Giggle Fits and Sauerkraut

Daniel Pennac, The Rights of the Reader

This is an English translation of the 1992 French bestseller, Comme Un Roman, or, Like A Novel, with illustrations by Quentin Blake. It’s a book about reading and the power of books by a celebrated author, parent, and former teacher, and much of it is about how parents and teachers screw up children’s natural enthusiasm for stories. (In that way, it’s very much an unschooling book.)

I first found out about the book when I googled the list of rights: 

I actually bought the Ardizzone translation and a previous translation by David Homel called Better Than Life (terrible title) — the titles were so different, I wasn’t even sure if they were the same book at first. It’s a draw as to which translation I like best, but I lean towards recommending the Ardizzone translation, especially when you add in the Quentin Blake illustrations, and the fact that it’s still in print. 

It’s fairly easy to compare the translations because the chapters are numbered and short. For example, here’s one of my favorite chapters, which is only one sentence:

Quels pédagogues nous étions, quand nous n’avions pas le souci de la pédagogie! (Pennac)

What teachers we were, when we had no concern with teaching! (Homel)

What great teachers we were, when we didn’t worry about our methods. (Ardizzone)

If my rusty French is correct, the Ardizzone is a little bit more accurate and straightforward, while the Homel is a little bit more poetic.

Another example:

“Ainsi découvrit-il la vertu paradoxale de la lecture qui est de nous abstraire du monde pour lui trouver un sens.” (Pennac)

“The paradoxical virtue of reading: it takes us out of the world so we might find meaning in it.” (Homel)

“The paradoxical virtue of reading, which is to abstract ourselves from the world in order to make sense of it.” (Ardizzone)

In that case, I wish I could merge the two translations: 

The paradoxical virtue of reading: it takes us out of the world in order to make sense of it.

Anyways, some of my favorite bits and themes, below, all from the Ardizzone translation, unless otherwise noted.

Bedtime reading is like the ritual of prayer.

A nightly reading ritual frees us from the weight of the day:

A sudden truce after the battle of the day, a reunion lifted us out of the ordinary. We savored the brief moment of silence before the storytelling began, then our voice, sounding like itself again, the liturgy of chapters… Yes, reading a story every evening fulfilled the most beautiful, least selfish, and least speculative function of prayer: that of having our sins forgiven. We didn’t confess, we weren’t looking for a piece of eternity, but it was a moment of communion between us, of textual absolution, a return to the only paradise that matters: intimacy. 

Spirit trumps method.

This is something I’ve been thinking about since reading John Holt, who wrote of teaching children, “It is not so much a matter of technique as of spirit.” (Very punk.)

Turns out Rousseau said something similar about reading in Emile, or On Education:

A great to-do is made of finding the best methods of learning to read. We devise bureaux and cards, we turn the child’s bedroom into a printing press… What a pity! A far surer method, and the one that always gets forgotten, is the desire to read. Give the child that desire, and leave your bureaux right there… any method will work from then on.

To capture his interest; that’s the great motive, and the only one that leads surely and far…

I will just add this word as an important maxim: which is that, ordinarily, we obtain most surely and quickly that which we’re in no hurry to obtain. 

Children (and adults) need time to be bored.

Pennac writes of the overscheduling of children, even 24 years ago:

No television, but piano from five to six; guitar from six to seven; ballet on Wednesdays; judo, tennis, and fencing on Saturdays; cross-country skiing from the first flurry of snowflakes; sailing school from the first rays of sunshine; pottery on rainy days; trips abroad; gymnastics…

She won’t have a moment to herself.

No time to dream.

No chance of being bored.

But being bored is great.

A long stretch of boredom… and all kinds of creativity are possible.

“We make sure she’s never bored.”

(Poor her.)

If you can’t find time to do something, you don’t want to do it bad enough.

Homel writes that “Life is a perpetual plot to keep us from reading.” Here’s the whole passage from the Arriz

So if I’ve got to find time to read every day, which part of my life should I take it from? Friends? TV? Going out? Family? Evenings in? Homework?

How am I going to find the time to read?

A big problem.

Or is it?

If you’re wondering how you’ll find time, it means you don’t really want to read. Because nobody’s ever got time. Children certainly haven’t, nor have teenagers or grownups. Life always gets in the way.

…

Time to read is always time stolen. (Like time to write, for that matter, or time to love.)

Stolen from what?

From the tyranny of living.

Reading is a great way to chill out — a kind of meditation.

“Study has always been my sovereign remedy for disappointment, for I have never experienced a sorrow that was not relieved by an hour of reading.” —Montesquieu

Books don’t change with age — we do.

Until we reach a certain age, we’re not ready for some books. Unlike fine wine, however, good books don’t need to mature. They wait patiently on our bookshelves while we get old. When we think we’re ready to read them, we have another stab.