Literature, Literacy, and the advance of human civilization
 

Since I graduated high school, I've maybe read 2-4 books.

From age 7 to 18 though, I read novels of my own accord for enjoyment. In first grade when I was 6 I had horrible grades in school. I don't remember 1st grade, but I had straight Ds. In 2nd grade, my grades were better. As, Bs, and Cs. In 3rd grade I was getting straight As and from then on I was usually one of the smartest kids in my class. Kids marvelled at the huge books I would tote around and read for sheer enjoyment. My taste was pretty bad at first, but it got better as I got older.

Anyways, since then I haven't read that much. I made a lot of excuses for not doing so. That I could never find a comfortable position for reading, that I never had time, etc.

And since then I've been a pretty unfunctioning person. I'm more functioning now than I was when I was 19 or 20, I've adjusted to it, but still. I've also developed pretty bad sleep habits.

Then this last week I finally got around to reading Phillip K. Dick's "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said." Now I'm reading Bukowski's "Ham on Rye." And my sleep habits are starting to get better. I have more energy, and I'm doing more.

The last time I felt like I was starting to pull together was this summer when I was in Europe when I read Alice in Wonderland and Dostoevsky's short story "The Dream of A Ridiculous Man."

It seems that acting as a functioning person and having good reading habits coincide.

Some people seem to disreguard printed word as an archaic media form. We've got video games and television and 3d movies.

But I think there is something about literature that is very nourishing to brain activity and function. You have to imagine sounds and images. It is more work for your brain and also more relaxing.

Printed word is usually credited in accelerating the development of human civilization by increasing the ease of communication. But I think that isn't completely it. I think literature has something that film, television, and radio don't have that is incredibly beneficial to human brain development.

Thoughts?

I don't think this is breaking news...

I know it is probably old news, but I always sort of took literature as just another form for art, communication, and entertainment. I didn't ever think of it as something more than that.

I think if we really want to help develop American minds more we need to require a proficiency at a second language in elementary school. 1) It'll be on the same level as most European countries' schools and 2) Learning a second language helps develop the brain way more, it makes it easier to learn other languages in the future, is better for job opportunities etc.

What the...!
Anyway , what foreign language do americans study the most , in school?

Probably Spanish.

My high school offered English, German, Spanish, and French.

Yeah, in my school Spanish is the most dominant (and probably most practical down here) but there is also French and German. But only two years of it is required to graduate, 3 recommended for college. Those two/three years isn't much, especially in teenage years because there are parts of your brain that are there for language that have stopped developing by then.

Frankly, I resent the fact that I didn't get to learn another language when I was younger.

LOL, I said my school offers English as a 2nd language.

That was an accident. I meant to say Latin.

So what I know two, I want to learn French.

Go live in France for a year.

Maybe when I finish college.

Books cure everything, hooray!

REALLY?!

Ouch.

Hah!
I saw it coming but still...

you gotta feed yr brains so you dont become a sorry mook

They don't say "Reading is FUNdaMENTAL" for nothing. See I made a spelling joke.

Ozzy Osbourne doesn't read because he says reading is not fundaMEnTAL.

See what I did there?

It's been forever since I've read some fiction. I always plan to but it always losses out to some treatise.

LOSES*

Yeah. Reading as empowerment. I'm down with that. Although I'd rather the kids were reading something other than Harry Potter/ Dan Brown, but anything is good. Reading is brain engagement.

Episodically, I have one of my tirades about how people who read should endeavour to read better books - rather than Pratchett, Ovid - that sort of thing. Which I semi stand by, but then any brain engagement is worth it.

*I love you?

Harry Potter sucks , but Da Vinci Code is a great book.

No. Harry Potter rules, Dan Brown sucks. :p

One man's Shakespeare, is another's Grisham. I think it just comes to personal taste. You shoulden't force or ridicule some one for their tastes, no matter how questionable they are.

sigh

Right on Spectral. Reading can also benefit training the brain to focus, something that a good chunk of people lack nowadays. I was never really into reading until only recently, and I realized that books had a consistancy that random wikipedia articles of related subjects do not. I've been reading books on psychology, interpersonal behaviour, and philosophy lately which I find really puts me a step a head, and I enjoy this new-old means of absorbing information

I read James Joyce today and I feel like I've accomplished something.

