My Reading Life – “It starts at the Beginning”

My Reading Life

It's been months since Christmas and this book was one of the Christmas gifts from my folks; actually from my dad. I believe I read a chapter in December and since that fateful day, it has been sitting in my bookshelf. I would say gathering dust but that seems terribly cliché. I finally decided to read it in between reading Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina, which are ostensibly longer and display vigorous language. Beside the point, it seemed to me that it would be best to finish this book.

My Reading Life was written by Pat Conroy, an author whom you my know or at least, heard his name. He is the author of the works: The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, and My Losing Season, all of which, I have never read. In this work, Conroy chronicles his coming of age through the invasion of classic works of literature. Each chapter focuses on a time frame or a mentor accompanied by some volume(s) of literature that embodied those circumstances, brilliantly. 

My Reading Life sparked creativity in me, by writing an homage to those works and English teachers who contributed to my coming of age. For this very idea, I would like to thank, Pat Conroy. Thank you for the master stroke of this book, that is the lifelong learning and development of a writer through the external factors. I am only sorry that I have not read any of your previous works, mostly out of sheer arrogance. 

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My early development begins, probably the same as any of yours: I went to preschool, then to Kindergarden, followed by First grade, and so forth. In these formative years, I had my first taste of language and word play. I am speaking, of course, of Dr. Seuss. I remember having an entire collection of his works, thanks in part to my parents. Horton Hears a Who!, The Places You'll Go, Yertle the Turtle, Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, and the ever popular, The Cat in the Hat, were my first glimpses of creativity at it's finest. What appeared as simple rhymes, became the very first phrases I would quote. This is the beginning of the literary quotes, I would eventually begin quoting, and throw into daily conversation:

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

– The Places You'll Go, Theodor "Dr." Seuss Geisel

After Seuss, I moved through the middle part of Elementary school and began reading the Boxcar Children. Four siblings who were found in a boxcar, orphaned and solved mysteries. They were quite popular at my school because they were short enough to make a reader feel as though they had accomplished a great task. They were relatable, at least, that is what the publisher would go on to state. And unlike the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, the Boxcar Children were for everyone, therefore teachers did not have to worry about sexism peeking in their classroom. In short, they were safe. No curse words, no deaths, no conflict of words or witty banter, just wholesome Christian values. In other words, boring. Sadly, that was what they expected us to read, and read them we did, even me. To my chagrin, all book reports from my peers for the next two years, surrounded these lovable orphans. They might have been enjoyable at the time, had everyone not written a report on the same six or seven books. 

This would follow me like the plague until the fifth grade, when reading The Boxcar Children, was finally not enough. I wanted action, adventure, science-fiction, monsters, battles. I was a little boy with a large imagination, which these orphans and their mysteries could not fill. In the fifth grade, I was finally able to read something worth mentioning. This was the year that my parents bought me three books for Christmas that I could not put down.

The very first was Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. A book as dense as it was realistic. It was the story of a young Yankee soldier who desires so much to fight in the great Civil War, only to become disenfranchised with the fighting. I was a boy from Michigan, so being from the North, it gave me my first glance at the Southern Dialect. Obviously it was not Mark Twain, but it was a good place to start. As a fifth grader, I was beginning to become well-read.

The next book was by a master of science-fiction and horror, H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man. A book about a scientist who becomes invisible only to realize becoming invisible a horrible curse. It chronicles, his break from reality, in which he slips very quickly into madness. Or as Ernest Hemingway put it, "Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed, but not defeated." Griffin would forever become a tragic hero, that would live on in my mind.

The last was and still is one of my favorites, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. In this book, my imagination soared, as the narrator described all of the sea creatures, waiting to be discovered by man. You felt as though you were on Nemo's Nautilus, freely traveling the known oceans in search of discovery and adventure. This was the perfect novel depicting imagination that would one day lead to innovation in future generations. This eleven-year-old was ecstatic whenever he read this novel because it had everything in it that he ever want, miss the love interest, unless you could count Nemo's passion for his submarine or the ocean as a love interest. 

1995 was the year that sparked my imagination. It was the time that stale, stagnant works of literature clashed with the almighty classics that have captured minds and transcend eras. 

What books captured your imagination in Elementary school?