Kelsey Newborn First Essay Assignment
It Is The Path I Choose- or is it?
I remember it clearly. I am sitting on my bedside with my mother and brother on the floor in front of me. My brother, who is four, tries to read his book and my mother smiles as he stumbles over all the words. Patiently, I appear to only be watching but in my memory, I am reading the words right along with him. To the surprise of my mother, two weeks later, I could read the same books as my brother, at two years old. This is my very first memory.
I have always had an ear for languages. At ten months, I was home alone with my father and asked him for “juice”. Not only was he shocked, but my mother, upon returning home, was incredulous and did not believe him. Two days later, I asked “mommy juice” and it was then she knew that I was going to be a talkative child. She always says that I started talking early and have not stopped since. After learning to read and speak very early on in life, I explored the limitless world of books and loved to talk to my parents about what I was reading. Looking back on my youth, I wonder if my ability to read and communicate in concrete language at such a young age affected my development of other skills like writing, foreign languages, and listening, which I humbly consider my three talents. Thus, it pays to examine not my mature reading and writing selections, but rather the choices of my youth, and how it projected and predetermined my path as an intellect for life.
For many, childhood reading is a mere memory of the fond days of simplicity that have no place in their new world of computers, sports, and real life. Sven Birkerts is of that mentality as he describes the reading of children as a most basic and simply imaginative process. He writes, “The child reads within a bubble. He is like Narcissus staring at his lovely image in the water’s mirror. He is still sealed off from nay notion of the long-term unfolding of the life, except in the perfected terms of fantasy: I, too, will be a pirate…” (Birkerts 89). To some extent, he is correct in his assumptions that children know not what they are always reading and simply project the protagonist of their favorite novel into “real life”. However, deeper reflection reveals that reading at a young age affects the future more than we may know. In Katherine Hayles book, Writing Machines, the protagonist Kaye experiences this concept of childhood reading manifesting itself years later in life. Described as an avid reader in her early years, Kaye falls under the spell of science and technology during adolescence and goes on to study the sciences in college and later on in graduate school. However, after years of forgetting about books, she returns to them and eventually becomes and English teacher at an Ivy League school (Hayles 12-15). Kaye is a prime example of a life deeply affected by language and literature, with the foundation found in her formative years. The same is true for Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Shelley’s parents were both well-known authors of the day and supporters of women’s right and education. Thus, they encouraged Mary to receive an education rich in literature and language. It comes as no surprise then that she went on to become a popular well-known author of a best seller that spans decades, generation, and centuries. Both Kaye and Shelley’s formative foundations based on literature followed them into adulthood and helped to shape the occupation, love, and intellectual capacity they came to hold. However, it is Birkerts assumptions about formative reading that cause me to reflect on my own early exposure to literature and whether it was merely an imaginative stage or something that will shape my future.
Early introduction into reading spawned in me a voracious desire to read anything and everything in Borders. As my collection of all things paperback grew, my mother moved my small library to the basement. Throughout my elementary school and middle school years, I added about a book a week to those shelves, all in the order in which they were read. However, as I moved onto college, I found myself at a loss in the world of literature. Of course there are the assigned school readings, but for the first time, I have stopped reading for the enjoyment of loosing myself in a book. At first, I found myself having to agree with Birkerts because clearly, the real world has pulled me away from my youthful imaginative projections. However, I cannot ignore the fact that I simply do not know what to read. Perhaps this phase is a reflection of the search for my purpose in life or what interests me enough to study for four years and beyond. Those projections may mean more than I think but at this point in time, I am ambivalent to reading. Literature takes up a large majority of my past but has no place in my present. Where it will manifest itself in my future, I cannot say, but I long for the day in which I feel at home with my nose in a book once more.
Picturing my first memory, I can remember the safety and security I felt while reading. It was never a struggle but always an enjoyable challenge, and one that I could not resist. Now however, I struggle with reading- not how to read, but what. Birkerts hypothesis remains in the back of my mind, but it is Shelley and Kaye’s stories that give me hope for a peaceful return to reading somewhere in the near future. I am a firm believer in the idea that our past greatly affects our future and that, backed by the evidence of Shelley’s life in particular; the exposure to language and literature in one’s formative years directly effects the place of literature in his future as well as the path that his life eventually takes.
Tags: Birkerts, Cause and effect on future, Early childhood reading, Hayles, Shelley
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