Escape
Content
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07/08/2011
Escape By Ken Poirier
One of the greats things about books is their ability to allow one to escape, not only from reality, but within reality as well. This is due to the two main divisions of books. The first division of books, being of works derived from the imagination of the mind, is refereed to as fiction. The second division of books, being of works derived from the records of history, personal opinions, and referential data, is refereed to as non-fiction. This division is highlighted by examining two short essays, “One Writer's Beginnings” by Eudora Welty and “Prison Studies” by Malcolm X. What is a book? With the invention of the internet and the ebook , or electronic book, the human race lives in an interesting age where the idea of the written page has been heavily skewed by modern technology. It would be interesting to see Eudora Welty's answer to this question today, who died in 2001. In her essay, she states that she “cannot remember a time when I [sic] was not in in love with books-with the books themselves” and goes on to describe books as “cover and binding and the paper they were[sic] printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms” (Welty 84). She also tells of how as a young child she did not know books were written by people. Instead, she thought that books were natural wonders, “coming up of themselves like grass” (Welty 84). One of her favorite books as a child was her fathers copy of Sanford and Merton. She describes this book as “lacking in it's cover, the back held on by strips of pasted paper, now turned
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golden, in several layers and the pages stained, flecked, and tattered around the edges; its garish illustrations had come unattached but were preserved, laid in” (Welty 86). Through this description Welty is telling us that a books can not only tell a story through its words, but through its condition itself. One can only speculate what Welty would think about the modern-day ebook, but one would think by these words that she would find them cold and lifeless, if not an abomination of all that is sacred. Malcolm X, on the other hand, values books for another reason. Malcolm X, while serving time at Charleston Prison, decided that he wanted to begin advancing himself socially. He felt the best course of action to this end was to emulate his friend Bimbi, who had shown himself to be a wealth of knowledge through conversation. He took it upon him self to improve his reading skills by picking up the dictionary and reading it one page at a time until he had learned each and every word there was in the English language (X 74-75). He expresses no interest in the condition of the book or the process in which it was published. His only interest is the information contained in the words themselves by the means of their organization. Malcolm X went on to fill each day of the rest of his life with the pursuit of knowledge, reading one book after the next, to the point where even sleeping became secondary to reading (X 77). Malcolm X goes on to state “Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read-and that is a lot of books these days. If I weren't out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity-because you can hardly mention anything I am not curious about” (X 77). If Malcolm X were alive today, it would not be hard to imagine him at the E3 conference
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giving a lecture on value of the latest iPad or Kindle. He would be amazed at the ability to carry a complete library of works in his coat pocket. With these device's back-lit screens, he would never again have to worry about it being time for “lights out”. The main theme that draws these two essays together, is the idea that both authors used books to escape, but each in a unique way. Eudora Welty used books to escape from her humble and ordinary life and states “I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from with in” (Muller 83). Malcolm X on the other hand used books to escape from his imprisonment. Not only through his self education was he able to escape his physical prison, but ultimately the prison of his own mind. Welty used reading as a way to escape from reality into a world of fantasy. In this way, Welty takes after her mother who read “secondarily for information” (Welty 85). She would escape to worlds of fantasy and go on adventures with such characters as Robin Hood, King Arthur, St. George, Ali Baba, Joan of Arc, and Gulliver, to name a few (Welty 86). Even as she read the numerous non-fictional encyclopedias that were keep in her house, they managed to take her away to far off lands (Welty 84-85). Malcolm X talks about how his new found love for reading helped him escape his prison. He says “Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened” (X 76). At the time, prisons were focused on rehabilitation. As Malcolm X took interest in himself and his education, the system soon began to simile on him (X 76). Malcolm X says it best himself, “I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive” (X 77).
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As one can see, no matter what the path of life one chooses to walk, reading is an important vehicle along the journey. Whether, one chooses to consume information through an ebook, or to carry with themselves a heavy tome, without the ability to read one might not be able to make out the signs necessary to guide themselves to their final destination. For some it is simply to escape, while for others it is to find out where to escape to.
Works Cited
Malcolm X. “Prison Studies.” The Short Prose Reader. Eds. Gilbert H. Muller and Harvey S.
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Wiener. 12th ed. Boston: 2009. 74-82. Welty, Eudora. “One Writer’s Beginnings.” The Short Prose Reader. Eds. Gilbert H. Muller and Harvey S. Wiener. 12th ed. Boston: 2009. 83-93. Muller and Wiener. “Mixing Patterns.” The Short Prose Reader. Eds. Gilbert H. Muller and Harvey S. Wiener. 12th ed. Boston: 2009.
