why read?

“Why read?”

Reading is something we do almost every day, often selflessly and more rarely thoroughly, as is the case today to the detriment of youth, even for entertainment.

As Mr. Chapsal states, “Reading is man’s own.” One can read without particularly wanting to, such as the names of stops in transport or the titles of people magazines such as Closer, in waiting rooms. In this case, reading becomes a tool to forget impatience, to “kill time” as some say. Reading can be an occupation, but as Confucius says: “Hearing or reading without thinking is a vain occupation.”, which means that a reading of an article can be superficial, for the sole purpose of occupying one’s eyes during some waiting, instead of being more interested, which would allow a better understanding of the article.

An interested reading can also lead the reader to think of something other than the vagaries of real life, or otherwise, gives him the opportunity to escape into an imaginary world when it comes to a work of fiction, novel, comic book or manga, such as The Bicentennial Man or Thorgal. When you are completely “immersed” in a novel written in the first person, it happens that you think you are one of the characters of the story or that you have the impression of participating indirectly in it. We then isolate ourselves from the world to live another adventure, this is how reading allows us to better imagine an ideal world or a story that we would have liked to live, like Twilight for some teenagers. And as J. Diant admits in New Dawn, “The dream is the beginning of hope.” Reading helps to nourish one’s dreams and hopes.

Taking up what has been said above, the eyes can sometimes linger on an attractive title or on a book with a good reputation. If one wishes to verify the notoriety or the supposed value of a work, curiosity prevails and the reading of the written word, whatever its form, makes it possible to satisfy it. We can thus say that reading develops curiosity, giving the reader the desire to know the rest of the story or to obtain more knowledge on a subject, for a scientific work. But sometimes, this curiosity can appear because of a prohibition, such as the horror story that is strongly discouraged to the child. In “Don’t read this book, it’s not for you.”, the child in question would like to know why he’s not for him, and the best way to know it according to him is not to obey. “Resist and your soul gets sick by languishing what it forbids itself,” Oscar Wilde said in The Portrait of Dorian Gray. In the second chapter, the child is afraid, but can enjoy it, like on a roller coaster. And conversely, excerpts from a collection of jokes can make you laugh. Laughing, being afraid, smiling, crying, isn’t this a host of expressions of various feelings that reading can make us feel?

Without knowing it, people who learned to read in their early childhood and do not like to do so in everyday life miss out on an infinite source of entertainment, as the number of books or types of fiction is so great. And as Cicero says, “If you have a library and a garden, you have everything you need.”

January 7, 2010

First topic of discovery of the dissertation

Note: If you know J. Diant… contact me 🙂