The Joy of Reading

I don't recall the mechanics of learning to read, but I picked up the English language without much effort at a young age. Public school in a suburb of Toronto was tedious for me, even after being advanced an extra grade, and none of the school texts captured my early imagination. The humdrum curriculum bored me to impudence, but every summer when school closed for the season, I was fortunate enough to escape the city to a cottage up north on Sparrow Lake. We had no organized activities, so we kids made our own fun roaming the forests and climbing ridges of bedrock that rose out of the primeval landscape like ribs. Communication with the outside world was sparse. My parents had a black-and-white television with rabbit ears, but the reception was poor so far from the city. I vaguely remember watching Gilligan's Island once a week, and identifying with fellow castaways building forts in the wilderness.

There was a tourist store in the vicinity that I was reminded of recently, Martin's Tourist Supplies, where visitors could buy penny candy and souvenirs, gas for the boat, and fresh milk for breakfast. A single spinning rack of comic books stood in the corner, where I was first introduced to science fiction. Superman, the Hulk, Wonder Woman, Legion of Super-Heroes—they were all there waiting to be plucked like ripe fruit. The cost was twelve cents each, more than my weekly allowance, but in those days an empty pop bottle fetched two cents when recycled to the counter. Thankfully, there were three summer resorts on the narrow lane between our cottage and the tourist store, and a never-ending supply of empty bottles littering the road. Problem solved. When weather permitted, I would bicycle to the store in the morning, scanning the ditches for glints of clear glass. In those simple times, six empties was all it took to guarantee an afternoon of delight!

I still remember the intense feeling of anticipation as I bicycled home with a comic book rolled in my back pocket. Now, as a sophisticated reader of modern science fiction, I get a flashback of that feeling when a familiar author publishes a new novel, or I stumble upon a promising title at the library. For me, the joy of reading begins with that anticipation. The neurons are firing with a touch of nostalgia mingled with a sense of wonder. Science fiction is good at producing that feeling. The genre follows the ground rules of science and mathematics, but always takes a turn toward the impossible. Sometimes there's a puzzle to be solved, or a future to explore, but science fiction doesn't need to resort to magic or supernatural antics, not without some basis in hard reality. That's a pure sub-genre in itself, “hard” science fiction, but I digress.

My grandfather owned a cottage on an island that was joined to the mainland by a corduroy lane through the swamp. Behind the cottage, there was a granite lookout on a towering hill where I could view Sparrow Lake from a vantage above the tops of the pine trees that grew along the shore. That was one of my favourite spots. There was a steep bike trail up from the back that allowed private access to the lookout. I could spend the whole afternoon by myself, whiling away the time until my mother rang a bell for dinner. Down the cliff, there was a spot where the granite had split apart, but the boulders hadn't fallen into the lake below. The narrow rock cleft was filled with a carpet of brown pine needles as thick as a mattress, and I would crawl in there and unroll my new comic book, and later, my first paperback novels. I can remember the smell of paper and ink mingled with the scent of pine. Those were the days.

Do kids get that experience now? Does a digital download give that same sense of anticipation? We have the internet now and video phones. We are continuously surrounded by a sea of data much deeper than Sparrow Lake. The science-fiction world hinted at by early pulp paperbacks has already come to life, and we have a lifetime of media at our fingertips. But, as a culture, we never seem to have enough time for simple enjoyment, and the notion of isolation has become a quaint oddity. I hope we are gaining much more than we've lost. I trust there are still many dreams to be fulfilled, and I hope there is a sense of wonder for the future among young people today. I still love to read.