Cooking up some Kitsch with my Easy-Bake Writing

This blog may be the hardest one for me to write now that I am currently very keenly aware of my own tendency to meander into the language trap that George Orwell speaks of in his essay. In fact, I mindlessly began this post with a “not-un-formation” (As a student I am not unfamiliar…) but caught myself before I could complete the despicable sentence. I am shocked by how much this modern English has permeated my writing, but then again I have had years of practice regurgitating phrases that I think sound intelligent. These “ready-made” phrases have allowed me to cook up in a matter of minutes, essays that should have taken hours of preparation. I was able to justify the tasteless concoctions produced with the excuse that I was simply not interested in the subject matter so they were somehow severed from my identity as a writer. I now realize that this lazy habit of Easy-Bake Writing left its insidious mark.

I not only allowed for it to happen but took pride in the fact that I could fill up a whole page with print and not once have to engage my brain. Making it to two pages was even better; for a five page research paper on atomic bonding that would mean just three pages of actual research. I’m guilty of it all: dying metaphors, pretentious diction, meaningless words, and my personal favorite, operators. I recall literally perusing my papers for opportunities to turn verbs into operators in order to meet a word count.  This language was more prevalent in my science papers, probably because I thought I had to use “scientific words”.  Contrastingly, when I wrote a ten page research paper on “Moral Decadence in The Picture of Dorian Gray” for British Literature I spent hours trying to perfect my own personal masterpiece because I was writing for pleasure and not for the grade.

However, the problem with disassociating writing for pleasure and obligatory writing is that there is no such distinction in the mind. All words and phrases, both sincere and “slovenly”, conglomerate inside the kitchen-sink of our brain. When you actually want to be sincere there is now a barrier you must surpass.  “An accumulation of stale phrases chokes [you] like tea leaves blocking a sink”, as Orwell would put it.  At this point it is no longer you constructing words or thoughts. The phrases muddle your meaning until you are so confused that you forget what it is you were trying to convey to begin with. I can relate to this suffocating experience. I am quite fond of poetry and song lyrics, but whenever I attempt to write down sincere thoughts on paper a mob of horrendously cliché phrases lays siege to my brain. Under this influence the products of my creative effort almost never retain their integrity. I only find myself producing the same kitsch over and over again in slightly differing variations. Just like the little half baked cupcakes I would cook in minutes with my Easy-Bake oven when I was little, I produce doughy, tasteless excuses for writing when I don’t consciously force myself to think.

                                                                                                                                         

Getting Involved in a Complicated Relationship

The ideas conveyed in A History of Reading that most “stir or delight [my] soul (p. 63),” as St. Augustine would put it, are those that touch on the convoluted relationship between book and reader. As a reader and aspiring writer I could easily connect with the metaphors used to describe this intricate relationship. Some of Manguel’s personal thoughts on reading as well as the quotes of others in his account of its history turned out to be feelings I have carried inside for years, finally making their eloquent escape onto the pages of the text. This is only natural, as the history of reading is one shared by many.

The description of words as sustenance [the first example found in Ezekiel (p. 171)] is in my opinion the best metaphor to describe the relationship between book and reader. It accurately depicts the insatiable appetite as well as the urgent possessiveness that I feel when I am holding a book. When it comes to reading, enough is never enough.

 A true reader is also a scavenger. I don’t blame Alexander the Great for stopping ships at Alexandria to snatch up literature for his already overwhelmingly extensive library of nearly half a million scrolls (p. 189). Owning a book is not like owning a shiny new pair of boots. It is not even comparable to owning a pet, although I quite enjoyed Manguel’s comparison of yellowed and withering paperbacks on the patio to rescued stray cats (p.141).

As Manguel says, one does not simply read a book: “One reads a certain edition, a specific copy, recognizable by the roughness or smoothness of its paper, by its scent, by a slight tear on page 72 and a coffee ring on the right-hand corner of the back cover (bottom of p.15).” We attach sentimental value to our books as we do friends worthy of affection. Books are things that we first judge, then own, and finally assign differing levels of meaning to. Like friends, we have favorites, and like friends our books must inevitably find their unique place in our lives.