There is a James Joyce reference in "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" a young girl quotes Finnegan's Wake.

I don't know if I'd like Joyce. He seems to be recognized first and foremost for his writing style.

He's notorious for Finngans Wake which is a masterpiece of not making any sense in the way that books are meant to. Ulysses I a little less daunting, but Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is a very delicate and readable. Same for Dubliners. Check those out first.

harry potter, meh. dan brown ripped off umberto eco.

Is Ulysses based on Homer's Odyssey?

I love to read, but I think that the biggest obstacle to people enjoying reading is that they read what they feel they ought to read, rather than what they want to read. They force themselves to read Camus and Cocteau (for example) because they believe it is an important intellectual exercise, but their brains aren't necessarily ready for philosophical meanderings. People need to read the Dan Browns and the J K Rowlings in order to get their brains used to the exercise of reading and understanding.

That said, I prefer to use reading either as education or entertainment, rather than as an intellectual exercise.

yes yes yes. borges used to say that people should never read what they didn't like-- so he always had a hard time being a teacher. the only point i'd refute based on semantics is that "education" but not 'intellectual exercise". aren't they both a little bit the same? isn't reading camus for the intellectual execise an educational reason?

in that sense, if people had the habit of reading from childhood, they'd eventually "graduate" to more complex readings, not because of snobberies and afffectations but simply because tastes change with use and practice.

the same way that, as children, one used to love the taste of, say, ice cream from the truck, but as grownups, if offered good humor as dessert in a great reastaurant one would laugh it off as a prank. i remember as a little kid, i loved the smell of bacon so much i wondered why they didn't make cologne with its smell.

anyway, i've been reading since i was a little shit, and in my travels even went to grad school to read and read, to the point of nausea, so i can't inflict any more crap upon my mind-- it has to be good or else... in other words, crapola doesn't give me pleasure anymore, and these days i leave many a mediocre book unfinished, like a rancid twinkie.

a small digression to invite potential readers-- cocteau, unlike camus, was not a philosopher but a sick bastard poet. les enfants terribles is deliciously perverted. a must.

what glice said. start with dubliners, progress to the artist, see if some day you muster the cojones to start ulysses, and maybe before you die you'll dare delve into the nocturnal mysteries of the wake (i haven't made it past the first 2 pages).

dubliners will definitely not disappoint, many a great short story, and many (mother of all cliches) delicate images, and "the dead" probably a masterpiece, to be read only at the end. it's all about ireland so a critical edition might help clarify some obscurities, like who the fuck parnell was, etc.

I don't find anything intellectual or interesting about Camus.
The Stranger: an empty book with an empty hero.

according to Steve Jobs: "people don't read anymore".

I read several books a month, but then again, I'm not people.

beep.

I think in a way you are sort of right. I read a lot of Star Wars books, Michael Crichton books, and Tom Clancy books before I started reading anything good. I think the first really good book I read was Catch-22 when I was 16.

all jokes aside, everybody realizes that religion is the origin and source of the written word, and in the western tradition, this bible which everyone believes is a load of crap is the source of European language and writing. It is the bible which preserved literacy in Europe, and subsequently the western world.

that's a FUCKING JOKE
the goddamned church preserved ILLITERACY for hundreds of years by not allowing the masses to read the bible (and by presenting their mass amss in latin, a long-dead language). there are many roman catholic churches in south america and africa and asia where this is still the prescribed practice, straight out of the motherfucking dark ages.

you have no knowledge of world linguistic history. if you did you would know that the written language was created in ancient sumerian times (pre-bible and pre-hebrews) as a means of keeping RECORDS, ussually crop records and sales records.

in other words, "the origin and source of the written word" is in BOOK-KEEPING and COMMERCE, not, I yell, NOT in religion.

you really ahve a deeply judeochristian-centric view of the history of the world my friend.