The false premise of reading | #23

The title is “the false premise of reading” on purpose. If a person reads only newspapers, the general ones, can that person be called a reader? Technically that wouldn’t be wrong, but it still would be wrong. Referring back to the quote of Fuller, the newspaper reading person won’t become a leader even though he/she is a reader, and even if they do, they wouldn’t be a good one. Congruently anyone who reads anything is a reader, and thus anyone who likes to read books of a particular kind is a bibliophile. But words mean nothing, for that this is a weak identity, a facade to cover-up for the literal lethargy, ignorance, and escapism that one has become accustomed to. If the popular answer to the question “what are some of your favorite books?” is a list of fictional drama, comedy, fantasy and thrill of no real sense, well isn’t the society going on the right path, awesome. As a literature student, one who is obliged to read fiction, I can assure you that there are at max a 100 or so books in the entire world of fiction that are written as an abstraction of worldly concepts and not to gain fame and money. I recommend 1984 all the time, and there’s a reason for it; it wasn’t a fictional book made to entertain but rather to explain the concepts of totalitarianism, tyranny of war ridden politics and “doublespeak” that we so profusely watch in today’s world. I would say that is proper fiction.

Read more