The lure of books

Repeated surveys show that children spend less time reading than did previous generations. They instead devote many hours of their waking lives to electronic screens of one kind or another: It seems that American children now spend seven hours a day, on average, in front of a screen, whether it be television, computer, or telephone. 

"People of the book", writes Anthony Daniels, "only believe that the replacement of the page by the screen will alter human character, thin it out, empty it of depth, but secretly hope this happens. A deterioration in human character consequent upon the demise of the book will be, for the inveterate reader, an apologia pro vita sua. For we who have spent so much of our lives with, and even for books secretly derived a sense of moral superiority from having done so. This is obvious from the fact that no one says “Young people nowadays do not read” in a tone other than of lament or, more usually, moral condemnation. A person who does not read—and for us reading means books—is a mental barbarian, a man who, wittingly or unwittingly, confines himself to his own experience, necessarily an infinitesimal proportion of all possible experiences. He is not only a barbarian, but an egotist."

We who pride ourselves in reading much and widely forget that the printed page serves us in a similar fashion as the drug serves an addict. After a short time away from it we grow agitated and begin to pine, by which time anything will do: a bus timetable, a telephone directory, an operating manual for a washing machine. “They say that life’s the thing,” said Logan Pearsall Smith, a littérateur of distinction but now almost forgotten, “but I prefer reading.” For how many of us—avid readers, that is—has the printed page been a means of avoidance of the sheer messiness, the intractability, of life, to no other purpose than the avoidance itself? It is for us what the telenovela is for the inhabitant of the Latin American barrio, a distraction and a consolation. We gorge on the printed page to distract ourselves from ourselves: the great business of Doctor Johnson’s life, according to Boswell and Johnson himself. Or we read to establish a sense of superiority, or at least to ward off a sense of inferiority: “What, you haven’t read Ulysses?”

Reduced to a choice between television and the yellow pages—no doubt now also on the verge of extinction—if you chose the yellow pages, for example, you will discover just how unusual any obsession with books is.Look up bookstores, and you will find no more than half a page but search for .teeth-whitening dentists who promise a completely renewed existence to their clients, a confident smile being the secret of success, and success of happiness, it will take up more than twenty pages. Not poets, then, but teeth-whitening dentists, are now the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

An intellectual might be defined as someone who elaborates justifications for his own tastes and preferences, as metaphysics was once defined as the finding of bad reasons for what we all believe on instinct. And so the reader of books soon finds reasons for the supposed superiority of the printed page over the screen of the electronic device: for nothing stimulates the brain quite like the need for rationalization. The dullest of minds, I have found, works at the speed of light when a rationalization is needed.

The page of a book is aesthetically pleasing as a screen is not: except that many pages of many books are not aesthetically pleasing. It is easier to retrace one’s steps in a book than on a screen: but only for those who are not as technologically adept as the young now are. It is easier to annotate a page of a book than a page of a screen: but the same objection applies. It is easier to concentrate long and seriously on a book than on a screen: but there is no intrinsic reason to the medium why this should be so, any more than there is, pace the late Neil Postman, why television should be given over to vulgarity and trivia. We bibliophiles are reduced to finding bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.

Whether the book survives or not, I am firmly of the opinion that it ought to survive, and nothing will convince me otherwise. The heart has its beliefs that evidence knows not of. For me, to browse in a bookshop, especially a second-hand one, will forever be superior to browsing on the internet precisely because chance plays a much larger part in it. There are few greater delights than entirely by chance to come across something not only fascinating in itself, but that establishes a quite unexpected connection with something else. The imagination is stimulated in a way that the more logical connections of the Internet cannot match. 

But every gain is also a loss. The pleasure of a book delivered in this fashion (though it exists, of course) is not as great, not as intense, as that of one found by chance, unexpectedly. Perhaps there is a wider lesson here: you cannot have it all, you cannot reconcile all possible sources of pleasure. You cannot have the joys of serendipity and those of the convenience of immediate access to everything at the same time. 

Furthermore, it seems that you cannot choose between them as technology advances. To adapt Marx’s dictum about history slightly, Man makes his own pleasures, but not just as he pleases. To refuse to use the new technology in the hope of preserving old pleasures will not work because to do so would be no more authentic or honest than Marie Antoinette playing shepherdess. The regret is genuine; the refusal is not.

Books can change our worldview! Books can delight, enchant, teach or just provide a momentary escape from reality, but can books also be therapy. The idea that books can make us emotionally, psychologically and even physically better goes back to the ancient world. Plato said that the muses gave us the arts not for "mindless pleasure" but "as an aid to bringing our soul-circuit, when it has got out of tune, into order and harmony with itself". It's no coincidence that Apollo is the god of both poetry and healing; nor that hospitals or health sanctuaries in ancient Greece were invariably situated next to theatres, most famously at Epidaurus, where dramatic performances were considered part of the cure. 

By the Renaissance, the idea that poetry and song could "banish vexations of soul and body" was well-entrenched - to the point where Thomas Puttenham argued, in The Art of English Poesie, that the poet must "play also the physician and not only by applying a medicine to the ordinary sickness of mankind, but by making the very grief itself (in part) cure of the disease".

 ” I have never enjoyed reading anything as much I do this - a slow savouring of words and life - that I was too busy to enjoy when younger. I just feel so good!” It is as if in re-reading a book, I am restoring my mental equilibrium and my consciousness to a state of quiet joy. I did not set out to do this, but slowly, perhaps though a combination of things, I feel made whole though the process of reading.

And it should start early. Here are some tips for new parents who want their children to grow up  loving books:

Babies love to observe. Every time you read to your baby, you reinforce basic reading concepts, such as turning pages and following text from left to right. As you read a book together, point to the pictures, name them, and talk about them. As your infant grows, he will imitate you by turning pages or pointing to objects. Babies also like to be held and spoken to. And books provide the perfect opportunity for them to learn about speech patterns and how to make sounds. Books provide vital one-on-one time for you and your infant. Through the sound of your voice and the warmth of your body, your baby will come to think of reading as a pleasurable activity. Newborns see things best from about a foot away — or the distance from your face to your baby's while you're holding him. So it's best to select books with high-contrast images. Black-and-white illustrations and patterns (stripes, polka dots, checkers) provide plenty of entertainment for infants of this age. To stimulate older babies, look for books that require some manual dexterity. Lift-the-flap books, touch-and-feel books, and chunky board books sized for little hands are both fun and challenging. Most babies do not have the attention span required for lengthy picture books, so stick to simple text and rhymes accompanied by vivid pictures. Also, sturdy construction is important — you want books that will last! Remember that while babies aren't born book lovers, they are born learners. And the more you read to them, the more they learn. They learn to love the feel of the pages in their hands (or their mouth), the sound of your voice, the beauty of the illustrations — the joy of a good book.