Reading Aloud - You Must!

What the Dickens am I on about now! Am I really suggesting everyone ought to read aloud? Well yes.

This morning in a bedroom the measure of a double bed and just enough room to walk around, in a bedroom with blue wooden shutters locked closed, defying entry to the low-slanting, furnace-fierce, rays of a Greek summer morning sun, propped up on pillows I read David Copperfield aloud to my love.

I am ashamed to say I am a stranger to Dickens as indeed I am unacquainted with so many of the great wordsmiths who have written and wrought worlds magnificent for us all.

It is no exaggeration that I was virtually illiterate until the age of forty. Not technically illiterate. My degree in numbers and bits and bytes required skill enough to read the texts but there was no story reading and most certainly, nothing ever was written more creative than a shopping list. I was late to the wonder of words. Later, Dylan Thomas and Einstein proffered helping hands that were sadly not there in my London comprehensive school.

So here we are, side by sleepy side. Me, with bleary-eye and my morning cup of tea. She, with a stifled yawn and her morning cup of coffee. Here, in a small bedroom with just enough cool grey light to find my reading glasses, I fumble for the Kindle which is rekindled to where we left David, Steerforth, Pegotty, Em'ly and so many others that you have to wonder how they can all find their place in such a small bedroom.

Despite not being a reader as a child, my favorite children's TV program was Jackanory, I remember also in that time, bedtime and my mother with tears streaming down her cheeks reading To Kill a Mockingbird to me. But for most of the time of my youth, the television reigned supreme and the television's default state being 'on' rather than 'off'. What I subsequently came to realize, was that the ever-present television was the pickpocket of all personal interplay and social intercourse.

Years later, visiting my future inlaws, I listened in awe when my future father-in-law would of an evening read his family poetry or an excerpt from a much-loved book. At first,  I was unfamiliar and uncomfortable with such homemade entertainment. Somehow, this felt like it underscored a class difference, and though even at the time I knew no such observation was being made on their part, I nevertheless made such observation upon myself. An insecure nerve was jangled. But above all else, I was afforded a glimpse into a family activity that was hitherto unseen but clearly quite special.

I would rather dine on poor food in good company than feast well in poor company or alone. A meal alone nourishes the body, a meal shared nourishes the soul too. So, I think it once was with books too. Before television, before radio, parlor reading, I understand was a thing. The significance of reading aloud continued well into the nineteenth century And despite being a disciple of much that is modern, I would love that perhaps one person reading this might just give it a go. To your loved ones, find a moment each day, to read something aloud. When I read text as unfamiliar as Dickens, I stumble and swallow my words and it frustrates me that I am such a poor orator. But I persist because I get a little better, and more importantly, being best is not what this is about. It is about caring enough to share, and trusting enough to be vulnerable amongst those that will take you for as you are. It above all, quite special.

And now back to what the Dickens! My word, or rather his! Is he not the best? Such a cast but introduced so vividly and descriptively seemingly without recourse to anything as obvious as description. He is a magician and astounds each time he pulls from his hat another page that fills to bursting with worlds anew a small shuttered bedroom on a small Greek island.