7,19
The Battalion
Puesday • October 7, 1997
Recuting between the lines
aziness plagues students who have forsaken popular literature
ml-
Chris
Martin
columnist
M£
■ OhlS
lAOlhiE'
CAhJ ,
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areful, col
lege student
- you’re
wading right now.
Well, probably
kimming, and if
ve have anything
common, you
re waiting for class
o begin, praying
hat your prof does-
| ft call on you to
[liscuss a book you
irere supposed to
ave completed two weeks ago.
For me, reading was actually fun at
|ne point in life. I could barely control
yself the first time those weird squig-
;les in my Little Lulu comic book made
ense. I could read Bible stories on my
wn and not just guess what was going
nin those bizarre Precious Moments
ietas. I even made a habit of reading
y mom’s 1962 encyclopedias every
ight.
"By 1980, scientists predict that a
ajority of middle class Americans will
ommute to the moon for work each
ay,” the ‘“cyclopedia” would say. I
an’t wait.
The library was a boundless source
fwonder at that age. I would shuffle
iver to the kid’s section, which always
lad inspiring posters of C-3PO or Miss
5 iggy saying “Reading is Fun!”
Even television encouraged this new-
ound obsession. My all-time ultimate
;oal was to be one of those kids on the
nd of Reading Rainbow, warbling on
md on about how great the new
Madeleine L’Engle book was.
Then for some reason reading got
less exciting.
One reason was my Aunt Linda. As
an English teacher, she was required by
federal law to give me books every
Christmas and birthday.
“Hey! A present from Aunt Linda!
What could it be?”
Shake, shake -— thwunk.
The sound of a heavy hardcover book
vrapped up with tissue inside a white
cardboard box was unmistakably hor
rendous, unlike the joyous sound of a
million pirate Leggo pieces. Avast.
So like eating hominy, taking baths
and not sitting in the car honking the
horn all afternoon, reading became a
forced activity, and ergo, an object of
rebellion.
Zoom forward to college, where re
bellion often becomes a moot point in
the absence of direct parental supervi
sion. Luckily, we have nice authoritari
an instructors who delight in taking the
force-feeding mantle to new heights.
“Class, read the first 800 pages of
Spenser’s The Faerie Queene in your
fifth-generation Xeroxed class packet
for Monday. By the way, it’s set in old
English type and the s’s look like f’s and
the u’s are v’s so you may want to tran
scribe the whole thing out before you
read it. Have a good weekend.”
So off we shuffle to the library, where
there are no posters of C-3PO or Miss
Piggy, to read. The library has graciously
banned all traces of food or nourish
ment from the premises in an academic
attempt to make you concentrate on
reading about the many methods of sta
tistical gathering instead of reading
about the intricate odds and details of
the Twist-a-Pepper contest.
The real brain power in college be
longs to those who figure out how to
learn all the information without the
cumbersome burden of reading. Some
people control their own slack destiny
with Cliff’s Notes. Frankly, I don’t un
derstand why people think Cliff’s Notes
are like manna from heaven, because
you still have to read them.
One solution I tried was to get pre
highlighted books, and only read what
was highlighted. This master plan has
its kinks, however, especially when your
book has been highlighted so much, the
pages look like clown vomit. There
should also be a mandatory posting of
the previous owner’s grade on the in
side cover. That would save a lot of
heartache.
As much as I would love to read
about the battle of Midway, it’s just im
possible when the cast of “Eight is
Enough” is locked in mortal combat
against the cast of “Love Boat” on a re
run of the “Family Feud” on the Game
Show Network. Man, America sure
knew how to treat its stars back in the
early ‘80s. We could all look forward to
seeing Cathy Lee Crosby walk across
broken glass in the Circus of the Stars,
or see Leroy from “Fame” pull some
Bloopers and Practical Jokes on Debi
Allen. But I digress.
The biggest victim of bibliocide is the
innocent trade paperback. Forced read
ing is like Orwell’s two minutes of hate,
brazenly conditioning the victim to re
coil at anything remotely resembling a
textbook.
Say you have a certain personality
quirk from deep inside your marrow
that transcends any label made avail
able by the English language, and to
simplify conversations you sum up your
realm of consciousness with one artifi
cial word like, for instance, “smarmy.”
Suddenly a deep and swirling indigo
ocean of emotion and purpose has been
distilled down into blase puddle of
brown hot dog juice.
Reading, like storytelling, may die in
the face of new communication ad
vances. By 2080, scientists predict that a
majority of middle class Americans will
absorb the great classics from a literacy
pill. I can’t wait.
Chris Martin is a senior
journalism major.
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