Guest Post: Michelle gets deep on reading
I’m out of town, so I asked Michelle to write something to keep the blog active. Enjoy! — SK
When I was in the 2nd grade, I started reading avidly. I remember plowing through Nancy Drews and Babysitter’s Club so quickly that my parents wouldn’t buy me anymore of those and insisted that I start reading higher reading level books. I read a few of my dad’s science fiction books, but looking back, they were way over my head. But in the 5th grade we were required to read “The Cay”, a book about a boy and an old man who get shipwrecked upon an island and must work together, and find common ground to survive. It was the first time I remember being emotionally attached to a character in a book.
In 6th grade we were required to read “The Island of the Blue Dolphins”. If you haven’t read that one, I highly, highly recommend reading it. Karana, a young woman, survives alone on an island, befriending wild dogs and learning to do things that women were forbidden to do in her culture.
I then was made to read “To Kill a Mockingbird”. And life basically changed. While I’d always been a fan of reading, I’d never read anything like it before, and I’m eternally grateful to my English teacher that year for requiring it. I re-read it every year. Or anytime I need to restore my faith in the goodness of humankind.
After this, I discovered the realm of Epic Fantasy, and read the DragonLance Chronicles series and Lord of the Rings. I was so desperate at the time for an escape from the torment of middle school, and this was exactly it. I devoured these books over and over and over, furthering my love for the characters within (and in some cases, growing to dislike some characters more and more).
I read constantly. My favorite genre was obviously Fantasy, but I did also really love Science Fiction. I read a lot of Asimov and Anne McCaffery. But I never really cared for the characters as I did in the fantasy stories.
I’m not sure if others were reading like I was reading at the time, but no one seemed to want to talk about their books and no one seemed to speed through their work so they could read more in the books they had. And I know that I used fiction to escape whatever I felt needed escaping from.
As I grew a little older, around 15 or so, I started noticing a pattern in Fantasy and Science Fiction. The authors wanted to control every little thing that was read. It was insulting to me that the authors of these books wouldn’t just let me infer the feelings of the person being held at sword-point (or energy pistol-point). I didn’t need extensive inner dialogue about how tired one was after following that character through a non-stop trek over perilous lands without much sleep for days and days. And I certainly didn’t need a paragraph to describe the exact orange shade of the grass-like plants found on a far away and probably toxic planet. I became disenchanted with both genres and didn’t read much of any for a long time. I missed it terribly, but I was exhausted of their styles.
In my mid 20’s I sped through the first 6 Harry Potter stories in about 8 days. I have no earthly idea why I waited so long to pick up the books. I regret not reading them when they were first released in the States because so, so many people were touched by those stories, and I feel sort of left out now that I wasn’t a part of midnight releases and anticipation for the next book release date. It was the first time that I felt I could actually share my adoration for written characters with others, and I’d missed out on so much already! It became common for others to feel so deeply, emotionally connected to people in a book, and I didn’t feel so weird about books anymore.
And for that I thank JK Rowling. I thank her for creating such a rich and creative world and allowing the readerto use their imagination. I thank her for respecting her reader enough to leave out all of those silly descriptions that are so rampant in the fantasy genre. I thank her for making a deep love of written people more mainstream so that when I talk about books like I always have, people don’t look at me like I’m crazy.
