Reading America

But he is not always alone.  When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow the meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.  (From Jack London’s, The Call of the Wild.)

With the story finished my dad snapped the book shut and said goodnight leaving with me a lonely sadness; as if I’d been dropped in some desolate way station between the Yukon and home.  I was saddened that the story had ended.  For a series of nights I’d been transfixed by the story of the dog Buck; transported by London’s words to the cold, rugged Yukon.  And in the moments after each session, when darkness enveloped my room and before drifting off, I tried to imagine what life in that bleak and unforgiving environment must have been like.  And still the end of that story brought an epiphany (even though I’d no idea what the word meant); I was hooked on books. 

I still remember the book itself; blue, hardbound, a picture of a howling wolf on the cover.  The book stayed in my possession until my early twenties and then stayed at my parents’ house until the house was sold and I was forced to donate most of its contents; the book with it.  In my haste of sorting through things I didn’t stop to think of the meaning that book would come to hold some 25 years later. 

I have to admit to carrying on an intimate relationship with books.  I cherish and respect the ideals and importance of the written word; of putting ideas and imagination to paper and to make them available to all.  My dad imbued in me the power of the written word.  It’s for this reason that when spring cleanup comes around books don’t get tossed, they get donated; even the trashiest drivel gets donated either to the library or a rummage sale. 

Book giant Barnes and Noble plans to close one third of its stores over the coming decade.  That comes to about 20 stores a year compared with non-existent growth to offset the losses (Barnes and Noble opened only two new stores during the last fiscal year). The news took me back to the disappointment of a couple of years ago and the collapse of Borders.  Barnes and Noble insists it will remain viable but so does every business just before it bolts the last door. 

Books have been dear to me; inanimate friends and teachers that have spirited me away to Huck Finn’s Mississippi River, the streets of Ancient Rome and the battlegrounds of Gettysburg, Iwo Jima and Verdun; brought me face to face with the likes of Lincoln, Marx, Churchill and Mark Twain.  They’ve stimulated fancy and been a source of inspiration.

Bookstores are my seductress.  In my late teens I would hop in my Chevy Nova, pop Steppenwolf into the cassette deck and drive the 15 miles to Kepler’s Books, a venerable independent in Menlo Park, near the Stanford University Campus.  Founded in 1955 it became a landmark and center for liberal thought, attracting the counterculture and the likes of Joan Baez and The Grateful Dead.  Pressured by chain bookstores Kepler’s closed its doors in August of 2005 only to reopen two months later, buoyed by protests and a groundswell of support from volunteers, private donations and investments by the local community. 

In the seventies and early eighties when I worked in Downtown San Francisco, I often spent my lunch hour at Stacy’s Books on Market Street.  Stacy’s claim to fame was its collection of technical publications in the basement floor.  And, like other independents, it had an eclectic selection that set it apart from the pop collections of the chain bookstores.  Two years ago I found myself on Market Street, needing to kill time and I decided that Stacy’s would be just the place.  Sadly it was gone; 85 years young.
  

When Cora and I were newly married we lived a few short blocks from Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue and many were the evenings that I left my bride alone while I would browse for hours at Cody’s Books.  The landmark book seller in many ways embodied the power of the written word.  In 1968 it served as a first aid station for anti-war protesters who’d been teargassed and clubbed.  When Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was pulled from shelves worldwide due to bomb threats, Cody’s refused to be censored and was firebombed.  Refusing to be cowed Cody’s continued to sell the book after the firebombing.  What Muslim radicals couldn’t accomplish a downturn in sales did and after 52 years in business Cody’s closed for good.

When the local Borders held its closing sale I visited to pick up some bargains and felt soiled for it, as if I were looting the chilling body of a dying man.  I chalked up Borders’ collapse to a combination of pressure from the burgeoning e-books and my own notion that by and large America is a nation of illiterates. As it turned out Borders imploded by being its own worst enemy; doomed by a business plan that relied on unsustainable megastores.

Sadly it turns out that while Borders may have committed suicide by poor marketing my own notion about why bookstores are failing might not be far from the mark.  I stumbled across a study titled To Read or Not to Read, by The National Endowment of the Arts that found a decline in literary reading by Americans of all ages.  The study found that:

      Over a 10 year period the percentage of adults who read a book for pleasure dropped by 7%.

      Less than one-third of 13 year olds read daily and the percentage of 17 year olds who read nothing for pleasure has doubled over 20 years from 9% to 19%.

     15 to 24 years olds spend on average 7-10 minutes per day reading while they spend 2 – 2 ½ hours per day watching TV.

     The percentage of 18 to 24 year olds reading literature has declined by nearly 20% over a 20 year period from 60% to 23%. 

A few years ago I discovered Cormac McCarthy’s works.  I was enthralled by his stories of the American Southwest.  Years before I discovered McCarthy I came upon Yukio Mishima.  Their stories toy with your emotions, make your pulse race and tear your heart.  It’s disheartening to know that the likes of Cormac McCarthy, Phillip Roth and Toni Morrison are being upstaged by mind melting offerings like; Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, The Housewives of Whereverthehellthey’refrom, Swamp People and Honey Boo Boo.  And really, why should I care?

Why indeed.  The NEA study cites correlations between Americans’ aversion to reading and its effects on society.   Like anything else, to be good at reading you need to practice it, in order to comprehend what’s placed in front of you.  Poor reading comprehension is a drain on productivity.
      38% of employers find high school graduates “deficient” in reading comprehension, while 63% rate this basic skill “very important.”
      "Written communications” tops the list of applied skills found lacking in high school and college graduates alike.
      One in five U.S. workers read at a lower skill level than their job requires.
      Remedial writing courses are estimated to cost more than $3.1 billion for large corporate employers and $221 million for state employers.

But I don’t need to look at a study.  The symptoms are evident on a daily basis. Reading begets writing and if you don't read it reflects in your writing.  And so I get a flood of emails with misspelled words and usage that would give a fourth grade English teacher a case of indigestion.  At times throughout my career I've been tasked with reviewing resumes.  It can be like reading the collected works of the undead. 

But beyond the cold business aspects, the problem is a sad reflection of where our society has arrived at, and, even more distressing, where it’s headed.  Sitting in waiting rooms or on public transportation I see fewer people with a book and more people engaged in Angry Birds or Farmville.  Why view the turbulent 1930’s through the prose of Steinbeck when you can harvest virtual wheat on your mobile device? 

Pardon my cynicism but this is going to get worse before it gets better; if it ever does get better.  Today’s young adults are birthing the next generation and each generation has shown itself to be worse than its predecessor.  Can we hope that young parents will turn off the idiot box, pack up the video games and actually read to their children?  Hope is about all that we have but it seems that this is an avalanche with no bottom of the mountain in view. 

I've since bought another copy of The Call of the Wild.  I've read it a couple of times in the last few years.  London’s words still carry me to the bleak Yukon and when I arrive at the end of the story I feel the same let down that I did when I was a young child and my dad thwacked the blue cover shut.  I close my copy and remember that little blue volume and what a lasting impression it left.