The books sit across the room on the top shelf of the armoire. Beckoning. Inviting.
While artfully procrastinating, I look over and see the books that we’ve collected and read over the years. Tolkien, Rowling, Adams, Martin [1], Lewis and others summon me, whispering, daring me to take those few steps, to escape. An easy chair awaits. A spine anticipates being cracked.
How many hours of being lost inside other worlds do those books represent? It’s a surprisingly wonderful thing that thoughts can arise in one person's mind, those thoughts can be translated into marks - jots and tiddles on paper - and then those jots are printed, shipped, put on shelves and, eventually, read and transferred into another person's mind. And this process can happen across continents and centuries. We possess a form of teleportation and time travel that we can hold in our hands. And yet, still, people dare to claim magic doesn’t exist.
Writing is a miracle and reading is wizardry. While reading the books on that shelf (and many others) I am, or, rather, my consciousness is, quite literally, no longer in Texas. I’m not even in the 21st century. I become an observer with no identity, observing the world of Hogwarts, the Weasley's, Harry and Voldemort. I walk alongside Frodo. I am fraught with anxiety as Sauron turns his evil eye upon “us.” I am anxious, knowing Gollum plans betrayal. I bite my nails in suspense. These emotions, these feelings, are real. Real enough. At times, I could not put these books down, perhaps because I was so enthralled, my mind no longer even registered a “book” to put down.
In those instances, I am observing life in an alternate universe. But what about this universe? After all, we can't "put the book down" in this, “real” life. I find it fascinating how much more aware I am when I read. As readers, we are passive observers, watching and observing what is happening in that world. But, quite ironically, perhaps tragically, we often aren't as aware of what is happening in our own lives. Yet are we not a character in our own world? Do we not play roles every day? Do you even know who you are, truly?
Is the real you the same you that reads books? Perhaps the real “you” is nothing more than a passive observer watching this story unfold as you play those roles you’ve been assigned. You just get confused sometimes and think it’s actually the role that is real. What if you really could step back from the character of “you” and observe what happens in our world as if we were reading a book? An observer with no identity. It turns out that, sometimes, you can do that.
And if you can do that, wouldn’t everything become as magical as reading a work of fiction? Perhaps even more so? Wouldn't it be fascinating to watch real life pass, just as it does in books? And so, with that thought, I turn the page.
[1] Is George R.R. Martin ever going to finish the Game of Thrones series?
A really interesting piece. Thanks for writing it. Something you said sparked a long response but I think I'm going to use it as stimulus for my next piece. Will credit you as the kindling.
Wonderful perspective.
Not a hope in hell that GRRM will finish ASOIAF.