Relating Reading to Experience: The Fascinating World of Books

Hansa Hasgur
Turkey
ESOL 400
Fall 2007

The person who finds pleasure in reading can never stop it because there is a fascinating world inside books. As LinYutang repeatedly stated in his article “The Art of Reading,” reading is a kind of art (p. 90). Sometimes when you ask some people about their hobbies, they include reading as one of them. For me, reading is such a serious and an important task that it cannot be a hobby because a hobby is an occupation that a person does in his\her leisure time. However, reading books should not be considered as a leisure time activity. If we find pleasure in reading, then we should allocate a special time for it. For this reason, we need to understand reading as a serious job instead of a hobby, which we do to spend or kill time.

As it is stated before, there is a fascinating world inside every book. It does not mean that every book must be read because each person’s taste is different from another. Not every book can address everyone’s tastes, but there is a book which is definitely written for you. As Lin Yutang emphasized in “The Art of Reading,” “There are no books in this world that everybody must read” (p. 92). When someone captures the magic inside the world of books, he/she starts to read passionately. I remember my high school years, which were full of reading. I finished a book every two days. I could not stop myself from reading or I could not think of anything other than the book that I was reading. Those years were really enviable because I cannot read that much right now. After a while, I realized that my vocabulary was enriched fabulously and the words that I used in the conversations started to change. I also started to set up longer and more sophisticated sentences while writing. This fact is true for foreign languages too. When I read books in English it is immediately reflected to my vocabulary and writing. Therefore, we can see another benefit of reading. While reading, we have the opportunity of learning different ideas, cultures and lives, as well as improving or strengthening our vocabulary, speech and writing. However, as Lin Yutang emphasized, if people read to improve their minds, they cannot get pleasure from what they read. I never aim to get those benefits from reading. While reading, the only purpose of mine is to get the pleasure from the book. If I do not enjoy reading a book, I never read it even though it may give me the secret of life. The benefits and enrichment of vocabulary or speech are like “promotions” which come together with reading as a package.

Reading a book is a great way to take a quick immediate break, to be instantly transported into another world. Lin Yutang illustrates this statement in his article by saying that books carry their readers into different worlds (p. 90). When I read books, especially novels, I always go to the places which the novel takes place. When I read Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, I went to the Russia with great excitement, as if I lived at that time. When I read Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, I went to Atlanta in 1864, at the time of war and poverty. There is no limit to the places books can take us. In addition, reading opens our mind to new possibilities. It stretches our imagination in new and wonderful directions and takes our mind on a wonderful journey through others’ lives. I always put myself into the position of the characters in the book that I read. When I read Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, I imagined what I would do if I were Rodion Raskolnikov. Would I prefer a life in poverty or would I go after my obsessions? After killing the old lady, how would I live with the prick of conscience? When I read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, I sometimes put myself into the position of George, and sometimes Lennie. Would I kill Lennie if I were in the same situation?

Books are capable of provoking many and varied emotional responses. They can make us laugh out loud, they can make tears spill onto the page, they can challenge our core beliefs and thoughts. There is a world of emotion in every book. I remember how I burst into tears at the end of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. The book was so touching that I finished it in two days. I went to Paris in those days with Jean Valjean and felt the same grief. I sometimes became happy and smiled at his happiness, and sometimes I was frightened by the dangers he faced throughout the book. In addition, I learned a lot from that book about honesty, self-sacrifice for our beloved ones and benevolence. While reading, we become passive contributors of the book. This fact is also stated in Lin Yutang’s article. “The net gain comes as much from the reader’s contribution through his own insight and experience as from the author’s own” (p. 93). We add our own experiences, knowledge, emotions and understandings to the book, which differentiate our benefits from those of other readers of the same book. Those qualities make reading an art and turn us, the readers, to artists.

Some good books can be read a second or third time because those books address every age or every understanding. As Lin Yutang stated in his article “All good books can be read with profit and renewed pleasure a second time” (p.92). When we read a book at the age of seventeen, we get a benefit and pleasure in terms of our understanding. However, when we read it at the age of forty, the benefit and pleasure which we get, will be increased. When I read Crime and Punishment in high school, I did not understand many ideas and concepts. In fact, the book seemed to me very boring. However, when I read it the second time in my university years, I got different benefits and pleasures from the book. In addition, if I really like a book, I can read it a second time giving more attention to the details, or I can read it after two or three years to refresh my memory and get the same pleasure of reading.

I always see the books as the most loyal friends of people. They never have expectations and they never complain about anything. When we feel alone, we go to them and they immediately open their fascinating world without judging us. Books make you forget your loneliness and the relationship between you and books is endless.