Wednesday, December 12

Reading Anna Karenina in Africa

Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize acceptance speech takes a jab at the internet for its seduction of a whole generation with its many "inanities:" "[E]ven quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?"

Aray.

Okay, I felt alluded to. But I think that comment was less about about dissing the internet, but more about how reading books and experiencing great literature really satisfies a hunger for knowledge. A huge part of her speech tells about the difficulties of getting books, what more a proper education, in Africa, where a book may cost one several months' wages. But still, people read books, a third of Anna Karenina at a time, like that young woman waiting for her ration of water in a store.

Buti pa nga yung babaeng iyon nakatapos ng 1/3 ng Anna Karenina, which I can't claim for myself. And I probably have more books than entire villages in Africa. I'm the downfall of the human race. Pero oks pa rin, kasi sabi ni Lessing there's a storyteller deep inside all of us.

Now if only that storyteller quits blogging and starts to work on her bloody thesis. Gah.

via

No comments: