Reader
Education and Reasons for Literature[1]
Ricardo
Azevedo[2]
There is much talk about “reader education.” It
is “politically correct” to praise literature and reading. Unfortunately, many
children have contact with adults – parents, teachers and others – who
recommend reading, talk about books and “classical” authors but in reality are
not readers and are not even interested in literature. Although they mean well,
these people, who believe in the “do what I say not what I do” rule, usually
describe literature in a very idealistic way. They talk about “magic,” about an
“indescribable” pleasure, they mention traveling and other similar subjects. Seldom,
though, maybe because they have no such experience, do they remember to comment
on how reading, as many good things in life, requires effort, or about how the
so-called pleasure of reading is a construction resulting from training,
capacity building, and accumulation. In any case, I am sure that the contact
with pseudo-reader adults and unfortunate idealized visions of literature and
reading do not contribute to educate new readers.
But what exactly is a reader? From a given point
of view, one can say that readers are simply people who know how to enjoy
different kinds of books, different existing “literatures” – scientific,
artistic, didactic-informational, religious, and technical, among others. They
are thus able to differentiate a literary and artistic work from a scientific
text, or a book on philosophy from a merely informational guide. Readers may be
described as people able to use texts in their own benefit, be it for
esthetical motives, to get information, as an instrument to broaden his or her
vision of the world, for religious motives, or for plain entertainment.
First we must consider that all “literatures”
are important and have reasons for existing. Not being able to differentiate
among them, though, could move people away from reading.
Let us examine just one example: imagine that a
child presupposes that all books are,
ultimately, didactic. She will read a poetry book with the assumption that she
is studying, and thus will feel obliged to perceive, understand, and learn a
lesson. More: she will imagine that all readers of this particular book must
necessarily reach one and the same interpretation.
If this expectation is perfectly suitable for a
didactic-informational book, it is at least bizarre when applied to a poetic
work. Also, it reveals a regrettable mistake that will possibly move away from
literature any potential reader. Later on I will explain which literature I am
referring to.
It is important to make it clear: in order to
educate a reader it is essential to establish, between the person who reads and
the text, a kind of communion based on pleasure, identification, interest, and
freedom of interpretation. Effort is also necessary, and it is justifiable and
legitimated precisely through the established communion.
Among various existing “literatures,” we are
interested in the one that presupposes esthetical motivation. I am referring to
that art form made with words that is conventionally called Literature. It is
worth to point out a few of its main characteristics.
In the first place, to speak about Literature
requires a reference to fiction and the poetic discourse.
Through the poetic discourse, we give up the
objective, logic, systematic, impersonal, coherent, and unequivocal language of
didactic-informational books. It is not a coincidence that all didactic works
present a very similar discourse; in them, the personal voice of the author
practically disappears. There is a simple reason for that: this kind of book
aims at having all of its readers arrive to the same and unique interpretation.
In order to reach that goal it is not possible, obviously, to use discourses
that may result in multiple readings.
In opposition, the poetic discourse, the
literary text by definition, is and must be subjective; it can make up words;
it may transgress official norms of the language; it may create unexpected
rhythms, and explore sonorities between words; it can play with puns and double
senses; it may use metaphors, metonymies, and ironies; it can be symbolic; it
can be deliberately ambivalent and even obscure. This kind of discourse tends
to multiple meanings, to connote, and it wants different readers to reach
different interpretations. It is possible to affirm that the quality of a
literary text is proportional to the number of different readings it allows.
Beyond the poetic discourse, Literature
presupposes recourse to fiction. When we enter the domain of fiction, we always
renounce to the (legitimate) attempt to see the world from an objective point
of view (to see it from a “non-subjective” bias), systematic logic, and
analytical thought – in short, the “scientific” model characteristic of
didactic-informational books. Through fiction, we penetrate the area of
subjectivity (the personal and singular view of the world), of analogy,
intuition, imagination, and fantasy.
Here is a parenthesis: while
didactic-informational books need periodic updating – information and
methodology change constantly, after all – there is no sense in updating a
poetic or literary work, unless the procedure is limited to orthographic norms.
In any case, it is necessary to vehemently state
that fictional literature, as well as the didactic-informational one and other
works, may also be a form of thought about life and the world.
Through an invented story, and characters that
never existed, it is possible to bring up and discuss, in a pleasant and
playful way, relevant human issues, many of which, by the way, are generally
avoided by the didactic-informational discourse – and even by science –
precisely because they are considered subjective, ambivalent, and not
measurable.
