Why I donāt really read
I have always loved books. As a child they were my key to unknown worlds. When I discovered a good story like the Kalle Blomkvist tales or the Children of the Noisy Village I could read the whole night. However, I didnāt go through stories with as easily as Matilda, and I wasnāt by any means at the top of my class when it came to reading. When we did tests on books like Animal Farm, I had to rely on classmates who HAD read the entire book. Sadly for me, the teacher was too smart and totally failed me when she realised I didnāt know the names of all of the three dogs in the story.
Because itās with such little details that you see if someone has read. When it comes to the Twilight books, you can ask what the color of Rosalieās car was or whatās the name of Bellaās motherās new husband. Attentive readers will know.
I didnāt have such an attention with every story, but I did with some. As I grew to a teenager, a book was always in my bag. People in the bus often saw me with my nose in the book and commented how refreshing it was to see a young person READ. āThey never do anymore these days.ā they said to me. āDonāt ever lose that.ā
I wish I had listened to these words back then. Sadly, looking back now I can say the early reading struggles began for me in high school. In Estonia, one of the biggest exams is writing an essay which is your way to show your viewpoint, maturity and how much you have actually read. I had a lot of the first, a little less of the second and not nearly enough of the third. I had barely finished reading Hamlet, and had not even halfway finished Goetheās āFaustā. All I really had in my arsenal was some extra reading like Dostoevskyās āIdiotā. It was great shooting material for sure, a book I still very very much love - but it was nowhere nearly enough.
I chocked. I got nervous. I relied primarily on my writing talent whilst everything else turned out to be so much more important. So when it came to the actual grading, classmates of mine with far less writing talent got high marks and I got an average one. Funnily enough, the best writers in our class alongside with me all got marks that were nowhere near fair.
This did not help to make my relationship with books better, but luckily also didnāt erase my love for literature. When I finally went to uni and studied it, I really loved it. Mind you, I didnāt always finish the class reading - but when I did I had the best time. And even if I had only barely touched a book I was sometimes successfully able to analyze itās structure. When I did fully read something though, I always got a straight A.
I pushed through a lot of books, sometimes more eagerly and sometimes less so. When it came to my final thesis, I donāt think I read nearly as much as I should have and so I basically ended up with an average grade yet again.
After university, I still sometimes read. However, I came to find that it was easier to actually go through stories with audiobooks - or sometimes even movies or TV shows. I have seen adaptations of stories like Big Little Lies and Me Before You before I ever touched the books. I still have a lot of books, so many I could probably build a throne out of all of them. But I hardly actually use them for what they were meant for.
I do sometimes wonder how I actually ended up studying literature when I hardly ever read these days. Last year I didnāt even finish a book. It seems to me that I have somehow lost a part of myself that I donāt really know how to get back.
When 2020 began, I set myself goals about doing stuff that I used to do. Funnily enough, I have painted. I have made drawings. I have even started to cycle and cook more. I even sing more. But I donāt read.
At the same time I have over 40 audiobooks in my library. I love to listen to others read stories like the Harry Potter Books or the Millennium trilogy. But I miss that voice in my head when I read a book. I miss that imagination I had when I was going through a story. Those things are erased when you let someone else take control of your reading experience.
Itās really sad come to think of that. I know itās not just me that is struggling. Itās a lot of young people these days. Our attention spans are short, and we cannot commit easily to holding something like a book in our hands for a long time. For past generations books were the main forms of entertainment - but not for us. For us everything is so visual. Youtube videos, movies, TV shows. Binge, binge, binge. You donāt have to imagine anything. You donāt even have to cut open the cake anymore - a piece of it is handed to you just like that.
But what if I want to actually cut open the cake for myself and see what is inside? What if I want to be a writer and actually bake the cake myself? What do I do? It used to be so easy, so simple - and now itās so difficult. But there has to be a way. Even if I have to leave hundreds of unfinished books behind for a while, I will forever be trying until I find a way. Until I can connect again with that part of me that actually loved books for what they were. Not for how good the covers look, or how famous the author was - but for the stories inside. For that really is the true value of books.
