The Reader

It was the around 9pm on the 17th of January that I made another one of the realizations worth noting in a blog entry. The realization of the fact that reading means experiencing, means living, means breathing. There is no way to experience the 5 sense without living the lives that reading has to offer. 

I just completed watching The Reader in a Georgetown theater. I can attest that this is a movie that I want to remain in my memory as one of the moments I cherished, like the a sugar cube that one whirls around their tongue until it gradually dissolves. I don't think I'd ever sympathized with a fictional character as much as I had with Hannah Schiller. To the illiterate, who cherishes knowledge, illiteracy is worse than being handicapped. The sense of touching a book, but being unable to read it can be petrifying. Being unable to read is similar to being unable to speak, hear, or even feel. 

I don't think that it is possible to experience one of the most important emotions of life with out reading, the emotion of loving. This reminds me of the novel, The Old Man Who Read Love Stories, which makes one appreciate the access to the world of reading, an unboundless world of creativity. I love reading and I am fortunate for my literacy more than I've ever been. 

Although The Reader is a bitter, sweet, dark, harsh, and painful delight to experience, I recommend that you watch it. It will change the way you look at the simple things in life. It will make you appreciate what you take for granted. You will realize how empowered you are by being good at something as simple as merely as reading. I never thought I was good at anything until I realized that I was good at reading. The Reader will teach you how one must strive to pursue his passion of life, even if it is as simple as the task of reading. Some may use reading for futile, busy, silly work, such as drinking something as dull as beer, or for enlightening themselves, such as drinking something as exhilirating as divine wine. The point is, you can use the same cask for drinking two diametrically opposite drinks, its a matter of making the most out of what you have.