What are these issues? Among others: human
passions and emotions; the search for self-knowledge; the attempt to understand
our identity (who we are); the construction of a personal voice; the numerous
difficulties in interpreting the Other; the individual utopias; mortality;
sexuality (I do not mean sexual education, but the essentially subjective,
physical, and emotional sexual-affective relationship); the always complicated
distinction between “reality” and “fantasy”; temporality and ephemerality
(i.e., aging and its implications); numerous and intricate ethical questions;
the existence of different valid points of view about the same subject, etc.
Alas, such themes and issues, although not
appearing in didactic-informational books or in the disciplines of the official
curriculum, are of the utmost importance and complexity, and must be addressed.
After all, in real life, all human beings, willingly or not, are permanently
plunged in a learning process, and in the search for self-knowledge. A 90-year
old man was never 90 years old before, and thus will have to learn to deal with
his new situation. A 10-year old boy goes through a similar process, and so on.
On the other hand, if we are constantly changing
as we acquire new information, go through new experiences and age, how can one
talk about “identity,” which is generally described as a fixed and immutable
abstraction?
It is also worth to ask this question: how to
deal with our emotions and feelings? How often does our reason ask for one
thing, and our feelings want another, completely different?
How to construct a genuine personal discourse,
how to be really expressive in a world full of “information” (opposed, here, to
“experience”), preconceived ideas, behavior formulae, and “politically correct”
attitudes?
How to “objectively” (i.e., impersonally) deal
with mortality? How to confront the inexorable and the unknown? Why do we have
projects, and build utopias, if we will unavoidably die? Some theorists[3] ponder
that one critical existential problem is that the human being has no cognitive
access to her birth (she was already born a long time ago when she realizes it)
or to her death (when it dawns on her, she is already dead), and, to complicate
matters further, she changes constantly in between, as she ages and acquires
experience. What to do?
Going back to the distinction between reality
and fantasy, how to determine it if we know that a past experience may
unconsciously influence the present? A simple example: someone aggressed us
when we were a child. In adulthood, we meet someone else who reminds us of that
person. Our tendency will be to unjustly treat this person badly, fear her, or
even aggress her. The debate about what is indeed “reality” is very
complicated. For some researchers, what we call “reality” is, in truth, just a
social construction, and through this bias we can only see that which we are
socially conditioned to see.[4] As
an example: that which is described to us as “white” is a complex set of more
than a hundred colors for an Eskimo.
And what about ethical questions? Should we tell
the truth if, in a given situation, lying would save the life of a person? Is
it possible to think of an act of violence ethically justifiable? And what to
make of free will in face of a set of customs and abstract laws that we
theoretically should respect?
Issues and themes such as these – always treated
through fiction and poetry – are recurring in literary works but, I insist, do
not exist in most didactic-informational books.
To argue that these issues do not belong in the
“child universe” is to adopt an improbable and reductive but comfortable
theoretical-abstract model of what childhood is. In real life, unconsciously or
not, children do search their self-knowledge and their identities; they have
feelings and reason; they dream and fall in love; they have doubts, fears, and
pleasures; they remain perplex in face of multiple points of view; they have
difficulties to separate reality and fantasy; they are sexed and mortal. In
short, they are essentially human beings.
Beyond that, as indicate several studies[5] by
anthropologists and psychologists, some cognitive characteristics deemed to be
typical of “childhood” remain in adults – capable and intelligent adults – who
simply did not have access to written culture.
There is something else: as we know, in our
country, many twelve-, ten-year olds or even younger already work, and with
dignity contribute to the support of their families. Meanwhile, in the other
social extreme, one can meet adults older than 20 who never worked, and,
although having attended schools considered good, live lives alienated from
social issues, from citizenship, and from politics. Worst, some of them – fortunately
few – sometimes go around committing hideous crimes, maybe due to the boredom
caused by their own alienation. I am referring to the unacceptable murder, in
Brasília, of the Pataxó native Galdino de Jesus, among other crimes committed
by elite youth, and published on the press.
I do not intend to mean – and it is important to
thoroughly clarify this – that children are equivalent to adults. I mean,
instead, that the labeling of people with sterile and abstract age brackets
appears to be, when indiscriminately used, a mistaken and reductive idea that
needs urgent rethinking. I am sure that, for instance, the mention of ages on
covers of Literature books – which presupposes the existence of “special”
literary texts for people aged 7, 9, or 11, and thus the belief that children
of, say, 9 years old are all alike
(!) – does not contribute a bit, on the contrary, to the education of new
readers. Note that the same initiative in didactic-informational books may be
absolutely correct.
