Reading was on of my great escapes, starting with grade one. I was fortunate enough to be "gently coerced" into reading. It was a gradual discovery of an universe which had nothing to do with the daily reality, and in the end one of the great escapes was science-fiction. My country literature was full of different type of genres and, by chance, I was stepping on some of them my mistake. In my childhood, the books were treasured and hunted, some of them passed subversively and amply commented. Maybe I was a by-product of the political environment and less a "free-will" person, in any way. My family helped a lot by sending my in exile in country-side, in the summer-time. Lots of time to kill!
Pulp fiction was one of them but was disappearing after the second world two, because the regime was cleansing the society of the "bad fouls of bourgeois thinking". I remember the first time I read "The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio, or soft-porn books from inter-war authors! But the real eye-opener came from authors of our times, struggling to raise awareness about contemporary issues. After a while, as with any kind of subversive culture, literature was starting to become encrypted in your face, abundant in symbols and fables with strange connections with reality. The whole culture was full of twisted stories telling something about those times in such a way that could not be clearly labeled as subversive. The political jokes morphed in jokes with animals, movies hid unfinished sentences that most of the people were thinking about.
But that was one of the functions of the culture, to stimulate in an oppressive political system and, in a way to thrive intellectually against obvious obstacles. Coming from that environment into a "open on all fronts" (North-America) is a bit of an adjustment. One advantage, 'though, is the sensibility of detecting BS in public discourse or hidden propaganda in media. It is not obvious, it is not recognized because one of the attributes of propaganda is the endless loop of releasing it on different channels until everybody is intoxicated and cannot think against it (see the American rhetoric about Kuwait invasion). Another culture flood is about nothing or "vanity fairs" which abounds and crowds out the real issue people should discuss. Can you decipher the strategy of obfuscation through diversion? The real issues are squeezed between "nothingness" of daily events and big turns in economy or politics are fleeting moments barely mentioned by main stream media.
There is hope, there are people discussing those real problems which are born right now or maybe started decades ago, without waves created in media - the real thinning of the middle class, the big advances of the big business in politics and the influence of health in economy - is that a real health of people or economy of health for people?
I digress, but my obsession with books I tried to instill it to my kid. Sometimes I am afraid that I will drive her in the opposite direction. It is hard to have a discussion if there are no people around to help you, in minimal ways. Can you have a discussion about issues which are not in every-day media? Unfortunately we are living in a piece-meal kind of culture delivered by outlets weighing "number of eye-balls".
The impulse about this post came from an article Want to help your child succeed in school? It’s about reading, not homework which simply states how important is to read to your kid. Where is the inner drive coming to make that voluntary step of wanting to find information? In biography of different authors, I recall the kids being first witness at discussions and then wanting to participate. So instead of reading to kids, the real question is how do you awaken the inner drive for them to go and read, find information and enjoy the journey?
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