
As a child,
my first memories of reading include Topsy
and Tim and Cinderella but, it was Matilda
that cemented my love of reading. Matilda was a little girl who defied and
defeated the bad in her world by being good and with her knowledge that all
reading she had done, had given her a ‘view
of life they had never seen’.
The
illustration on the front of Matilda uncannily belongs in my world. Matilda is
there, propped up on her cabinet, a little girl made something more, not just
because of the propping action but because of the book she has in her hands and
the piles of them she is surrounded by.
Books are
not only entertaining and a good way to distract yourself from your own
reality, they are inspirational and stimulation. Happy endings offer hope that
everything will end happily ever after, after all. Even the sad endings are
only so because of some beauty portrayed which has now been lost. Metaphorical
and physical beauty is like a light and always offers hope.
As Trigiani notes in the Big Stone Gap, “The terrible things that
happen to us in this life never make any sense when we’re in the middle of
them, floundering, no end in sight, there is no rope to hang onto.” When I read
stories, I can at least find a rope. My breadth of understanding is expanded.
When I’m lonely, I can find friends in the characters or facts to make more familiar
in my surroundings. For example, when I was alone in Japan, it was so difficult
to get hold of English written books so over three weeks, I read Memoirs of a Geisha four times over. Not
only did Sayuri keep me company, the
knowledge and understanding of Japanese culture that this beautiful novel gave
me made me feel more at home in the foreign land. Without this novel, three
weeks in Japan could have felt a lot longer and daunting. In fact, without it,
I may never have seen the stay through and terminated my round world trip there
and then before it had even barely started.
Books can be
life changing. I completed the marathon after reading Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about running. Murakami
also reminded me why I run, to lose myself in a void. That is why I read too, I
lose my reality when I’m immersed in my book. Instead I’m busy rewriting the
very story I’m reading as I interpret each new word I read.
My mum and I
are both members of the Yeovil College Reading Club and it is amazing how we can
read the same books each month and interpret the story so differently. Mum guessed
early on in The Cuckoo’s Calling who
the killer was but not with the same words on the page, I was stumped until the
final revelations. Yet I believed Tony to
be a good man, from the moment he was introduced yet Mum judged him much more
harshly. It is fascinating how a mother and daughter could interpret the same
words so differently yet so similarly. It is amazing how we all process and
tweak exactly the same words in our heads and for me, reading just illustrates
the exceptional uniqueness and mystery of the human mind. Books help us to
unlock further secrets of our very own mind.
Books also
give me hope. I hate that one day due to money or life; I might not be able to get
hold of that one book which may turn my whole life around. Books are my
protection, and distraction. Reading stops my mind from wandering carelessly
and stumbling into a black hole.
Reading also
allows me to grow, they teach me harsh lessons about life but let me forego the
experiences that I might not have been able to find or handle in my own reality.
Katie Piper’s memoir, ‘Beautiful’ was
a massive inspiration to me, she shows such courage and shows you that you have
to just go on. An important conclusion to draw but one where I certainly didn’t
want the experience she had to gain such wisdom. Books like this also remind me
how lucky I am.
I could
write so much about my love of reading but by now, you’ll probably understand
why I tell you how annoying it is when I’m told to put a book down and
experience the world and there will be time to read when I’m older.
Sadly, there
is no guarantee I will have the same ability to read even tomorrow. I’m scared
of one day being unable to pick up the ‘heavy’ book lying around or to decipher
the black marks on the page. If that happens then I hope I’ve trained my mind
through reading enough to look at that Matilda
print and let my imagination write its own stories carrying me away ‘past the stars on silver wings’
“And now, here it is, set down by
someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who Is long dead. And
it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours” (Alan Bennett, ‘The History
Boys’.)
Samantha
Vickery
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