Post by account_disabled on Dec 26, 2023 1:34:17 GMT -5
DescartesFrom cogito ergo sum , "I think therefore I am", to scribo ergo lego , "I write therefore I read". If the first sentence, by Descartes, expresses the proof that man has of his existence, since he is a thinking being, the second, by the undersigned, expresses the proof that the writer must have of his writing, since he is a reading being . Putting philosophical questions aside and summarizing everything in simpler words, if you write, or rather if you want to write, it means that you read. There is no escape from this rule. Whoever writes, reads. And those who read do not necessarily have to or want to write. You can just read, but you can't write and not read.
Reading, therefore, comes first. It is preparatory to writing. But it is also contemporary. It's useless to start writing at fifteen, in my opinion. Yet many have this rush to publish, to show the whole world that they are geniuses. I honestly don't believe much in genes. Not, at least, in modern times, where minds, from the first years of life, are filled with electronic Special Data games and cartoons all day or, worse, with brain-dead television programs. Would this be the exercise that leads to the formation of a writer? How many classics have these minds read? Do they even know what a classic is? Often, in my blog dedicated to book reviews , I read about children aged between eleven and fifteen, more or less, who desperately ask for the summary of this or that novel that was assigned to them at school.
Because reading has now become a feat for heroes. And we are not talking about The Brothers Karamazov , with over 1000 pages of excellent literature, but short novels for children of not even 200 pages. But even if they had read, at fifteen, or even eighteen, how much could they have read to be able to try their hand at writing? And, above all, how much writing practice did they do? And from here we arrive at scribo ergo scribo . But this is another story and will have to be told another time, Michael Ende would have written.
Reading, therefore, comes first. It is preparatory to writing. But it is also contemporary. It's useless to start writing at fifteen, in my opinion. Yet many have this rush to publish, to show the whole world that they are geniuses. I honestly don't believe much in genes. Not, at least, in modern times, where minds, from the first years of life, are filled with electronic Special Data games and cartoons all day or, worse, with brain-dead television programs. Would this be the exercise that leads to the formation of a writer? How many classics have these minds read? Do they even know what a classic is? Often, in my blog dedicated to book reviews , I read about children aged between eleven and fifteen, more or less, who desperately ask for the summary of this or that novel that was assigned to them at school.
Because reading has now become a feat for heroes. And we are not talking about The Brothers Karamazov , with over 1000 pages of excellent literature, but short novels for children of not even 200 pages. But even if they had read, at fifteen, or even eighteen, how much could they have read to be able to try their hand at writing? And, above all, how much writing practice did they do? And from here we arrive at scribo ergo scribo . But this is another story and will have to be told another time, Michael Ende would have written.