ScumLife

Charles Bukowski

Reading BOOKS with Kray or “A Good Hot Beer Shit”

Sometimes people I meet react to the mention of a book recently read with horror and anxiety

They say something like: “I really should read more.”

It’s similar to when someone mentions flab and you think of sit-ups.
Or mentions quitting smoking to a smoker: “yeah. I really gotta quit these things”
It’s something you know to be “good for you” but must be put off forever and felt guilty about.

I’m not sure of the exact statistics, I’ll have to ask a scientist, but plainly: Human beings don’t read as much as they once did. Despite the fact that there are more literate humans then ever before.

For much of human history reading and writing was an ability reserved only for the rich or for the holy. Literacy for the masses was once seen as a danger to the ruling classes. Great efforts were made to keep reading away from ordinary working people. There were laws in this country banning the teaching of slaves to read and write. They (the lawmakers) saw literacy as a threat.

But today we are living in the age of the great distraction. Where everything seems possible but nobody gives a shit.

I don’t. That’s for sure.

But reading books is not like eating more vegetables.
It’s not something that’s supposed to be good for you but doesn’t taste as good as ice cream.

Books are a more general category - like food. There are ice cream books and carrot books and books about too much red meat and books about too much red wine (they say one glass a day is good for your heart).

Plus: If a book is a bore; If it’s a struggle to get through; it’s probably not for you. It’s not your fault. It’s probably the book’s fault. Life’s too short to struggle through “War and Peace”. If it bores you to tears: put it down.

One must seek out the books that speak to them. Because reading is essentially a creative act. And therefore takes some effort. As human beings experience their media in ever increasing passivity - Letting the television wash over us and seep into our pores without so much as the lifting of a finger - It is important to take a stance on what kind of ideas you absorb and what kind of experiences you are willing to have.

Henry Miller:

“And, though reading may not at first blush seem like an act of creation, in a real sense it is. Without the enthusiastic reader, who is really the author’s counterpart and very often his most secret rival, a book would die. The man who spreads the good word augments not only the life of the book in question but the act of creation itself. He breathes spirit into other readers. he sustains the creative spirit everywhere. Whether he is aware of it or not, what he is doing is praising God’s handiwork. For, the good reader, like the good author, knows that everything stems from the same source. He knows that he could not participate in the author’s private experience were he not composed of the same substance through and through. And when I say author I mean Author. The writer is, of course, the best of all readers, for in writing, or “creating,” as it is called, he is but reading and transcribing the great message of Creation which the Creator in his goodness has made manifest to him.”
                                                  -Henry Miller, “The Books in my Life”

peace
-KRAY LA SOUL

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 13th, 2008 at 5:59 pm and is filed under ScumLife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.