As explained in the chapter on private reading beginning on page 149, in the complex relationship between book and reader, where you read a book is just as important as the book you have chosen. To continue the comparison of books to friends, every book has more or less a certain place in which it is enhanced and able to have its full effect upon us. Not only does each book have an ordained place, but will also usually hold fast to a specific time that is proper or habitual. A book whose company you would enjoy in bed beneath the glow of a solitary lamp may not be a book whose face you would welcome flooded in the light of day upon a park bench.

This can be carried into the idea of books as social mediums. Manguel explores this idea when he speaks of a cousin of his who “was deeply aware that books could function as a badge, a sign of alliance, and always chose a book to take on her travels with the same care with which she chose her handbag (p. 214).”Therefore a book to be read while traveling or in public must be chosen wisely in order to reflect the image you wish to portray to others. Accordingly, you can immediately feel a deep connection with a stranger if you see him or her delving into the depths of a text that is close to your heart. It is in that moment you realize that you share a mutual friend, and therefore a mutual interest.

 The kindle of course renders all this fuss quite useless when your reading material becomes hidden behind a standard electronic tablet. This sort of privacy could be nice at times (after all, many readers seek escape from their surroundings) but could also lessen the social aspect of reading. The act of reading (be it kindle or book) is however in itself a social statement.

 I do not believe that books are in danger of being replaced by electronic-books. They are not as personal, nor can a person “retain a sense of the whole (p.127)” when they are holding an e-book like they can a codex. Manguel is right when he says that readers today are familiar with the “return of the ancient book-form on our computer screens”, in reference to the limiting surface of a scroll. This is not entirely the case with a kindle as it is a computer because you still hold a book in page format, but you may not finger your place at multiple sections, place post-its and scribble notes, or easily flip through pages like you can with a book.

Regardless of the format, the passionate relationship between book and reader is not limited to a mere physical item. It does not end with the completion of the final page, nor is it constricted to the confines of a publisher’s binding. The relationship between book and reader, like any other relationship, is carried on through memory. Books become a part of their readers. When explaining Walt Whitman’s opinion on the topic, Manguel states: “… invisibly, unconsciously, text and reader become intertwined, creating new levels of meaning, so that every time we cause the text to yield something by ingesting it, simultaneously something else is borne beneath it that we haven’t yet grasped (p. 173).”

Likewise, I believe that memorizing takes us to an even deeper level of intimacy within our relationship with a text. It is now our own in almost every sense, privately stowed away inside the recesses of our minds. It is the simple pleasure of a secret ownership, and a challenge to integrate that which we love unto ourselves.

Response to TWILIGHT OF THE BOOKS by Caleb Crain

For starters, I had to look up the word “arcane” as it described reading in the first paragraph of the article because it is not a word that I see very often.  (They warn that it probably won't regain the prestige of exclusivity; it may just become "an increasingly arcane hobby.") My initial reaction was to assume it meant archaic judging by the context of the sentence and the simple fact that the words sound similar. However, it is defined as: known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric. So sociologists mean to say that reading will become somewhat of an obscure hobby in the future, like bird watching or constructing remote control planes. This is easier for me to stomach than a fearful dystopia like in Farenheit 451, but makes me said nonetheless.

I believe that the biggest thing lost in the transition from text to audiovisual media would be exercise of imagination. There is something so beautiful about creating images in your head when you read. They are your own, generated by your own personal bucket of data, making solitary reading a creative and self realizing sort of experience. Words cause us to reflect.

Furthermore, opening a book is like opening a dormant world through our imaginations. Just as the author brought a world into being through his imagination, the reader completes the cycle of revitalization with every new viewing. As readers we do not simply sit back and demand to be entertained. We must put effort into the creation of our own world of entertainment through exercising our imagination.

