The Joy of Reading

(Address delivered to the students, staff and guests at the Edgewise Reading Network’s Readership Promotion event held at Comprehensive High School, Isawo, Ikorodu on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, by Mr. Richard Mammah, MD, Sunbird African Media Ltd.)

Good Afternoon, Mr. Chairman, the Principal, guests, staff, students, ladies and gentlemen

Permit me to start this address by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to PreyeTambou and his team at Edgewise Reading Network for fighting so ebulliently to get this programme going. As a long-time devotee of the cause of reading promotions in Nigeria, I very well know what a yeoman’s task this has, and continues to be. I salute you.

Now, is there really joy in reading? And what kind of joy exactly would that be?

I will call to the witness box the child, aged four who has just been told his favourite bed-time story and is vigorously pleading for one more take. Is there joy in reading? Ask him!

My second witness would be that candidate in the university semester examinations who finds out in the course of answering a question that not only is he able to largely recall a lot of what he had read up from his course notes and texts, but that several other bits of information from other books and materials he had encountered at different times and seasons are easily returning to his mind at this moment to guarantee that he would no doubt get a very good grade in the course under reference. Is there joy in reading? Again, we request that you direct the question to him!

My final witness for now would be that Professor who has just finished delivering his inaugural lecture to find himself looking down - from his perch up there on the podium - at a packed hall full of applauding listeners much impressed with the depth of scholarship that he had so effortlessly handed down.

Interestingly, as I speak, my friend and fellow champion in the course of the book in Nigeria, Professor Remi Raji is at the moment putting finishing touches to a paper in that mould that he would be delivering at the Trenchard Hall of the University of Ibadan. Is there joy in reading? You can ask the good Professor, who is also the current President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), after he has finished his lecture tomorrow.

I have called up these witnesses to make the first basic point that contrary to what many of us have been made to believe reading indeed is and should be fun.

So from where do we get the idea that reading equates drudgery and what should be done to help that student who finds reading as a boring chore to get over his erroneous feeling and begin to better appreciate the great bliss that is inherently contained in the reading enterprise?

Let us begin from trying to understand what reading is in the first place?

 The Oxford Dictionary of Current English defines reading to involve a process of understanding ‘the meaning of written or printed words or symbols.’ Whether it is in decoding bus-stop directions, instructions on a drugs’ pack or sifting through several volumes of texts to prepare a research paper that would help you get that certificate or degree, the reading enterprise always involves making meaning out of the processing of characters and alphabets that the reader can recognise.

Broken down therefore, reading would simply be an interface of words, recognition and meaning. You confront a text; you recognize the words, read them together and make meaning out of them.

From sentence to paragraph, chapter to section the process does not change. It is: Words-Recognition-Meaning.

Would you sometimes meet strange words? Yes. Would some passages sometimes not read like ‘Greek?’ Yes. Would some authors not sometimes be talking above your head? Again, my answer is yes. But the solution dear student is not to run away. And to help explain this point, I will take a slight detour into the world of driving.

If you ask the average driver on our roads, he would tell you that there was a time when he really did not think he would today be driving through the streets and highways of Lagos. But having come to grips with the fact that this was one vocation that he was almost compelled to master, he had no choice but to pick up the proverbial gauntlet and get on with it. Today, the rest is history.

Happily, the reading enterprise is not that ‘oppressive.’ Looking around you, you will find that there are indeed things that you naturally like reading. You may not be the greatest fan of bed time stories but your favourite could be poetry. You may just tolerate biographies but comics would make your day anytime!   And this indeed would be our first point in joy-reading: read a lot of what naturally excites and interests you! Indeed, in some situations, it would be from reading and continuing to read more and more of the stuff that interests you that you would find readily recognizable cross-reference material with which you would better explain yourself when you get up higher on the educational and career planes where the focus is on depth and breadth.

Let me illustrate this point some more with three references. One, as a journalist, who had to write an opinion essay on the level of corruption in the ruling People’s Democratic Party a few years ago when Ahmadu Ali was Chairman of the arty and Baba Olusegun Obasanjo was President, I drew upon my fictional knowledge of the story of ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’ to caption my essay; ‘Ali, Baba and the Forty Thieves.’

Second, as a copy-writer for an advertising agency several years back, I chanced upon a spectacular piece of word-play in an advert about the satellite product, Capsat that took its bearing from the historical saga of the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. It read: ‘If Napoleon had a Capsat, he would not have lost the Battle of Waterloo!’  I was impressed.

Days later, I was commissioned to write a copy for the public relations firm, Imprint Communications, and with the Capsat copy still reeling around my head for inspiration, I penned these lines: ‘Many years ago, dinosaurs roamed the face of the earth. We know about this today because they left their Imprint! Needless to say, my own word-play involved matching the name of the company with the saga of dinosaurs that had since gone extinct but whose tales I had read in some of my voracious life-long searches for story after story to devour!  So do not let anyone discourage you that you are reading too much of the stuff you like to read! Rather, politely tell them that ‘it would come handy someday!’

 That settled, our final point would have to do with what you have to read but do not like. Being in school as we currently are, I am sure that you will find situations like that. To address this, you could adopt one of two possible responses.  The first would be to appreciate the truth that there is indeed no hurdle under the sun that cannot be confronted and scaled. For example, people say that it is almost impossible learning new languages after childhood. Well, this speaker did learn to speak and write Deutsch at age 36! And he does not have the gift for languages per se as is apparent with his continuing battles with French and Yoruba. Beni!

The answer really to coping with tough and difficult reading encounters would be in finding an appropriate method with which to prevail.

In this, one first point that must be made is for the reader to recognize that escape would not be the answer. While the temptation would be strong to damn the subject because you do not enjoy it presently, the truth really is that it could be all-too-critical for your future that you must secure a credit pass in or you could find out in the course of time that ‘the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.’

This in a sense is the story of my relationship with Geography. After having dropped the subject because I had considered it ‘uninteresting,’ events and circumstances made me to do a u-turn in my final year in secondary school and I signed-in Geography as one of my Certificate Examinations subjects. I then proceeded to break it down to subjects and sections as contained in the syllabus, gave the subject more time in my private study time-table and thankfully also, the subject teacher, Mr. Kwame Ayekpa, kindly availed me all of his time and resources (including meals at his home in the staff quarters!). The result was stunning!        

So it comes down finally to the environment within which you read. Again, I repeat? Would there be difficult moments? You bet. Would reading be boring sometimes? Correct. Is it okay to shut the book and take a walk? Absolutely!

But even as you have your way and take that break when you must, you must also equally pay attention to that soft, nudging call from your books as they gently implore you long after you have rested: ‘can we please return to our world of study ...and fun! Respond to the prompting and you will ultimately find out like many others before you that truly, ‘reading maketh a man.’

I thank you for your patience and attention.