Literature - Personal recreation or source of morality or knowledge of some kind ??
Has literature been important for you in your life ? Why ?
Why do YOU read at all ?
Have the arts in general become a substitute for religion and have the artists become the post-modern priests who play the role of intermediates between the Incomprehensible and the consumers ?
Originally posted by ivanhoeReading literature is like a virtual vacation to a destination
Literature - Personal recreation or source of morality or knowledge of some kind ??
that you could never physically visit.
Vacations to foreign destinations are are a mix of leisure and
education. You cannot visit the Egyptian pyramids without
learning something about them. But surely you will also stop
to admire their beauty and wonder at their creation.
Literature is the same way. One novel that was recently brought
up here is To Kill a Mockingbird. Having been born in 1976,
I could never physically experience the culture about which that
novel is written. But reading such a novel can mentally transport
you to that time, to make it seem like you are there experiencing it.
You can't help but learn from that experience. Such a historical
novel can be more educational than a boring narrative of a history book.
But the mental escape is also a leisure activity, as one duty of a
good novelist is to give the reader that sense of a virtual vacation.
Dr. Cribs
For years i suffered from that school indused phobia of reading. Strange really as i always enjoyed it. Got back into it a couple of years ago when i fell out of love with TV.
There is a common problem in society today i feel. People are under the illusion that they don't have any free time for reading and other such persutes. I have come to realize that ignoring that colourful little box in the corner of the room opens up huge gaps in ones time that can be filled with far more enjoyable, personal achievements.
I find myself a different person because of this. Reading awakens the ones wonder and feeds a hunger for challenging ideas that can enhance ones experience of life.