One of my resolutions this year is to read more books.
I was originally going to call this rediscovering my love of
fantasy. But that didn’t really fit. I never stopped loving fantasy, all the
magic and adventure and exploring new worlds. Likewise, I’ve never stopped
reading per se. Looking up the news, reviews and random scrolling has taken up
an unfortunate part of my days. It’s left me feeling frazzled and with a poorer
memory than ever. I know I wasn’t this bad at remembering things when I
was younger. That’s got to be at least partly because I’m so often distracted,
unable to focus.
Technology has changed our lives for the better. But it’s
also had myriad side-effects that leave our brains struggling to cope. I don’t
like what the constant stream of information has done to me, even as I actively
seek it out. Because I want the novelty. It distracts me from things I don’t
want to think about. This year, I want to start focusing again.
Today I’m talking about long stories.
Growing up I devoured books. Reading was one of my favourite
things to do, pretty much. My childhood was filled with evergreen series like The
Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter. I adored The Wheel of Time.
After reading The Eye of the World at eleven, I spent the next ten years
collecting the entire series. (Even New Spring, which wasn’t much of a
prequel.) The Sword of Truth was also a favourite during my teens,
though those books didn’t age so well. (I only just found out that Terry
Goodkind passed away last September, RIP. Another casualty of 2020.) Guy
Gavriel Kay was a late discovery; his poetic prose and history-inspired
settings were a breath of fresh air. And though The Lord of the Rings
threw me at first with its older writing style, I came to love the epic that
started it all.
Epic fantasy made me want to be an author. I wanted to write
books too! To create fantasy worlds for readers to get lost in. As I got older,
though, my tastes began to shift. I branched out into other genres. Popular
science, self-help, autobiographies. Traditional classics like Dickens, in all their
verbosity. And technology sped up at the same time. I soon had my very own portable
communicator in my pocket and could look up whatever information I wanted,
whenever I wanted.
Smartphones are a great idea in theory. In practice, I’ve
often struggled to put mine down.
Over the years, I started spending more and more time on the
internet. You know what I’m talking about. Social media, random browsing, and a
shifting cluster of blogs and gaming websites. The amount of time I spent on
actual books decreased remarkably. I’ve quit social media in the past, then
came back to it over time to keep in touch with people. Was that the right
choice? Online communities have been both a bane and boon in my life. I do need
to limit it, at any rate.
Anyway. One of the few book series I’ve kept up with is The
Stormlight Archive. Written by Brandon Sanderson, the hotshot fantasy
author who finished The Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan’s tragic passing, Stormlight is a fascinating epic in its own right. Set in a world
wracked by massive hurricanes called highstorms where entire ecosystems have
evolved to cope, he spins an ongoing tale of cyclical apocalypses called
Desolations and the ancient order known as the Knights Radiant, reviled and long
forgotten, who must return to save mankind.
The fourth volume, Rhythm of War, came out late last year. That
meant it was high time to reread the first three. (I’m on the third now.) These
are big books, people. Rhythm of War has 1,232 pages. It’s downright
intimidating how prolific Brandon Sanderson is. And reading them again, I’m
reminded of how compelling these stories are.
What really spoke to me about Stormlight was how the main
characters are broken, scarred by haunting life experiences which become
the foundation for the heroes they must become. When Kaladin feels that on some
days everything turns bleak and the light goes out of the world. Where Shallan
knows that underneath her intricate illusions of adulthood, the real her is the
traumatized little girl she once was. How Dalinar struggles to grow beyond the
terrible man he was for much of his life. I felt these things; I could
relate. And I’m guessing a lot of other readers felt the same.
Because I’ve often had bouts of bleakness and depression too.
There are parts of my past that I don’t talk about either. All too often, I
feel torn between my impulses and the person I could be. And following
these characters as they face their pasts and their own innate flaws and finally
make better choices…it’s one of the most inspiring things I can think of.
This is the power of a good book, and a good story. It makes
you want to do better. To be better. To put in the work instead of
letting yourself be torn in a million different directions.
Because this isn’t the person I want to be. Always
distracted, oblivious and inconsistent. To a certain extent that is me,
simply because I’m the kind of person who spends a lot of time in their own
head. It’s why I grew up loving books in the first place. But it’s also about
the environment I’ve cultivated for myself. It’s about getting off the internet
and spending more time reading, and learning, and doing things with
intentionality. Not just pulling out my phone and drowning in memes for an
hour. Is it any wonder we’re distracted if we’re always seeking out distractions
on purpose?
And yet the issue isn’t black and white. Because you know
where I read the first book in the series, The Way of Kings? On my phone, as an
e-book. It was bloody convenient too. Just as technology has evolved, my
reading habits have as well. I still like the feel of a good book, the weight
and heft and not having to press a power button. I fully intend to buy Rhythm
of War as a paperback. (Maybe a hardback, even.) But the sheer portability of
our devices cannot be understated. Back in 2018 while me and my mom were in
hospital for her chemo, I read some other Sanderson books, the Mistborn
trilogy, by buying them online, downloading them onto my phone, and reading
that way. All without ever leaving the hospital ward.
Likewise, there are great websites full of insightful
content out there. Mark Manson’s body of work, for one. I haven’t mentioned him
yet this year, have I? Wait But Why is another. And I recently started
taking free online courses on Coursera. There’s so much knowledge out
there for the taking.
Our devices are not inherently good or bad, and neither is
the internet. It’s all about how we use them. I love my phone for the
connectivity and convenience; I hate it for eroding my attention and sucking up
my time like a fire hose in reverse.
Modern technology is amazing. We’ve come so far, made so
much progress. Yet the Digital Age has also flooded us with all sorts of
useless information: mental junk food. And it’s always available, 24/7. In a
world of endless novelty, which are you going to choose? That one, five-hundred-page
in-depth novel? Or fifty clickbait web articles and fluffed-up news stories? This
year, are you going to start focusing again?
If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to reading Oathbringer.
