January 31 2007

Text By Greg Fallis

Reading, it's been said, gives us a place to go when we have to stay where we are. For those of us in love with the written word, the act of reading is an immersive experience. We sink into the words, we lose track of time and place, we become ignorant of all but the most demanding bodily needs. The cup of coffee we just poured goes cold, the snack we just made sits uneaten on the saucer, the room goes dark and we move closer to the page...not because we can't be bothered to turn on the lamp. We're not aware of the lamp. Or the darkness. We don't even notice the words on the page; while we read we exist in the page.

It must be completely mystifying to those who don't enjoy reading. To see a person sitting in a seemingly catatonic state, bent over the page, staring intently at it, oblivious to the world...it must seem a form of madness. And perhaps it is.

But we're all mad in our own way. And we're all a wee bit sorry for the perpetually sane; they inhabit such a small world. How sad it would be to be unable to open a book or pick up a magazine and disappear into it.