WHY READ WHEN YOU CAN WATCH?

WHY READ WHEN YOU CAN WATCH?

Since I’m a writer, you probably assume my title is a rhetorical question. Of course I want people to read: I write novels and essays, not screenplays. But that’s not it. I am actually growing weary of watching.

Mind you, not weary of all watching. I like walking my dog Chelsea and meeting others with dogs, or sitting with her in parks, and people-watching. If a lot of time passes between visits, I even like the streaming-video experience of strolling through a mall. Especially I like sitting on my lanai in late afternoon, watching the last light of day burnish the stand of bamboo behind our house. When a breeze passes, the stand makes a rattling sound, like castanets.

I mean I’m weary of watching movies and TV. There’s something increasingly oppressive about it, like a form of bondage. I’m prepared to concede my viewer’s fatigue is partly fallout from getting old. At some point, you’ve watched so many movies, news broadcasts and TV shows that everything new comes off as a thinly veiled, more frantic version of something you saw way-back-when.

But by no means does this entirely explain my growing impatience with new films, or what’s on the tube. I believe that in the course of my life, the “tenor of the times” has greatly altered, and that this change explains my impatience. Here again, a grumpy old man’s disdain for what’s new is the obvious explanation. But I don’t think that’s it. I’m no grumpier now than I was ten or even twenty years ago.

I think a national mood shift has taken place, the equivalent of tectonic plates realigning themselves to move continents. “Stand your ground” laws illustrate this sudden shift, along with open-carry advocates showing up at town meetings. “I’ll keep my guns and money, you keep the change” bumper stickers are another. Or rallies featuring posters of Ayn Rand dressed in full medieval body armor, making the improbable matchup of a lifelong atheist with Joan of Arc.

How about Creationists (lately re-branded as advocates for Intelligent Design) scoffing at evolution, or pointing to falling snow as proof that global warming is a falsehood? How about endless cartoon super-heroes, and super-violent video games, extreme martial arts, or a cult-like fascination with wizards, dwarfs with special powers, along with dragons enlisted to promote social justice?

I don't know whether any of this is bad for society, or just bad for me. But with reading, I do know things are different. The scale of experience is smaller, more human. Better suited to thought rather than action. Unlike those who fuel themselves with images edited by others, readers use words on the page to create their own opinions, mental pictures, impressions.

Reading is something you do by and for yourself. It’s both selfish and creative, and you can do it anywhere. Preferably, in the company of a dog next to you on the couch.
HERE'S THE BOOK