What we need is a book revolution

Yesterday, I went home to the Manor for a while, to teach and visit with my parents. While there, I grabbed some movies that I plan on watching sometime. Of course, I took Master and Commander, which is a great movie that I watch whenever I leave home; but this time, I took about eight other movies, one of them being Les Miserables. I'm actually re-reading that book right now, so I chose to watch it last night when I got back to The Chateau. When it was over, I started reading again, but fell asleep with book in hand.

This morning, I spent a while knitting, and reading. But the memory of a certain passage was nudging my thoughts about, and so I decided to post it on my desk. Of course, I'll share the bit that I found most thought provoking here too...

In the evening before going to bed he said further: “Have no fear of robbers or murderers. Such dangers are without, and are but petty. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers, vices are the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. What matters it what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think only of what threatens our souls.”

Then turning to his sister: “My sister, a priest should never take any precaution against a neighbor. What his neighbor does, God permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer to God when we think that danger hangs over us. Let us beseech him, not for ourselves, but that our brother may not fall into crime on our account.”

--Victor Hugo, Les Miserables--

I went into Slow-Town for coffee at about noon, and wrote there for nearly two hours. (Yes, Andro, on your story.) A complete stranger and I got into a discussion on the importance of books and word-knowledge while I was there.

She looked around, and seemed like she was confessing something very serious when she leaned over the table and quietly said, "See, I'm a literature major, and the last time I went home to visit my family, I was treated really awkwardly. All because I brought a copy of The Three Musketeers home with me. My parents have really no books in the house, my eight year old sister can barely read. She struggles to spell her full name. She can barely write anything because all she needs to do at school is computer-based, according to my parents. I feel like we have to start a revolution: one for reading and writing's sake. For the sake of children's brains." This woman looked so sad, and the idea of an eight-year-old unable to write her name was so pathetic, I sighed and looked at my notebook.

"What can we do, though, to change these children?" I asked.

"I don't know... the only thing I know of... is to raise your own children without using computers for every little thing. To read books to them. Take them to the library."

We talked a little further, but not too much, as she had to leave not long after. Talking with her made me realize how wonderful it really is that my parents raised me in a world surrounded by books. And they expected me to learn how to write, not just peck out letters on a computer-keyboard.

Perhaps my coffee-conversationist was right. We need a book revolution. Return to paper (Kindle's are annoying anyways!) and writing things by hand. That's one reason I love letters. So... I don't know, maybe I'm rambling, but I want to stand up and fight everything going electronic. I want to fight for books.

"Who will join in our crusade - who will be strong and fight with me!" Yes, I had to get one more Les Mis reference in.