THE glass-topped chest of drawers beside my bed is a testament to my towering love of books. At any one time, the volumes of biography, novels and works of non-fiction clamber up the side of the neighbouring lamp until they almost touch the shade.
A visitor who takes a wrong turn in the hall and stumbles into my sleeping chamber could not help but conclude that here, in peppermint-striped pyjamas and white- tasselled sleeping cap, slumbers an erudite and literary fellow. Except, of course, fo
r one slight problem – my inability to commit to any one tome and follow its narrative thread to the climax.
I am, I must confess, a literary Casanova. A rogue whose eye is constantly caught by the bewitching cover of the next great read, even while still thumbing through the pages of my latest conquest. "Noooo," each book squeals as I begin to close it over while making hasty promises to return soon, even though, in my heart, I know we will never be reunited.
The punishment for being such a bibliophile satyr has been an embarrassing form of literary dysfunction that no small, blue pill can correct. I am, sadly, almost unable to read more than a few pages from any one book unless forced by the absolute requirement of work. It started with fat novels abandoned two-thirds of the way through, then deepened when I switched to short novels I binned before the middle. Just as the man who halves the distance covered with each stride will never reach his destination, so I seem cursed never to reach a conclusion. I moved on to short stories, which worked for a spell, until I found myself recoiling at the 15-page length of a story by Raymond Carver and left his drunken misfits mid-tale.
I am now rediscovering poetry, a slender compendium of Ted Hughes's work, published in a pamphlet, a free gift with a newspaper, but feel it is only a matter of time before I abandon the great man in mid-stanza. Only the haiku is left as a literary refuge. I blame the easy availability of books and the tempting delights of the three-for-the-price-of-two displays in modern bookstores.
Yet I take comfort in knowing that my own brand of functional illiteracy has brought me closer to the youth of today who, according to a new report, are also finding it easier to put a book down than pick a book up.
The National Year of Reading discovered that young boys and girls are favouring magazines such as Heat and Bliss over books, especially novels longer than 100 pages. Many are still spending large amounts of time reading, but websites and online blogs.
The concern, according to Sue Palmer, the literacy consultant, is that a whole generation may grow up unable to muster the stamina required to finish reading a book.
"By reading a book, you are building up the stamina to absorb words for a longer period of time. What you are doing is gradually locking brains with the author, which you do not really do in quite the same way when you read chunks of a magazine or chunks of text on a screen. This personal interaction going on in your head is that thing that's special about reading a book and the pleasure of that is what, in the end, turns someone into a reader."
At least I am aware of the pleasures I have for the moment misplaced, such as the transcendental luxury of sailing in a giant boat of words which, in a fine novel, will transport you to some distant shore. Sadly, many children will never know what I have carelessly lost.
The full article contains 638 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
