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Do You Need To Read Books To Be Clever?

  • 10th Jan, 2008 at 1:16 PM

…Is the question asked on the BBC Magazine website. So, do we? I have to admit that I like to learn something new when reading a novel, even if it’s only a description, a scene being set of a place I’ve never been. There’s nothing like it, being inside someone else’s head. And that’s something that all the movie-watching, gaming and newspaper-reading* in the universe could never give us in a million years. Reading is a form of telepathy and I believe it helps develop true empathy.

So no, you don’t need books to be clever at all. But books can help make us more human.

*Nothing at all against any of these activities, btw. I do quite a bit of the former, a little of the latter, and a very teensy tiny bit of gaming too (teensy and tiny because, a: I am crap at it, and, b: I haven't enough time to learn how to be good at it. Sigh).

  • Location:At Home
  • Mood: thoughtful
  • Music:The Magic Flute

Comments

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[info]bosleygravel wrote:
11th Jan, 2008 02:00 (UTC)
Seems to me (good) fiction is a form of processing reality (kind of like dreaming) while newspapers report it, and the vast majority of movies portray it very badly . . . and gaming, while I have nothing against it either, tends to give people a false sense of accomplishment. Books, for the most part, are the work of one individual which gives the reader perspective they will never get from say a movie script that's been rewritten fifteen times with the goal of making it the least offensive and similar to what succeeded last six months ago.

So do you need books to be clever? Almost certainly not, but in my opinion they are irreplaceable. Raw information is virtually free these days, but fiction remains an art that can teach appreciation of the world around us.

Ok. I'm rambling. :)
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[info]iwill333 wrote:
12th Jan, 2008 20:05 (UTC)
I concur with you both. I know little of this gaming thing - Pac-Man and Asteroids were my generation's games, and I haven't owned a gaming system since Atari put out its little console with the cartridges that plugged into the top. I liked them, but would always prefer to have my nose in a book, much to the consternation of those around me who found me disconnected and unconcerned.

I do love movies, though. I don't watch as many of those as I used to - no time - but, given my druthers, I'd rather watch a good movie than almost any other activity you can think of (is watching a movie an activity? - more like an inactivity!) except reading.

Frogger anyone?
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