Read Books- If only I had the TIME

In class last week, while talking about tracing things back to their mythic origins, Dr. Sexson left us with a statement (order? challenge? suggestion?). He told us to read books.
Just that. "Read books."

I wrote down a couple things in my notes that day under that heading:
 "Stories of your culture make you who you are."
 "If you don't read, you don't live."

Now my first reaction to these statements was one of happiness! For those of you who don't know me well I'm an English Education major so reading books is right up my ally. I grew up reading and actually don't remember a time far enough back when I couldn't read. Finally someone was telling me to do something I already love to do instead of telling me I am wasting my intelligence and life by studying English (note the sarcastic tone that I usually am met with in this declaration).

My second reaction was one of slight guilt: I'm an English major and look at all of the things I haven't read yet. In this class we are reading stories that can be traced back to myths and classic works of literature, the only problem being I haven't read nearly enough of them. Yes, I was in honors English all through high school and took AP Lit, but even through all of these classes I still feel like there are a lot of classics I just haven't ever read.

The obvious solution to my problem is to do exactly what Dr. Sexson said: read books. My problem of course is time. There is only so much of it and mine always seems to be filled with other obligations (which tend to go by the wayside when I get engrossed in a novel). This problem of time and reading took on a new meaning recently when I started reading Eliade's book Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries.

Eliade talks in the first chapter about the function of reading in society. He says "Reading replaces not only the oral folk traditions, ... but also the recital of the myth in the archaic societies" (Eliade, p. 36). In essence he is talking about the shift from a oral culture to a written one. Before the invention of writing people had to memorize stories and then retell them, much like theater today. Now those experiences are locked away in to a book that can be pulled out at any moment and one can dive in to the world inside the pages.

Eliade also talks about how the view of time has changed over the centuries. He states "It is only in modern societies that man feels himself to be the prisoner of his daily work, in which he can never escape from Time" (Eliade, p. 36). This quote really stuck home with me because there are moments- more so in the summer when I work long hours doing menial labor- when I feel like a prisoner of the daily grind. It feels like there should be more to life than working a 9-5 (or 8-7 more accurately) job and coming home each night exhausted. I want the very thing that Eliade describes: an "escape from time" (Eliade, p.36).

Reading, of course, is  what Eliade calls "the supreme distraction" (Eliade, p.36) because it allows us to be consumed by a world that moves at a much faster pace. We begin a book and can travel to far off countries, experience youth and old age, fall in love, fight mythical creatures, and anything else you can imagine all in the same day. It changes the pace of time allowing for more leeway of experience in a single lifetime. To those who would argue that you are not really experiencing those thing but only reading about them, I leave you with the words of Albus Dumbledore:

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”"

So I guess what I really need is some time to escape from Time.