Now, mind you, I use the word 'read' in the loosest sense, as I'm fairly confident that my reading of the book was based primarily on pure memorization and less on my ability to make sense of the written word. The book was, and is, a favorite. Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak, opened a brave new frontier of possibilities for me. Lands where monsters roamed free and a boy was king. It is safe to say that fantasy was a fast favorite for me, one which I would regularly devour whole in one sitting.
I read for years. Often without break, in sun or snow, light or dark. When we moved house I would always choose the room that had the streetlamp nearby so as to read sneakily in my room after lights out. I read on road trips, camping trips, during skating competitions and through family dinners. I loved to read. Reading was my life.
And then one day I stopped reading.
I am secure in my belief that this happens to many people on the brink of adulthood. I did not stop reading because I no longer loved it. I did not stop reading because I had lost interest in the worlds hidden away, bound between two cloth covers. I stopped reading because I had started university, a brave new world all of its own, and one that I was more than eager to immerse myself in.
This is a truth, of a sort. But not the whole truth.
I actually stopped reading in my second year of university. I have many excuses and logical arguments to explain the whys and the hows. Most of them revolve around the sheer amount of reading I had to get through for my courses. Few of those books and articles that I read during that time I read for pleasure or leisure.
"Honestly," I'd say to my friends, "How could anyone read Moll Flanders for fun?"
And so, I stopped reading for fun, and suffered through myriads of books and plays and articles that I staunchly did not enjoy. Not even a little book. How on earth could I enjoy reading something that I had been told that I must read? I would not like it. I refused.
Looking back now (a lofty two years past my undergraduate, and freshly done my Masters) I can't help but laugh at my conviction that I would not like anything that I read. For one, I was an English Major. By default I must love to read. Some of my favorite evenings where spent curled up in my crappy little couch in my snug little student apartment with The Song of Roland and a highlighter, deciphering the words that where barely English, as they had been translated from Medieval French to Medieval English. The Horrors! Nor can I deny my clear enjoyment of Shakespeare (cliched as that is) and Machiavelli (more unusual), both of whom became inspirations for my advanced research paper my final year.
But no, I did not read. And what I did read, I did not enjoy.
Even during the summers I refrained (mostly) from reading. What was the point? I was exhausted. I was wiped out. Reading anything was an effort and heaven only knows how much I'd be forced to read in the coming school year. I would save my reading strength for later.
During my MI, I actually read very little for fun, though I did make an effort to at least try. By this point, I acutely missed characters I'd grown up with, and newer ones that I had discovered during my teens. I longed for them. Pined even. I told myself that I was not actually reading anything, because if I read, I read something old, something treasured, something that didn't require me to think. During my Christmas vacation I diligently packed books to read on the flights to and from home, and more to read while there. I would successfully complete two books over the three weeks I was home. Not even a third of what I had packed in my carry-on.
And then one day, I was finished school. I was not entering a new program or a new degree. I had no real reason to not read anymore. I looked at my bookcase, and was filled with dread. Those years that I had not read had been filled with birthdays, holidays, special occasions where people would give me something that they knew I loved more than precious stones or metals: books. Volumes upon volumes. Few had even been cracked open beyond a cursory look at the inside of the jacket. Some were my old standbys, lightly read despite their age and importance. Where to begin?
I fled from their accusing stare, melancholic gazes from unbroken book spines.
I watched television. I watched a lot of television. I watched about two weeks of solid television. From the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. I was wallowing in television. Bad television. Sitcoms, chat shows, Teen Wolf.
And then one day I picked up a book that had been sitting by my bed since my birthday, six months previous. I cannot say that Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one of my most favorite books ever. It is not. It was, however, exactly the kind of book that I favor: a world a little like this one, a time slightly removed from this current day and age, and wizards. I read it in four days. And then I started to reread the first three books from A Song of Ice and Fire. When those were done I worked my way through the Dresden Files, followed swiftly by The Hollows.
By this point, I was gainfully employed as a practicing librarian. I had a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and a three hour round commute to and from work almost daily. Many of my friends, actually, all of my friends think I am insane for willingly doing this commute. I am actually happy to do so. As I say, I have built in time everyday to read.
I read books that had languished unloved on my bookcase for six years. I read new fiction for the Children's Department at my library. I found digital versions of classics for my ebook reader. I read. And I read.
I am once again a devourer of worlds, of words.
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