Books, Books, Books

Power of books to exercise that mysterious muscle called imagination

By Ashok Ferrey

We have all heard the arguments:

My children don’t read books. Everything they need is on the internet.

Books are old-fashioned. They’re only good for Aunties.

I only read text books and non-fiction. Novels and short stories are for time-wasters.

If I want entertainment, there’s nothing like a good film!

Let’s face the truth here: All these arguments are correct to a certain extent. The internet is truly marvellous when it comes to research. Children today know so much more than we ever did, thanks to Wikipedia and Google. As for all those Colombo Aunties, nothing becomes an Auntie more than a book. And conversely, there are certain books that surely deserve an Auntie, no less. But this is by no means the whole truth. So just bear with me while I take you through certain arcane theories of mine, and if you’re not convinced, you can always blame it on the madness of Ashok Ferrey.

I have this curious notion that the longer and more difficult it is to create something, the longer it will last. So, for instance, if it takes you over a year to build a house with bricks and mortar and timber, then it will last very much longer than the pre-fab house that is thrown up in a matter of months. (Just think of the pyramids!) Because the ‘process’ of creation takes longer, you subconsciously make sure the product is of better quality.

In turn, the person who uses that house will cherish it far more than the shoddily-built construction. I do believe the same goes for knowledge. Neither Google nor Wikipedia set themselves out to be the final word on anything: they are impermanent, liable to correction, liable to change. The writers of internet articles know this, the readers know it too. The knowledge is put out there hastily, often badly-written, and nobody gives a damn, because it is only too well understood that the internet is to knowledge what that pre-fab house is to the real thing.

In contrast, a printed book is forever (at least till the termites get to it!). It is edited, fact-checked and proof-read before publication. Often it is rejected long before it gets to the publication stage, if it is deemed sub-standard or simply inaccurate. Now consider the position of the reader. A reader absorbs knowledge from the internet knowing in the back of his mind that this knowledge is questionable or subject to change.

This is not to say that a printed book will always be accurate, but there is more likelihood that this will be the case, and the reader is subconsciously aware of this. And you may not agree with me here, but to me, the smell of a book, the physical act of reading the printed word, the turning of a page, gives the book a certain power to imprint its knowledge on the reader’s mind far more powerfully than the click of a mouse.

But what has all this got to do with fiction? Why would you bother to read a book of fiction when a film or a Netflix series is so much more satisfying? True again. A film is so much more immediate: you don’t have to work for your money. Nobody loves a hamburger more than me. It is quick, it fills that hole in your stomach immediately, you don’t really have to work at it to satisfy your craving, the way you might have to work at your red rice and mallung to achieve the same effect!

But consider this. If ten people watch a film, they ‘all’ see the same film, they ‘all’ absorb the same information from it. But if ten people read that one book, they will each be reading a ‘different’ book, they will each be absorbing different information from it. The reason for this is that marvellous thing called ‘imagination’. Because the word is less powerful than the image, the reader has to work harder for his money, bringing to the table what the word lacks: it becomes a fifty-fifty thing between you and the writer, between your imagination and what the words of the writer suggest.

A film may inspire your imagination too: but that imagination is qualified and reduced by the sheer power of the image right there in front of you: Angelina Jolie in the film remains the same to every viewer. In contrast, the heroine in your book will be ten different women to ten different viewers. In other words, you have to work harder at the book – it is definitely the mallung in this case! – because you are forced to use your imagination, your creativity, to fill the holes in your perception. And it is this creativity, I would suggest, that propels the human race forward.

It is not enough to spend your whole life looking at pre-packaged knowledge. You will end up a clone like everyone else, well-versed in the art of parroting, glib and insincere; a slave to the whims of political correctness and the dictates of mob rule. Because even if you realise in your heart that what you’re saying isn’t what you really think, it is what everyone else thinks, so that’s okay then. I realise that much of this so-called education system we have in the country depends on learning by heart in order to pass exams. But real life is something different: it depends on you being able to solve problems you have not come across before; problems that require you to think sideways, use that mysterious muscle you possess called imagination. This, I would suggest, is the real power of books, both fiction and non-fiction: to exercise that muscle.

So I would like to tell any parent out there whose children don’t read books: throw the computer out the window. Sadly, I can’t. The computer is an absolutely necessary evil, like Colombo apartment blocks and worm syrup. Instead my message to you is this: books, books, books. What? You didn’t hear me? Okay, so I’ll repeat that once again. Books, books, books!

(Ashok Ferrey’s new book, ‘The Unmarriageable Man’, will be released at the end of the year)