This topic is recurrent in many other communication channels: people are reading less.
I will not mention the probable reasons for this phenomenon here. It is complex, archaic, and I have no authority to discuss this matter in a way that could effectively bring some contribution to the discussion. But, if you want to go deeper into the question, I will leave some interesting links at the end, just for you.
I can't explain why people are reading less. But I can defend the act of reading and the reason I have been dedicating myself to the literary universe for quite some time.
I had always been a lonely child at school. Not only for constantly moving to different cities and — as a consequence, I was always the "newcomer" in class — but also for living immersed in an internal world of my own. It took me a long time to learn the small talk art and become a more sociable teenager. Because talking to others is an art you learn; only few people can navigate without stumbling in the whirlpool of social relations.
Everyone, who was a lonely child in the past, knows the disadvantages of loneliness. I did not belong to any group, I had always been the last one to be chosen for a team and I do not even know if my colleagues remembered my name spontaneously. Either I was present or absent, it probably made no difference.
But I did not come here to whine about this fact. I came to tell why I defend the book, the literary universe and the reading itself (things that seem synonymous, but are not). Well, I defend these ideas because my childhood and adolescence partner was the book.
And many situations marked my relationship with reading, especially when I entered adolescence, which is a period when the loneliness of childhood stops being a vague notion and becomes something concrete, because it is when we finally realize our loneliness.
The first anecdote is what I consider the milestone of my true, definitive and with no return entrance into the world of reading: it was when my parents brought home an encyclopedia, those of door-to-door sale, that perhaps some of you have known. It was love at first sight. I was so delighted that I did not know which one I would read first, whether the medical encyclopedia or Moby Dick.
It was the medical encyclopedia that answered many of my doubts about puberty, a time we feel like knowing things, but we do not dare to ask about. It was also because of it that I developed a quite bizarre habit, I admit, of using medical terms for diseases and human anatomy (it's not removing the tonsils, it's tonsillectomy. I do not have pain in the shoulders, but in the trapezius muscle and pain in the back has to come with cervical, thoracic or lumbar indication). The pages had a peculiar smell of bright paper and photo printing that I never forgot. The bookworms who read this text will understand what I am talking about. I liked reading just for the pleasure of knowing things. But without me realizing it at the time, it was this collection of books that made me love and value science. The text was technical, but accessible and, little by little, it revealed to me the history of discoveries, the importance of scientific research and how life was more arduous and uncertain before these innovations.
Now Moby Dick inspired my series of very amateur illustrations of sperm whales. I must have scribbled a hundred of them on every sheet of paper. Up to this day the simple opening of this book still fascinates me. But these three words introduce us to the strength of the story : "call me Ishmael." And if up to this day I still do not know how to pronounce Queequeg, my memory has perfectly outlined the image of this harpoon man of few words that say a lot. I remember, as I was enthusiastic about the book, I spontaneously wrote a multipage essay and courageously proposed myself to read for my classmates during a Portuguese class.
I also vividly remember the teacher's reaction, when I was reading half of the second page, interrupting me and saying, "Will it take you too long to finish?” I'm pretty sure she hated me - teacher Sonia, if you are reading this text, you are the one I am talking about - but precisely because my writing was inspired by the book and not by the classes in which the teacher's opinion did not matter much to me. In my view as a girl, teacher Sonia did not like stories, so she could not understand what I was talking about.
Around this period, I had finished Elementary School and started the fifth grade (now sixth grade), with Junior High students. I was a tiny girl and, besides, I was a year in advance. That is why even the school seemed too big for me. I wandered around the corners as lost as a lamb apart from its mother, being even more distracted in my particular universe of fantasy and adventure which was fed by books. Few days after beginning the new school year, I discovered the library. As I write these words, at that very moment, the sound of a choir of Angels and a diaphanous light comes to me by simply mentioning the word “Library!”
As hardworking as my parents were, the number of titles we had at home was quite limited. But as I passed through the doors of Ivo Leão State College library, I entered a universe that, until then, existed only in my head.
From one moment to the other, I could go from a Space trip to Ancient Egypt. It was as if the whole world could fit in that room. And to complete this space of freedom and world conquest, there was a globe, which I would rotate and, with my eyes closed, randomly point to know where I would live when I grew up — at some point, I must have pointed at France!
The experience was already being decisive to influence my spirit forever, but it was when I was looking for a book to borrow — how powerful I felt by having the “library card” — and a copy whose title, as I was 10, 11, sounded funny, fell into my hands: the Divine Comedy, by a certain Dante Alighieri. It was a thick book, but I already knew that the number of pages did not matter. And I read Dante's Journey, who had none other than Virgil as guide and also the beautiful Beatrice (any approach with Berenice is not mere coincidence!). And after that, I never stopped.
After this meeting, I spent a lot of time among the bookshelves of the library. It was my refuge of silence, non-judgment and fantasy. It was the place where I could learn only what interested me.
As time went by, I started making friends, and the library became a haven to which I no longer needed to flee, but which I visited for the simple pleasure of meeting it again.
In the years to come, reading Dante prepared me for many other books. It was also Dante who showed me that every book has its value. Yes, if I was able to read such complicated piece of work, which is respected to this day, I also read feel-good novels (one from which I learned about the diaspora of Holocaust survivors and Yiddish), and I cried my eyes out with a book from the Reader's Digest collection: a story about a teacher who settles in a quaker village in the 19th century.
I don't consider myself a great reader — and I mean it — but books occupy an important part in my life and in my well-being. Up to now I preserve my inner world and I guess it is the book that allows me to do so.
Books give me rest, encouragement. It takes me from difficult times to take me to unknown lives and landscapes. The instant I start reading I cease to exist to become a simple observer. I have no problems or commitments. No afflictions or expectations. I just watch.
And that is why for me, above all, Berenice from Cappadocia is a tribute to the world of storytelling. The cycle of baton passage among Matathias, Berenice, Flavius and the reader celebrates our human capacity to abstract ourselves, to come out of ourselves to imagine solutions to questions of life through the life of others' invented stories. The writer's adventure has not been easy. It is difficult to engage the audience, to convince people to give the book a chance. But I believe in it. I believe in the power of reading because I myself am a beneficiary of that power.
There are many reasons why people do not read or stop reading and everyone knows what makes their soul vibrate. But in case you are wondering if it is worth spending a few minutes of your days immersed in book pages, I can only congratulate you. By choosing to read, you are allowing yourself to have a meeting with a faithful friend, who owns the word gift and who will always reflect the best of yourself.
Have a nice reading!
Here are the links to provide you the understanding of the relationship between Brazil and reading.