bookworm.

After the lecture I was left feeling somewhat perplexed as to where my passion for reading had
jumped ship. I knew I enjoyed reading, but I found myself searching the corners
of my mind, searching for the last book I picked up because I simply wanted to,
because I simply cared what happened in the story. I was left with the shocking
realization that the only form of “literature” I do read for pure pleasure was
Cosmo, Company and Glamour.

I then cast my thoughts back, desperately searching for the point at which my relationship with reading went sour.

In the process of doing so, I found myself questioning my university
career and whether it was/is an influential factor in my ability to read for
pleasure. I took myself back to the very start: UCAS. Surely, when applying for
an English Literature and Language degree course I would have had to express my
love for reading. With my personal statement somewhat hard to locate, I looked
at example statements online. One read: “I have always been fascinated by the
way writers can influence, and even manipulate reader’s emotions by their
expression of thoughts, and by their ability to encourage the expansion of our
imaginations and understanding.” And another; “My favourite authors include
Phillip Pullman, Caroline B. Cooney and also Ian McEwan, whose novels are
inspiring because of their enviable lucidity and innovative character
development.”

I found myself questioning the veracity in such statements; when
reading your “favourite” authors, are we in all honesty thinking of the
“innovative character development”, or are we merely falling for the characters
because they hauntingly remind us of someone or something we have an emotional
connection to, and thus gain pleasure from. If an emotional connection is
fundamental then, for reading for pleasure, surely something must be inhibiting
my capacity to form emotional connections to the set texts that I am reading for
Degree purposes.

I therefore have come to the conclusion that this is precisely the problem, unlike Cosmo, Company and Glamour which scream “light entertainment”, set texts and the words that
surround them on course reading lists (‘preliminary’, ‘primary reading’, ‘core
reading’), send out the message that we are required to read tem for educational
purposes alone. The first line on a lecturers script is not; “coorr I didn’t see
that coming” or “well, that one made me blubber”, but something along the lines
of what I had found littering online personal statements.

Thus, I argue that reading for pleasure is a mindset; it is my inability to see set texts as
anything but a set text that hinders my ability to enjoy and engage with what I
am reading.