07/08/2011
Escape By Ken Poirier
One of the greats things about books is their ability to allow one to escape, not only from reality, but within reality as well. This is due to the two main divisions of books. The first division of books, being of works derived from the imagination of the mind, is refereed to as fiction. The second division of books, being of works derived from the records of history, personal opinions, and referential data, is refereed to as non-fiction. This division is highlighted by examining two short essays, “One Writer's Beginnings” by Eudora Welty and “Prison Studies” by Malcolm X. What is a book? With the invention of the internet and the ebook , or electronic book, the human race lives in an interesting age where the idea of the written page has been heavily skewed by modern technology. It would be interesting to see Eudora Welty's answer to this question today, who died in 2001. In her essay, she states that she “cannot remember a time when I [sic] was not in in love with books-with the books themselves” and goes on to describe books as “cover and binding and the paper they were[sic] printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms” (Welty 84). She also tells of how as a young child she did not know books were written by people. Instead, she thought that books were natural wonders, “coming up of themselves like grass” (Welty 84). One of her favorite books as a child was her fathers copy of Sanford and Merton. She describes this book as “lacking in it's cover, the back held on by strips of pasted paper, now turned
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golden, in several layers and the pages stained, flecked, and tattered around the edges; its garish illustrations had come unattached but were preserved, laid in” (Welty 86). Through this description Welty is telling us that a books can not only tell a story through its words, but through its condition itself. One can only speculate what Welty would think about the modern-day ebook, but one would think by these words that she would find them cold and lifeless, if not an abomination of all that is sacred. Malcolm X, on the other hand, values books for another reason. Malcolm X, while serving time at Charleston Prison, decided that he wanted to begin advancing himself socially. He felt the best course of action to this end was to emulate his friend Bimbi, who had shown himself to be a wealth of knowledge through conversation. He took it upon him self to improve his reading skills by picking up the dictionary and reading it one page at a time until he had learned each and every word there was in the English language (X 74-75). He expresses no interest in the condition of the book or the process in which it was published. His only interest is the information contained in the words themselves by the means of their organization. Malcolm X went on to fill each day of the rest of his life with the pursuit of knowledge, reading one book after the next, to the point where even sleeping became secondary to reading (X 77). Malcolm X goes on to state “Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read-and that is a lot of books these days. If I weren't out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity-because you can hardly mention anything I am not curious about” (X 77). If Malcolm X were alive today, it would not be hard to imagine him at the E3 conference
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giving a lecture on value of the latest iPad or Kindle. He would be amazed at the ability to carry a complete library of works in his coat pocket. With these device's back-lit screens, he would never again have to worry about it being time for “lights out”. The main theme that draws these two essays together, is the idea that both authors used books to escape, but each in a unique way. Eudora Welty used books to escape from her humble and ordinary life and states “I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from with in” (Muller 83). Malcolm X on the other hand used books to escape from his imprisonment. Not only through his self education was he able to escape his physical prison, but ultimately the prison of his own mind. Welty used reading as a way to escape from reality into a world of fantasy. In this way, Welty takes after her mother who read “secondarily for information” (Welty 85). She would escape to worlds of fantasy and go on adventures with such characters as Robin Hood, King Arthur, St. George, Ali Baba, Joan of Arc, and Gulliver, to name a few (Welty 86). Even as she read the numerous non-fictional encyclopedias that were keep in her house, they managed to take her away to far off lands (Welty 84-85). Malcolm X talks about how his new found love for reading helped him escape his prison. He says “Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened” (X 76). At the time, prisons were focused on rehabilitation. As Malcolm X took interest in himself and his education, the system soon began to simile on him (X 76). Malcolm X says it best himself, “I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive” (X 77).
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As one can see, no matter what the path of life one chooses to walk, reading is an important vehicle along the journey. Whether, one chooses to consume information through an ebook, or to carry with themselves a heavy tome, without the ability to read one might not be able to make out the signs necessary to guide themselves to their final destination. For some it is simply to escape, while for others it is to find out where to escape to.
Works Cited
Malcolm X. “Prison Studies.” The Short Prose Reader. Eds. Gilbert H. Muller and Harvey S.
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Wiener. 12th ed. Boston: 2009. 74-82. Welty, Eudora. “One Writer’s Beginnings.” The Short Prose Reader. Eds. Gilbert H. Muller and Harvey S. Wiener. 12th ed. Boston: 2009. 83-93. Muller and Wiener. “Mixing Patterns.” The Short Prose Reader. Eds. Gilbert H. Muller and Harvey S. Wiener. 12th ed. Boston: 2009.
