The first thing that I remember is all-consuming sadness.
Not because of the subject matter of the story, although it was sad, if I remember correctly. But the true, heart-rending pain and overwhelming heartbreak came from the fact that the book was finished. I was young, but not too young; maybe eight or nine years old. It was my first (albeit not my last) love affair with a book, and my heart was breaking as I turned the final page. It was a feeling I would come to know well-- but at that point in time, young and impressionable, I thought I might die. I was always a melodramatic child.
It lingered with me, this sadness. Now that I’m older, I can liken it to a hangover; uncomfortable, somewhat painful, and difficult to shake. The feelings that the story triggered in me stayed with me, haunting me over days. I tried to read other books; I flitted from one to the next without being able to focus.
This isn’t like that other story, I thought. Nothing seemed to compare.
And so it lingered; I think it was two days later when I decided the only cure was to read the story a second time. When I picked it up and read the first few lines, it became alive in my hands, like I was greeting an old friend again after an absence. I had never felt the need to reread a book before, so the experience was certainly unexpected and new.
As I read, I began to notice things. I saw details in the story that I hadn’t noticed as I devoured it the first time around; the author’s wit and the complexity of the characters hit me with so much more force than I expected. As I read on, I found myself wanting to talk about the book, to discuss it with people; to share the ideas it ignited in me with someone who understood what I was feeling and experiencing.
It’s difficult to be a reader in a society that doesn’t read. It means a certain amount of intellectual loneliness, and a little bit of frustration when a book comes along that shakes my worldview to the core. These books don’t come along often, but come they do-- and when they do, I cannot put them down. I become obsessed; incapable of putting them down.
There were other books after that first one; they crawled into quiet corners of my life and kept me company. “A bookworm,” my parents would say about me, sighing and shaking their heads; but I could tell that they were happy; happy because I was able to occupy myself during long car rides and waits in restaurants, and also happy because books made me curious. I was a never-ending font of questions in my childhood.
“How many different kinds of dogs are there?” I’d ask.
“Look it up,” came the inevitable answer. And so I started to understand the library, and I started to understand how to do research; then later on, when Internet use became widespread, I turned to the Internet for answers I couldn’t find in books.
“What are you doing on that computer?” My mother has always been suspicious of everything.
“Reading about how Poe died,” I’d tell her. “He drowned in alcohol.”
She quickly learned not to ask too many questions.
But when I was very young-- before my first love affair with a book-- I loved stories. My father would sit by my bed at night, telling me stories. He wasn’t-- and still isn’t-- a big reader, but his creativity and ability to weave a story from air into something tangible and engaging is a gift.
“Once upon a time,” he would always begin, “there was a family, and they lived with their dog, Ebony, and a mischievous cat named Mac.”
Mac and Ebony went on wild adventures, often in my favorite haunts; in the forest, in the swimming pool and, once or twice, on a hot air balloon. Mac the cat always got into trouble; I think this character, which I loved from a young age, led me to books with mischievous and adventurous protagonists. I pored over Harry Potter; I went on adventures in Narnia; I lived a thousand lives before I became a teenager.
And then I began to write.
I think that if you aren’t a reader, you can never become a writer. A mediocre writer, perhaps; but never a great one. Becoming a writer means immersing oneself in text, learning the nuances and details of the language; it’s about choosing the perfect word to convey a meaning, not just the word that is close enough. People who don’t read have difficulty creating with written language. Learning to write means reading the best of the best and the worst of the worst; it means understanding what makes a story great, and what makes a story fail.
Writing is also an inherently selfish pursuit.
It’s often said that a writer reveals more of him or herself in a piece than he or she intends, and I think it’s true; when a writer creates a piece, he or she leaves a little of his or her soul on the page. We write to make ourselves feel better; we write for outside approval; we even write because there is no alternative-- because we have to write.
When I picked up that first book as a child, I never intended to become a writer. I don’t mean that I’m a writer by profession, but instead, I mean that when I feel emotion, particularly strong emotion, I feel the need to create. When I have an idea, it has to go on paper. No matter what career I end up with, I will continue to read, and I will continue to write. That first book set me on a path towards an obsession with language, and I cannot seem to deviate from it.
I worry about the state of the world, because I see so few children reading books these days. I’m not opposed to new media, or against video games and television, but I don’t think that they stimulate the mind in the same way reading a book does. I think the Internet is a great tool for teaching children that reading can be enjoyable and interesting; it’s just up to parents and educators to ensure that what the children are looking at online is appropriate for their age and not detrimental to their mental health in any way.
I know not everyone will be enamored of reading and writing the way I am, and that’s fine; a little diversity is good for the world. But every child should be given the opportunity to love to read, in the same way that every child should be given the opportunity to become an artist, or a musician, or an athlete. These avenues should be open to children; I am eternally grateful that they were opened to me from such a young age.
If I should ever have a child, I will teach them to love books. I have no other real plans for my potential future children besides this. I will give them hundreds, thousands of books until they find that one book they fall in love with for the first time. Once that battle is won, and I have created a reader for life, I can rest easy in the knowledge that any child of mine will remain passionately curious.
