Sometimes I feel like an endangered species of human who'd rather delve in his own imagination (another special kind of individual reality), and get lost in its infinite wonders, than to seek constant visual stimulation and distractions. As a writer, what I love to do, and what I have always wanted to do, is to write stories, and while I am open to trying different kinds of writing, I am mostly passionate about writing genre fiction (i.e. horror-fi , sci-fi, fantasy, etc.), and although I love and encourage every single form of storytelling, I fear people are forgetting about the magic and the importance of books in our lives. Writers and book readers like me are getting progressively scarcer, and that is a bleak future that I don’t want to see myself live in.
Nowadays, not many people seem to take the pleasure and excitement that I, myself, feel when reading books and involving myself into a great story with great characters living in other worlds and dimensions so different, yet so similar to our own, to ourselves. Instead, people are more obsessed with visual spectacle, with watching films that took millions and billions of dollars to make just to add special effects and hire expensive, but recognizable, actors and movie directors, and exploit the medium into an endless franchise.
Don't get me wrong, film is a great medium for storytelling, and needless to say that it is one that I love as well, but it is also a medium that deserves more originality within its own capacities, and less obsessive attention and glamour for the sake of spectacle. The more special effects and fancy tricks we put into a story, the more disconnected we become from the story and from the characters in some ways. And to be fair, a visual experience can be highly entertaining and personal and intense, but mostly, it’s also more immediate, leaving very little to one’s imagination, since the camera does it all for you.
With books, however, it is a strong exercise of the imagination, and that can allow you to have an even more profound experience of the story. We can have a more personal, and empathetic experience of the story; books teach us to emphasize and understand, while visual exploitation separates us from the story and turn us into observers, judges and critics, but nothing more than that.
But what people should never forget is that most of the stories we see dramatized in film come from books! I don’t think that J.R.R. Tolkien meant to spend all those hours writing endless pages of the enormous epic that is Lord of the Rings just so that he went down in future history to be recognized for the big franchise of serial movies that he had virtually nothing to do with. And I don’t think it’s fair to judge George R.R. Martin for the pacing of his writing process just because people became so obsessed with Game of Thrones so suddenly in his process of writing the novels, since he has much less to do with the show than some people think. And while it’s a fantastic show in almost every way, when reading the books it is a whole new level of experiencing the story that will never be possible to portray in the the form of film. And those are merely just some examples that I can think of at the moment that feel more relevant.
All of this is just to say that we can’t give up on books. And I’m not trying to discourage anyone with a love for film and or watching (or making) movies. To the contrary, go watch the Lord of the Rings movies back to back, binge watch Game of Thrones somewhere on the internet, if you so please (I know I’d be the first one to do that). Hell, go watch the Transformers movies back to back if you’re that eager to kill your imagination, or Twilight or some other shitty franchise, it doesn't really matter… As long as we don’t give up on books! It doesn't matter if they are good or bad, that is just a matter of opinion. But we need to keep the words going and most importantly, we need to READ them.
There all kinds of books out there, for all kinds of people. Big books, small books, long books, short ones, happy ones, sad ones, scary ones, fun ones, hilarious ones, informative books, historical, with pictures and without pictures too, there’s books that are made out of pictures, books about people, places, animal and things; if you give them a chance, I am sure that you will find the best one for you. But it doesn't matter which one you choose, as long as you pick up one of those little pieces of the universe and READ it. I assure you, when you give it a chance, it will hook you and embrace you like a friend, and it will take you to places you did not even know existed, and you will realize like within those pages, you did not just contemplated the pretty surface of a story, you lived through it, because it made you think things you never thought of before, or because it helped you understand feelings that you were already having. Books help us, teach us, to understand what is to be human.
So before you choose to go for the easy way out and play something random and mind numbing on Netflix, don’t discard the idea of simply sitting down and relaxing with your current favorite book of choice and jump into a whole different universe and live a few handful of different lives. Never underestimate the power of your imagination, and don’t stop believing in your mind’s capacity to open up to new ideas. Even if just once in every little while, remember to give books a chance, you won't regret it. Who knows? It might even change your life.
Frederick Michael
Nowadays, not many people seem to take the pleasure and excitement that I, myself, feel when reading books and involving myself into a great story with great characters living in other worlds and dimensions so different, yet so similar to our own, to ourselves. Instead, people are more obsessed with visual spectacle, with watching films that took millions and billions of dollars to make just to add special effects and hire expensive, but recognizable, actors and movie directors, and exploit the medium into an endless franchise.
Don't get me wrong, film is a great medium for storytelling, and needless to say that it is one that I love as well, but it is also a medium that deserves more originality within its own capacities, and less obsessive attention and glamour for the sake of spectacle. The more special effects and fancy tricks we put into a story, the more disconnected we become from the story and from the characters in some ways. And to be fair, a visual experience can be highly entertaining and personal and intense, but mostly, it’s also more immediate, leaving very little to one’s imagination, since the camera does it all for you.
With books, however, it is a strong exercise of the imagination, and that can allow you to have an even more profound experience of the story. We can have a more personal, and empathetic experience of the story; books teach us to emphasize and understand, while visual exploitation separates us from the story and turn us into observers, judges and critics, but nothing more than that.
But what people should never forget is that most of the stories we see dramatized in film come from books! I don’t think that J.R.R. Tolkien meant to spend all those hours writing endless pages of the enormous epic that is Lord of the Rings just so that he went down in future history to be recognized for the big franchise of serial movies that he had virtually nothing to do with. And I don’t think it’s fair to judge George R.R. Martin for the pacing of his writing process just because people became so obsessed with Game of Thrones so suddenly in his process of writing the novels, since he has much less to do with the show than some people think. And while it’s a fantastic show in almost every way, when reading the books it is a whole new level of experiencing the story that will never be possible to portray in the the form of film. And those are merely just some examples that I can think of at the moment that feel more relevant.
All of this is just to say that we can’t give up on books. And I’m not trying to discourage anyone with a love for film and or watching (or making) movies. To the contrary, go watch the Lord of the Rings movies back to back, binge watch Game of Thrones somewhere on the internet, if you so please (I know I’d be the first one to do that). Hell, go watch the Transformers movies back to back if you’re that eager to kill your imagination, or Twilight or some other shitty franchise, it doesn't really matter… As long as we don’t give up on books! It doesn't matter if they are good or bad, that is just a matter of opinion. But we need to keep the words going and most importantly, we need to READ them.
There all kinds of books out there, for all kinds of people. Big books, small books, long books, short ones, happy ones, sad ones, scary ones, fun ones, hilarious ones, informative books, historical, with pictures and without pictures too, there’s books that are made out of pictures, books about people, places, animal and things; if you give them a chance, I am sure that you will find the best one for you. But it doesn't matter which one you choose, as long as you pick up one of those little pieces of the universe and READ it. I assure you, when you give it a chance, it will hook you and embrace you like a friend, and it will take you to places you did not even know existed, and you will realize like within those pages, you did not just contemplated the pretty surface of a story, you lived through it, because it made you think things you never thought of before, or because it helped you understand feelings that you were already having. Books help us, teach us, to understand what is to be human.
So before you choose to go for the easy way out and play something random and mind numbing on Netflix, don’t discard the idea of simply sitting down and relaxing with your current favorite book of choice and jump into a whole different universe and live a few handful of different lives. Never underestimate the power of your imagination, and don’t stop believing in your mind’s capacity to open up to new ideas. Even if just once in every little while, remember to give books a chance, you won't regret it. Who knows? It might even change your life.
Frederick Michael