I also attempt to say the following: the
didactic-informational model, cultivated by the school system, tends to present
a symmetrical world, logic, balanced, coherent, and unequivocal. That seems to
be necessary in order to allow the student-reader to organize and systematize important
information for his social life, future studies, development, and to understand
society.
Beyond the educational field – and it is
critical not to forget this – the same reader lives in the real and particular
(not theoretical) existence field, and is thus subject to numerous
contradictory or unexpected situations, i.e., situations that are not included
in the menu of ideal rules and models. I mentioned some above.
Note that – precisely for addressing the
contradictory instead of working with idealized, foreseeable, and abstract
(besides being “politically correct”) characters, which are typical of
pedagogic books – Literature may present the reader with fictitious but complex
and paradoxical human beings, who are plunged in a constant process of modification
and are busy constructing a significance for their lives. I believe it is of
the utmost importance that readers – children or not – have access to such
characters, which are responsible for the identification between the person who
reads and the text. In the field of so-called children literature, to remain
within well-known examples, I would mention Raquel (from Lygia Bojunga’s The Yellow Bag[6] )
and The Nutty Boy (from the
homonymous book by Ziraldo Alves Pinto[7] )
as such kind of characters.
In
any case, I believe it is critical to always include ambivalence and the
contradictory in the education of children and readers. Not, of course, as
lessons – if there were explanations for the contradictory it would simply not
exist – but as dialogue, meditation, debates, speculation, and exchange of
opinions.
It is fulfilling to imagine a scenario were
adults and children, together, at home, in a classroom, or wherever, may
exchange ideas and impressions about issues that no one, no matter how old, can
“teach.” In that scenario, it is only possible to share experiences. On another
hand, to suspect or to suggest that children do not have enough life experience
to be shared with adults is to ignore the real human existence.
When Literature characteristics – among which I
include the possibility of addressing the contradictory – are respected, the
poetic and fictional discourse allows the emotional identification between the
text and the person who reads. It thus may represent, in the school or not, a
precious space for a certain vital speculation to blossom, be it by the reader
alone, or with others.
Before I conclude, I believe it is worth to
summarize the main ideas in this article:
1.
The need for children, and also
adults, at home, at school, or in life, to learn to differentiate various kinds
of texts. They will be educating themselves as readers when they start using
the texts for their own benefit.
2.
The realization that
didactic-informational books have been very useful for spreading information,
or as an important educational tool, but they certainly do not educate readers.
3.
For reader education to happen,
it is necessary to have between the text and the person who reads a kind of
emotional communion that presupposes pleasure, great identification, and always
the liberty to interpret. It is important to remember that there is an
unavoidable effort involved in this process.
4.
The need for Literature to be
understood as a thought model, which uses fiction and poetry to interpret and
give significance to life and the world beyond confusing clichés such as
“reading trip,” “free the imagination,” or “on the wings of fantasy.”
5.
The awareness that, besides the
objective and unequivocal discourses that rigorously follow the rules of the
official education, there are other, subjective, analogical, playful, with
multiple significations, and highly inventive discourses, which are allowed
great manipulation of language resources, thus becoming extremely significant.
6.
The need to recognize that
beyond conventional issues that may be taught by adults to children there is an
endless number of other contradictory, ambivalent, and complex themes that may
only be debated and shared by people, no matter what their age is. In other
words, it is not possible for adults to play the role of children’s teachers
all the time. On the contrary, it is necessary to recognize the rich complexity
of real existence, be it in adult life or in childhood.
7.
The importance of keeping in
mind that Literature – and art in general, painting, theater, cinema, dance,
music, etc. – may be a privileged space to address ambivalence and the
contradictory. Here are a few simple examples, as a clarification, that are
approaches to the contradictory in the field of the so-called children literature:
the behavior of a character like Peter Pan, who refuses to grow up, criticizes
“real” life and chooses to live in an utopia called “Neverland”; the journey of
Alice to Wonderland, and her many pleasant discussions about the sense and the
nonsense of things; the stepmothers that wish to destroy their stepdaughters as
in Snow White, or the princes and princesses transformed in monsters or
animals, all recurring characters in many wonderful tales.
I
would conclude this article by arguing that it will be difficult to educate
readers if we insist on idealizations about reading, and passively accept the
indiscriminate labeling of people with abstract age brackets; if we ignore the
existence of different kinds of books and texts; and also if we do not take
into consideration some specificities of Literature, among them its profound
and critical commitment to the real human existence.
