The need to read

We've talked so much in class about the questions what is literature? and what is reading? While I was reading Professor Power's essay "Reading Ethnic Literature Now," I realized that the existence of a reading crisis where fewer and fewer people actually take the time to read indicates more than just a problem for ethnic literature. If no one reads, then the power of literature cannot stem nearly as far as we theoretically perceive it can. All the great things it offers will never come into fruition in most lives. Powers writes, "We have arrived at a period in which we justifiably celebrate canonical triumphs even as fewer and fewer people care that canons exist at all." While it seems worthwhile for readers and writers to consider the success of increasingly canonical ethnic and women writers, are the ideas and successes limited to the sub-culture of readers? Can they affect society as a whole?

I read an article by Andrew Solomon called "The Closing of the American Book" to investigate the reading issue further (I found that many essays and articles have been written about the growth of a reading crisis in America, and I couldn't help but think of the irony that only readers will access them). Solomon focuses on the inconsistency that this creates between our academic system and our actual lives: "We have one of the most literate societies in history. What is the point of having a population that can read, but doesn't? We need to teach people not only how, but also why to read." I began to think of the things that I had to learn in school, and I realized that we learn a lot of things that don't carry over into practical life application. I have knowledge and abilities in subjects like calculus, but I don't spend my spare time working on calculus equations just because I am capable of doing so. Thus, why should anyone separate out reading as the skill that they continue to use in life when so many other skills taught in school are readily discarded? Admittedly, reading is quite different from any type of mathematical or scientific skill. It connects more with daily life than something as theoretical and objective as calculus, and this seems to make it more universally accessible to people. But in such a fast-moving culture where electronic entertainment is used to increasing extents, how can we salvage the value of reading? Solomon provides a quote from Walter Pater that expresses the value of reading, or other artistic appreciations which may take more time and effort, over other forms of quick entertainment: "The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit is to rouse, to startle it to a life of sharp and eager observation. . . . The poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most; for art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass.''