IRONIES

During my lecture last Thursday I was shocked when during free discussions, most of the students told me that they don’t like to read.

STUDENT: “ My Name is Rosario Malunhuadot, my hobbies is surfing and hanging out with my friends and I don’t like to read…

STUDENT2: ”My name is Merci dela…I like to watch t.v….hang out and dance in with frends…I hate reading anything…

I don’t know why it bothered me.Was it the fact that they hated reading or was it the way they proclaimed it? Like bragging about the great kill they did down equatorial Africa during the terrible monsoon seasons,

“ You see there I was old chap, rain water all over the place and this big yellow cat pouncing at me, It’s all I could do to keep her in between the crosshairs but by Jove, I got off two in the head and bless me soul, there she is. Hanging majestically beside Helena. Ahh well…”

I fear that it’s a generational thing. The “in “ thing now is to hate READING! I was a rebel, Hell I still am the last time I checked. I rebelled on almost anything that I can get my hands.

Fashion, taste in food, music. You know the usual. But I never questioned the merits of reading. Reading for me is not only a passion, it is a way of life! Every chance I get, I read! After working, my form of relaxation is to kick back, and lie down and read!
Books, graphic novels, comics, magazines, letters and blogs!

When I was a kid, my first book was The Bible. By grade six I had fourteen bibles in the house, I don’t know why. I also got introduced to the classics; my first favorite book was THE ILIAD. Up until now I’m a HOMER fan. Later on in high school I discovered the prequels and the sequels that amounted to a titanic body of work. I didn’t like THE ANEAES. I thought VIRGIL was poor Fop Roman copycat!

Then from HOMER I found myself going to the fantasy epic cycles, GILGAMESH, THE NIBULENGS and BEOWULF. Shattered legendary swords being reforged and rings of power that bring a terrible curse where old hat to me when I discovered TOLKIEN in High school.

Then there was ERR EDISON, the writer of THE WORM OROUBORUS.That totally floored me. I lost my copy. Im still planning expeditions in retrieving it.

The story is set in the planet Mercury where the Demon Lords are at war with the WITCH KINGS. Demon lords in order to win must take a journey in retrieving the last HIPPOGRIFF egg in a forgotten lake. You simply must read it to believe it.

August Derleth was another favorite of mine and so is H.P.LOPVECRAFT.

When I discovered HP LOVECRAFT. It totally shook my world. In my art classes in the 7th grade my teacher would scratch his head as I explained that all my drawings were about CHUTLLU and YOG SOGOOTH. She pushed me to the guidance counselor who thought that I was having an unhealthy fixation with demonic things.

Only after I recited certain passages from the bible was the counselor convinced that I was not the ANTI-CHRIST. (I owned 13 bibles and read them thoroughly, remember?)

From Love craft, I made a leap to ROBERT HOWARD. And discovered much to my amazement that CONAN was more brutal in the books than in the comics. In college I was able to buy in back issue bins, THE PIGEONS FROM HELL and THE SOWERS AND THE THUNDERS and they were still good in delivering mayhem and limb sundering action!

Then there was FRITZ LIEBER and the legendary Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Then
Oh boy this guys were something else. They preceded Starsky and Hutch and all those mismatched guy couples by a couple of decades or so.

( I would discover other subjects when I reach high school. But in my younger days I was interested in only one genre, fantasy adventure! )

When I was in high school my bookshelf was bursting at the seams. I had to stack them vertically.

I tired to invade my Sister’s library by tossing out some of her NANCY DREWS and ENID BLYTONS, which I totally detest because they lack action and dismemberments!

SISTER: “ Well I’m not a bloodthirsty barbarian like you! I’m a refined young woman who likes to analyze clues and mysteries!

OH YEAH SO WHO ENDED UP AS A FORENSIC EXPERT? YES ITS TRUE SHE’S ONLY ONE OF TWO HERE IN THE PHILIPPINES IN THIS HIGHLY SPECIALIZED FIELD BUT STILL, I’M NOT THE ONE WHO GOES HOME EVERY NIGHT,ELBOWS DEEP IN BLOOD AND GUTS!

Now my uncle went into my room one day and told me that he found it disturbing why I read all these violent literature. He gave me a copy of VASARI’S BRIEF LIVES OF ARTISTS. About the Renaissance Masters.

From then on my blood and guts reading were tempered. I would go to the library and leaf thru books that featured Florentine painters. I was amazed at the styles of BUNOROTTI and RAPHAEL. Personally I thought that DAVINCI was overrated. All he dis was paint that stupid looking woman with athat stupid semi-cross eyed grin. So what if no one can understand what she was smirking about, WHO CARES?

In the 7th grade I thought that the greater mystery was why all these people were marveling as to why she was smiling. To a kid, She’s smiling, PERIOD! Its when you grow up when you start worrying about the why’s and making things more complicated than it already is.

Anyway, I was so influenced by the Renaissance masters that I wanted to paint the ceiling of our school church. I even asked the rector. He thanked me for the thought and assured me that their frescoes were doing just fine.

Years later they would ask a mere house painter to retouch their ceiling with disastrous results! But that is another story!

During one of my library excursions I would discover the works of BIENVENOTO CELLINI, that master craftsman, thief and swashbuckling figure.

His best known work is the giant PERSUES BEHEADING MEDUSA.

He was so impoverished that he had to steal some gems from a merchants house just to complete a piece that he entered in a competition. He won the prize a few seconds after the Judge of the competition who was also the merchant recognized that it was his jewel adorning the piece.

Whenever I walk home, my mind was reeling with all the things I read. From the snowcapped adventures of GREY MOUSER and FAHRD, to the sub tropical ruins of RYHELL to the forgotten era of the HYBOREAN AGE to the TROJAN WARS.
My imagination was so fueled to the prime that I cannot even look at my pillow as just a pillow. I can see Mount Sinai in its shape or a castle turret where OGIER THE DANE defended the Castle single-handedly while being attacked by a thousand MOORS.

That is what reading taught me, its lasting legacy. How to imagine the words and worlds in …your head!

Now as I look back at the young faces, looking back at me, I see the empty stares. Devoid of that light! That spark! Which reading books can only ignite! I pondered what must one do in the face of such odds.

“ You mean all of you don’t like to read? I find it ironic that I’m going to be lecturing about the Renaissance Masters in a class who hates reading.”

“ Ohh a sir, what does Ironic mean? “

That’s the real irony!