The Sharpest Blade

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Reading is fundamental. Essay. 700 words, 4-minute read.

Young Woman Reading, Alfred Stevens, 1856.​

The Sharpest Blade

By Ray Tabler

Recently, I attended a talk by novelist Jessica G. Guerrieri, about her books Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and Both Can Be True. One of the themes in her work is the effect of reading upon her early childhood and later life. Literature always held an addictive attraction for her, a form of escapism from her troubles.

Despite the benefits of reading, 19th century alarmists were eager to point out the drawbacks. Women especially seemed prone to wandering off into a trance, gripped in the clutches of scandalous novels. Blogger Eleanor Rose recounts the horrified 1864 testimony of a Massachusetts physician, “I have seen a young lady with her table loaded with volumes of fictitious trash, poring day after day and night after night over highly wrought scenes and skillfully portrayed pictures of romance, until her cheeks grew pale, her eyes became wild and restless, and her mind wandered and was lost – the light of intelligence passed behind a cloud, and her soul was forever benighted. She was insane, incurably insane from reading novels.” What a sordid scene!

Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Reading is in many ways like a drug. It is easy to become addicted to staring at the printed page while hallucinating. However, like any drug, the danger or the benefit derives from how it is used not in its chemistry. Opiates can facilitate life-saving surgery. They can also ruin lives through the downward spiral of addiction.

The same goes for any tool or technology. Fire can cook food and heat homes against winter weather. Fire can also burn a home to the ground if handled carelessly. Yet we cannot imagine a world without the flame. It would be a chilly place. Pick any technology. Automobiles. Telecommunications. Chemistry. Yes, even AI. The dual benefit/danger nature is present. It is up to us to maximize the one and minimize the other. The track record is admittedly mixed.

Which brings us back to reading. Yes, literacy is intractably entwined with escapism. The act of reading opens the mind to the thoughts of others in a way that the spoken word cannot. The voice of the author speaks within your head through the Trojan horse of the printed word. Reading is, in essence, an escape from the reality surrounding the reader.

The effect of those words, trustingly welcomed into the mind, depends entirely upon the wisdom and experience of the reader. Over time, the discerning reader hones his mentality upon what he reads, as if sharpening a blade. The mind is shaped by the material. And the harder, the tougher, the read, the keener the blade becomes. Blunting is another potential outcome.

Reading is escapism. But where one escapes to and from makes all the difference. The driving force for an escape is dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction from boredom, injustice, limits, misery. If reading is employed simply to deaden the negative experience of boredom, stress, or pain the result is dissolution and wasteful stasis. If, however, reading awakens curiosity, and the drive to explore, the results are change. Change is often uncontrolled and unpredictable. That worries people who benefit from the status quo. Worries them to no end. When the time for change comes, a sharp blade will cut clean. A blunt object brings collateral damage.

Literacy unlocks dangerous capabilities within the reader. Unavoidable comparisons between what is and what should be are made. Between local and global conditions. Accountability to past promises from authority is almost automatically enforced. Exploration of alternatives is encouraged, and possible escape routes to those alternatives. No wonder those in charge have always cast a worried eye on people who read too much. Gives us uppity ideas. Gutenberg’s curse upon the privileged classes.

And yet, as always, the responsibility comes back to us. What are you doing with the words your eyes drink in? Doomscrolling or discerning? Honing that blade between your ears, or letting it rust? You are what you read.

END.

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