It is so important to regularly stop and examine of the truths we carry with us every day. That familiar sack of behaviours, received wisdom and lessons-learned may have served you well so far, but is there something weighing you down? Holding you back? Something which doesn’t belong in the sack any more? In my case, it’s a very particular sense of guilt, or rather ‘cheating’.
You see, I am dyslexic. Reading is very tiring for me and although I have always enjoyed learning, I have never found reading relaxing. Because I loved learning, early on, I developed various coping mechanisms and exercises for ‘keeping up to speed’ with my Primary School classmates. For example, on the morning car ride to School, I challenged myself to read the passing number plates on cars as they whizzed by.
I also developed a sort of abstract symbol pattern recognition and ‘time buying’ pacing methods to get through public reading or blackboard comprehension in front of my friends. As such, my Teachers actually never realised that I had a problem, indeed I didn’t know I had a problem! After all I couldn’t get inside my friends’ heads and understand how they were ‘doing’ with letters and reading. I just pushed on and for better or worse my coping mechanisms (combined with a little smarts) meant that I never really ‘fell behind’. I devoured children’s books on tape in Primary School, but as much as I loved stories, I never found reading them relaxing or calming.
I still have this nagging doubt – I find myself wishing I was a “real” reader.
The day I first discovered graphic novels was life-changing! Teenage me was stood in a book shop in Chester when my eye landed on the cover of part.1 of The Knightfall Saga. This is the story of Batman’s long defeat. A mental and physical ordeal at the hands of the meticulous Bane which results in the Bat’s back being broken. The arc also explores Bruce Wayne’s hard road back to health as other (less disciplined) people attempt to take on the mantel of the Bat. It is a three part epic and I gobbled it up. It even gave me the confidence to read a novelisation of the story because I knew-ish where the book would take me.
I now have a whole cupboard dedicated to my graphic novel library and it’s my bed time go-to for a relaxing read. As a fellow dyslexic once said to me, we don’t just read graphic novels, we bathe in them! In my experience, this is true. It is a delight to lose myself in the imagery and stories which reside in graphic novels. Whether Batman, Spider-man, Lovecraft or a serious reflection on conflict in the Middle East; when I pick up a graphic novel, I am there! And it is delicious!
However, despite being able to plough through reading for work and research; even though I have a good solution for leisure reading in graphic novels, I still have this nagging doubt – I find myself wishing I was a “real” reader.
I see the pleasure friends, colleagues, my wife, get from novels ranging from Harry Potter to dense Russian classics and I feel bad. Not only do I yearn for the transcendental experience my reading friends describe, I feel somehow that I *should* be reading real stories. Ranging from Clive Cusler and Terry Pratchet to War and Peace or the entirety of Tolkien, I have a nagging doubt and desire to read ‘real books’ for pleasure. This is where we return to that sack which we all carry around and that particular notion of ‘cheating’ which is at the bottom of my bag.
The absolute thrill of hearing children’s books read aloud on tape has never left me. I have always recalled with excitement a wonderfully vibrant version of George’s Marvellous Medicine which my brother and I shared. It was on a yellow plastic cassette tape (which for the life of me I cannot find anywhere online) and the memory of which gives me a taste, a little something of what it’s like to be transported by words alone, to another world! However, typically, that memory has been (until recently) quickly followed by a stronger memory of my Mother chastising me for merely listening to stories, rather than reading them. My coping mechanisms were so strong that I didn’t really struggle in comprehension reading until I was in my third year at University and exhaustion won out. Friends and house mates who were themselves dyslexic new detected anything, indeed they were harsh on me for various reading-related reasons because they presumed I was ‘normal’. So, I don’t blame Mum for misunderstanding what was going on, but I distinctly remember the accusation of ‘cheating’. I was 9 years old. It was a cutting word, delivered with an emphasis akin to spitting on the floor… and it stuck with me.
Merely listening to a story, instead of reading it, is CHEATING!
And so dear reader (indeed fellow reader)… We come finally, to 26 days ago, aged 35, when I decided to follow the advice of my lovely wife (and incidentally the hints and tips of various good friends over the years who were simply drowned out by the reverberating caricature of my Mother’s disdain)…
I began to listen to stories, to words, once more! I began by seeking out an excellent reading of H.P. Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth on the HorrorBabble YouTube channel. It was a delicious delight to listen to this as I tidied my office one Wednesday afternoon.
I followed that up with excerpts and samples on various spoken word platforms and eventually decided to dive in to an ‘Audible’ membership. This is not a plug or the result of some sort of sponsorship but it has been a revelation! I can listen to ‘Every Tools a Hammer’ read by Adam Savage on my phone when I am making bottle opener trowels in the shed. I can listen to Akala’s reading of ‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ on my computer while I am editing and I can enjoy all manner of fun fiction as I settle down for sleep at the end of the day!
Graphic novels are still absolutely crucial and beautiful to me but they are no longer my only option, tinged by a semi-secret personal regret. They have been unshackled by the extraordinary experience of listening to words once more! Allowing the words alone to paint images in my mind has been nothing short of thrilling and joyful for me, and I simply had to share my experience of giving myself… Permission to ‘cheat’!
– Mr Soup
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