Similarly to Birkerts, to Hayles, and to the Graff’s, I have been greatly impacted first by reading and consequently by writing. I thrived on what I read as a child and as I move toward adulthood I thrive not only on what I read but on the power writing gives me. I believe as Birkerts believes that “to be a writer [is] not just to produce words”; to be a writer is to be able to communicate in the most effective way possible. I joke that I am better on paper than I am in person but this statement holds truth; writing allows me to hone my ideas, my arguments, and my beliefs. Birkerts seems to emphasize the privacy of reading in his book The Gutenberg Elegies, stating that, “reading is the intimate, perhaps secret, part of a larger project, one that finally has little to do with the more societally oriented conceptions of the individual”. In contrast I believe that reading is a means by which to better understand oneself in a societal context and can therefore translate into written contributions toward society (Birkerts repeatedly stresses the connection between reader and writer in his collection of essays). Reading and writing are powerful tools for communication in society, not only of information but sentiment as well.
As a child reading was an exciting way for me to learn new things and to experience new emotions. I grew up surrounded by literature due primarily to my mother who read to me every night and who read avidly herself. In a sense I believe I sought to achieve the same pleasure she so clearly derived from literature for myself. The shift from an audience to an active participant in the reading process took place in Kindergarten where I mastered my ABC’s and began the exciting journey towards the discovery of books. In the 1st grade I had the most amazing teacher, Mrs. Meyer, who literally brought books to life in the classroom. She would reward our good behavior by adding marbles to a jar with the promise that when the jar was filled the class would win a special day in which to do whatever we liked. When the marbles reached the top of the jar my classmates and I would try to contribute the best possible suggestions for our special day and then we would all vote on which was best. The day I remember most vividly was “Amelia Bediala Day”; Mrs. Meyer dressed up as the comical maid Amelia Bedelia and we spent the entire day reading the books and acting out our favorite scenes. Mrs. Meyer not only made reading fun for every student inside of the classroom, she also recognized which students spent time reading outside of the classroom and in turn introduced an after school reading group that I was asked to join. It was thrilling for me to stay after school with a small group of my little 1st grade peers and read through chapter books together. I felt for the first time the power of the written word in the context of a larger group. My fellow students and friends were experiencing the same euphoria I felt upon meeting new characters in new places. It was here in my 1st grade classroom after everyone else had gone home, and while we were eating snacks and reading books that I knew that I had found where I belonged. Not in those tiny chairs forming a semi-circle around Mrs. Meyer, but in a world where I was able to read as I pleased and where others were doing the same. I sought out books because they not only taught me new things, they made me feel wonderful. With every new book I looked for that feeling and I was never disappointed. As Birkerts writes, “[reading] might almost be called pure escape, except that getting away is probably less important than getting to” (Birkerts, 88). When I read I was “getting to” wherever the book took me; it was mysterious and exciting and one of the most powerful things I have ever felt.
After 1st grade the reading I did was a blur for I set off in a fury to read whatever I could get my hands on. I remember trips to the library that would result in stacks and stacks of books that would be returned within the week and replaced by new stacks. I could not get enough of my newfound power and the joy of meeting new characters in new settings. Birkerts describes a wonderful feeling when he writes, “I value the state a book puts me in more than I value the specific contents… I recollect perfectly the feeling of reading [the book], the mood I occupied, but I am less sure about the narrative details” (Birkerts, 84). I know now that like Birkerts I read because the feeling of reading, of discovering even, appeals to me and as a result I read, and I read, and I read and that feeling prevails even when the plot does not. Birkerts would describe this stage during adolescence as “the ideal laboratory for the study of reading and self-formation” (Birkerts, 89). If I was forming myself during this time I was unaware but I believe it’s fair to say that in the eyes of others I was indeed shaping myself into a “reader”. I spent enough time in the presence of books usually with my hands full and my eyes occupied to be labeled as a reader. Next came the label of a “writer”; did I come up with this term myself or were others the first to deem me as such? I don’t know for sure but I do know that I accepted this new portrayal as readily as the first.
Writing was always something that was to be completed in school for an assignment; it wasn’t until just recently, during my senior year of high school, that I found the power that is writing. Birkerts summarizes my initial experiences with writing when he notes that, “the drive to write declared itself only gradually. Just as I was not a devourer of classics at a young age, so too I was not one of those gifted children who are forever making up stories or creating little books” (Birkerts, 40). I am, similarly to Birkerts and quite sadly, not some fantastic writer of fiction. The power of writing I describe was not some sudden ability to create characters, settings, and plots; it was rather the understanding that essays and papers written in school in response to whatever assignment were my contributions to thought and to understanding. When I wrote a paper and was awarded an A it was as though the teacher was validating my thoughts and saying that I had made a worthy contribution to the understanding of the topic. She was saying that my ideas, my sentence structure, my word choice, my use of figurative language were all worthwhile. I was worthwhile. How incredibly powerful I felt. And so writing for me meant that I was playing a role in the society of academia and led me to where I am now with the hope that my writing will extend beyond academics and I will write instead as a member of a broader society, making contributions perhaps for a magazine or newspaper where my opinions and ideas will be valued and deemed worthwhile by my readers.
I believe that most of what Birkerts writes in his Gutenberg Elegies about reading and the writer are true. He writes that in order to reach a “more inclusive understanding of reading (and writing) [one must] think in terms of continuum. At one end, the writer – the flesh and blood individual; at the other, the flesh and blood reader. In the center, the words, the turning pages, the decoding intelligence. Writing is the monumentally complex operation whereby experience, insight, and imagination are distilled into language; reading is the equally complex operation that disperses these distilled elements into another person’s life” (Birkerts, 96). What could be more social than this relationship between the reader and the writer? I believe Birkerts directly contradicts himself with this statement whereas he had previously held that reading was a private act he now discusses in length, how a “fully engaged, we work with the writer to build our own book” (Birkerts, 83). For thousands of years this communication has been taking place. When I read A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens is communicating to me the variances’ in human interaction including: love, hate, revenge, and redemption. And while I am not able to sit down and talk with Charles about his novel, I can read essays written on Dickens and on A Tale of Two Cities to further my understanding; then if I so choose I can contribute to this communication with an essay of my own. With this I conclude that the processes of reading and writing are not able to be clearly separated and are therefore the most elementary means of communication in society, past or present.