I found the paragraph on the progression from childhood reading to that of adult to be extremely interesting as it concerns the imagination. According to the article, as we grow up our brain signals actually change the routes in which they navigate; a short cut that allows for faster comprehension of data while also tying in more of our own personal experiences with what we are reading. I was immediately reminded of an informative writing article I had read recently called: Writing to the Imagination by Kathy Krajco. It states that as we grow older we are able to process words as “raw stimuli” rather than processing them the way a computer would process computer language. In other words, the process becomes more personalized as we accumulate a network of human data, or a “relational database”.

According to Krajco’s article, this is not developed until the mid-twenties. Therefore, once our imaginations are more fully developed we do not simply process words as language, but we experience the words as they come to us. Interestingly enough, this is why many experts think that teens show poor judgment in comparison to adults. As where adults could feel and experience the consequences of a decision before it is made, teens can only analyze the situation.

This being said, I can only see books as being the logical continuation in exercising our ever growing imaginations. Children need picture books because their brains are not fully formed. What does this say about television? I am not supposing to be an advocate for destroying modern technology, but I will not allow myself to believe that books will become obsolete either. Audiovisual media is very important, but does not replace the function of literature. As far as the shocking statistics on the nearly extinct newspaper, I don’t really see that as being a reflection on the future of books. Maybe that is just a result of my own stereotyping of a newspaper as something that old men read on Sundays. Publishing is undoubtedly dwindling with the green movement and the invention of e-book readers, but this transition could also open new doors of opportunity for aspiring writers.

In reference to the recent experiment concerning PowerPoint, in which the silent readers retained more information and were more entertained than those who were informed both visually and audibly, I would have to say I am not surprised. Personally, I have never understood the recent PowerPoint craze.  PowerPoint just seems like another good excuse on top of Google and SparkNotes for students to slack; to cut and paste and replace solid research with entertaining photos. Ironically, many teachers seem to praise it in the name of moving forward with education. When I am viewing a PowerPoint presentation I always feel as if I am getting random, disconnected phenomenon thrown at me rather than absorbing one cohesive lesson, and in the case that the PowerPoint was compiled by a student, this is usually not far from the truth. I would much prefer reading from a textbook where I would take the personal initiative in retaining the information rather than have it chopped up and fed to me in pieces via PowerPoint. Perhaps this has something to do with some sort of psychological conditioning of my brain to shut off and recline in a La-Z-Boy boy every time a screen pops up.

Back on the topic of television, I would have to agree with Marshall McLuhan in the article when he says that television “completes the cycle of the human sensorium”. It allows for an immediate grasp on the personality of a person creating quick emotional connections which can be a helpful tool for politicians and the like. But this could also be used to help out authors in a way. Many times I have felt more connected to characters in books after already having gotten to know them on the television screen. Film is often a medium in which people can become exposed to good literature through its visual counterpart. There is not as much media bombarding us on a daily basis advertising for literature as there is for movies and television series, making film the incentive some may need to be introduced to newly published books. This is not to say that I believe reading is secondary to viewing, but only to imply that the television and movie industry may be benefiting authors in some very imperative ways.

The final observation I would like to make on the article concerns the last several paragraphs. The overall message that I glean from them is that our world could be in danger of becoming populated by persons who do not think for themselves nor care to act upon their convictions. This would be the result of “a culture of secondary orality” where people would avoid interaction with any ideas they do not agree with and agree with ideas that do not have any real authority or truth behind them. This secondary orality would stem from selective television viewing. In contrast, the article suggests reading as “a prototype of independence” that inspires us to act. All of this kind of reminds me of the opiate of the masses idea from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

 In relation, 19^th century American education reformist Horace Mann once said:

        A house without books is like a room without windows…. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it.  And the love of knowledge, in a young mind, is almost a warrant against the inferior excitement of passions and vices.

It would not be far-fetched to say that television has become the new universal “window” through which we view the world, but a window that may be personalized based on what each individual would like to see. Unfortunately what most people would like to see is their own beliefs and opinions confirmed back to them.