By JJ Ledewitz, Senior Arts and Culture Editor
I used to read. A lot.
The library was an escape for me. I would go and read, and then check out dozens of books. The library I used to visit had a limit of 75 books checked out on a library card at once, and I remember dragging a large suitcase there, desperately trying to find a way to go over the limit and fill the suitcase with as many books as it could fit. And I’d go to this library at least once a month.
As I said, I used to read a lot.
Before my teenage years, I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy books, eager to be thrown into a world unlike my own. Know a sci-fi/fantasy series for kids? I definitely read it back in the day, more than once. It wasn’t really something I did for fun — not that it wasn’t fun, it’s just that I read because I was a kid with an imagination that needed to be in use.
I used to read during class too. There was a special way to hide the book under the desk so the teacher couldn’t see. Yes, they would suspect that something was up, and maybe they’d even come over, but there were strategies on how and when to hide the book, or even what to say if caught. I read during lunch as well. And recess. Why shoot hoops when you could take a ride on a fire-breathing dragon that could travel through portals that traversed across space and time?
By the time I got to high school, the obsession slowly faded. Free time barely existed anymore, and I began to write my own stuff. It was fun, and it was less risky to do during class. But every once in a while, I would pick up a book or two and feel the same way I did years ago, watching the world around me spin, faster and faster, until it became completely different.
When I came to Yeshiva University, I hoped to continue to use my imagination during my own time and not during school, just as I’m sure the authors intended (and my teachers would hope), but I was just too busy. I wanted to read more, I wanted to dive into those other worlds, but there was simply no time anymore.
Thankfully, I got to read some fantastic novels for some classes here. Pale Fire was the first, a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov that starts with a long poem by a fictional poet, followed by prose analysis of the poem by the fictional poet’s strange neighbor. It’s got layers and layers of meaning, with some absolutely mind-bending parts to it.
This novel drew me back into my old ways, and after I read it I desperately wanted to consume everything I could through classes at YU. Shakespeare — a lot of it. Phillip Roth’s alternate history novel The Plot Against America. Each one made me seek more, and it’s gotten to a point where my obsession has taken over me more than ever before.
Of course, I don’t mean I’ll be reading in class or wasting my time. As an adult, I’ve realized that real life is important and needs to be maintained and tended to, just like imagination. As a kid I didn’t realize this, and I didn’t have to, but now I must. There’s a balance, one that still lets me enjoy plenty of time in a book. I’m happy about it. It’s fun, and it helps me think. I’ve got the whole summer ahead of me and I just got my hands on Blake Crouch’s apparently fantastic Wayward Pines trilogy.
I’m writing this article because I know that some of you out there were like me. Maybe you think you only enjoyed reading because you had such a big imagination back then — you were a kid, and you did. Now, things are different. Find a way to give yourself the time, space and energy to read. Take a literature class. You can disappear for a few hours and experience something you don’t even realize you’ve been avoiding for a long time.
Photo Credit: JJ Grayson