I did not grow up in a bookish environment although my mother read. She had books in the house, but she never took us to the library although an aunt did when I visited her. Other people that I have known over the years grew up in a family where everyone read, but they could hardly get the energy to pick up a book. It is a personal affliction or love. I have met many people who have have said they don't have the time to read, but I always find the time even when I was raising my children alone and working several jobs. There was no way I could not read anymore than I could not write. Both reading and writing are linked by me and inseparable and necessary as breathing and eating.
There was someone I heard about who read everything. Now that I do not do. I tried Gothic romances and read one, maybe two; but that was just about all I could do. The artwork on a Victoria Holt novel always looked so inviting, but I just could not get through them. I also had a hard time with Stephen King. I have read several of his books, but I don't enjoy them. I have tried William Faulkner and the only thing I could get through was two of his short stories. I just could not get through his novels. However, I have read all of Ernest Hemingway, some of them more than once. I have read all of John Scott Fitzgerald and more than once. I am trying to read the classics. I have read Jane Austin definitely more than once or twice.
There are fictional characters who are more real to me than people I know. One of them is Sherlock Holmes. Another is Hercule Poirot. I have actually fell deeply in love with characters in books such as Dr. Bernard Rieux in Albert Camus' "The Plague" (Fr. La Peste). I still feel those emotions for those characters. Even as a child, I loved reading about Robin Hood and when I saw the film made by Walt Disney staring Richard Todd, I was in love again. Usually, an actor did not take the place of my fictional characters. For instance, the first film that I saw Sherlock Holmes was staring Basil Rathbone. He was good in it but the scripts were terrible. Rathbone did not look like my own Sherlock Holmes. However, Inspector Morse, to me, will always look like the actor John Thaw.
I was very poor growing up. I got my books from the library and during the 1950's and 1960's. Young adult fiction had not advanced to the genre it is today. I read what they had but never took to the Nancy Drew Mysteries. I could not identify with families who had relationships with their kids. I read adult fiction but never cared for suburban plots although I loved science fiction. I think I read more of it then, then now. I also did not want to read about women getting boyfriends and getting married. I did not see marriage being so great since so many of the women I knew including my mother were locked into abusive relationships and empty futures. I wanted something more, but none of the books had a hint that there was something other than marriage for women. Still, reading gave me a world that was better than the one that I was in.
Teachers, parents and everyone else, it seemed, did not encourage me to read. I was encouraged to look good, get slim and get married. I wanted to go to college. I was told even by my high school counselors that I should consider home economic classes and look for a good husband. I did not want that. Reading helped me expand my horizon. It wasn't much of a horizon, but it was something to dream about. Even the movies and television gave little to women in those days to aspire to. It is different now, but there was nothing for women to work for back then. One of the hot television series was 77 Sunset Strip and the only female lead was a singer, Cricket, who had a crush on a parking attendant who parked cars. All of the private detectives who worked at the address were men. Cricket was always begging to be allowed to help the men in their adventures. She was not bright and had no skills except she looked good and could sing. They had the fancy cars and clothes. She didn't.
I never gave up thinking I would find my answers in books. I found bits and pieces. I found some in John Steinbeck. I found others in other writers and just translated the books in my head
without thinking about it. If the protagonist was male, I made him a female. If the man drove ambulances in Italy, it was a woman driving ambulances in Italy. In science fiction it was much easier to do that and I did it all of the time. I inserted my stories in between the stories, the chapters, the lines in the books. I did it all of the time and sometimes without even thinking about it. I became the adventurer and the hero. There were women doing this such as Amelia Earhart, but there were not many and they were looked down on. Women had adventures by hooking up with some men, but I could change and rearrange those stories so that I could do them by myself and did.Now, I don't have to. Women are having those adventures all by themselves. They are flying airplanes, jets, racing cars and space ships. They are crossing the desert by themselves and with others. It is easier to read books nowadays. I remember reading books on how to be a woman. I remember those books for they were lined up on a shelf in the library and they were all written by a man. That would never fly now. There are lots of young adult books for men and women. Some are for the romantic young ladies looking for the prince, but there are many books for women looking for adventure. If women could not find the right books in the young adult section, there are plenty of them in the adult section that will suit them just fine.
What makes some people readers? I don't know. I do know that I have never seen the local bookstores empty or the public library without people. The manager of the Barnes and Noble Bookstore said they have experienced a slow down in sales in today's economy but not like the overall slow down that other stores are experiencing. I think books are far more interesting than they used to be when I was a teen or even when I was in my 20's. Books are being translated into more languages. The Internet is connecting people with books at a greater rate. I think it is a great time to be a reader, now, today and in a country that does not censor.
