Clearing The Air
The act of declaring 'reading' as one of your hobbies is not very unlike that of a crazed Spaniard running through a particularly long stretch of bovine pastures with a sheet of red c loth. For what better way is there to attract criticism and condescension than by acting the unwitting charlatan? To make the declaration is to invite questions as to the texts you have read that led to your current literary sentiment. And more often than not, the people behind these questions belong to something of a group of self-professed literary critics, high and haughty in their towers of esotericism. A community which huddles in hushed tones around titles with terms more unpronounceable than the names of certain volcanoes. Whispers of 'post-colonialism', 'deconstructivist' ideas and 'canonical texts' float around like thick London fog, and each utterance is followed by such sense of satisfaction and pomp that you could all but feel the words vibrating in their italics. It is at the perimeters of this fog that your literary likes are trialed and tested, their acceptance and legitimacy hanging in the air as they are buffeted back and forth by gusts of smoke from within the fog. Your penchant for novels involving teenage nocturnals is met with toothy grins and mocking smirks, while your tales of wands and wizards are swept away by the very brooms that they floated in on. One by one they drift to the ground in a state of broken defeat.
You harbor silent resentment as you sift silently through the pieces and the density of your disillusionment. And yet, as you stoop to pick up the fragments, you notice a certain clarity in the air. A clear, unobstructed view presents itself, both beneath and around the thickness of the fog, and the irony of exclusivity never seemed as apparent. Those within the fog reveal themselves to be ultimately myopic, their cloud of condescension not simply excluding those deemed unfit for entry, but also excluding themselves from the vastness of knowledge the world outside provides. Vision into the far horizon is rendered impossible as they prove themselves unable to see beyond the very gates that they have built to restrict access. When it comes down to the appreciation of the written word, it really is for us to decide if we will let the fog obscure our vision.
The time has come to open our eyes.
The time has come to clear the air.
