Booked for the season
Journeying afar
Sachitra MAHENDRA and Ruwini JAYAWARDANA
September is here and in breezes
stacks of books. The working public set a couple of hours aside in their
hectic lifestyle to spend a few moments to explore through rows and rows
of volumes, schools organize a day out to the Colombo International Book
Fair and parents go hand in hand with their children to select the
latest and best books on the shelves to improve their child's reading
habit. Yes, with these sights around the corner, we can once and for all
truly say, the literary month is here again.
Our heritage shifted to reading from hearing. The temple based
society witnessed monks recite and our ancestors listen attentively.
Reading comes to the scene, a little later - it took time to get
instilled in the civilization.
The origins of reading rest in rock inscriptions. Just like the
age-old scrolls discovered along the Jordan River valley, we can trail
back to the likes of King Nissankamalla.
Oral history is much older, yet reading is older too than the times
we can just imagine.
Reading has reached many boundaries in today's context: the Internet,
computer, sub-titled films and documentaries, newspapers, and behind
all, books. Observing advanced reading cultures in many developed
countries, it makes us wonder why Sri Lanka is still lagging behind in
reading.
The positive picture of book exhibition sales do not, in fact,
indicate a developed reading culture. One would argue people would not
buy books for the sake of fashion, but the local customer behaviour
gives the lie to this very same theory.
Many buyers, especially the collectors, at the exhibition agree they
would not actually read what they buy.
Reading a book is a discipline that should be cultivated, unless you
are born with that. Some people wouldn't flip the pages even they come
across a book. Many would prefer newspapers over books. A newspaper and
a book have their own differences; newspapers are timely, whereas books
are universal.
Keep reading
books, but remember that a book’s only a book, and you should
learn to think for yourself.
- Maxim Gorky, Russian author |
The things I
want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get
me a book I ain’t read.
- Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President |
To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he
says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.
- Andre Gide, French writer who won Nobel Prize for
literature in 1947 |
Wear the old
coat and buy the new book.
- Austin Phelps, American educationist |
No matter how
busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or
surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.
- Confucius, Chinese thinker |
Some books
are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few are to be
chewed and digested.
- Francis Bacon, English philosopher |
Every reader
finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical
instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern
what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in
himself.
- Marcel Proust, French critic |
A classic is
something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to
read
- Mark Twain, American humourist |
Reading a book, on the other hand, is not enough. One mother went on
to complain about her daughter's reading habits. She is so fond of only
Mills and Boons type novels, which provide more sensation than
intellectual backup.
Ever since our childhood, adults have been forcing us to read good
and proper. But why do some people stay away from reading, still and
all? Perhaps our adults do not know the ways and means to motivate the
book reading. Perhaps they do not know how to choose a suitable book for
their kids.
This signals one thing. The advent of a book exhibition does not
solve our reading issues. Many books both appropriate and otherwise keep
on invading the market, and sadly the customer does not have the
insights to spot the differences.
Publishers try their best to sell their stocks, be it good or bad. Of
all goods and service, books have earned a good name, and it gives a
good shield to the publishers.
It has been a problem, ever since the humans got to know letters,
about choosing what to read. Adults should learn themselves on how to
choose the best book to their kids. For that they should be familiar
with language as well as ethics of a society. If anyone fails to meet
this conditions, they should better stay away from the book exhibition.
No-knowledge is better than dangerous knowledge.
All these factors influence us to comment on a part of Sir Francis
Bacon's famous saying: reading maketh a full man. With much respect to
the English philosopher, we have doubts if reading alone makes a full
man. |
