We could say that October is book month in Acadia. It started with the Acadian Peninsula Book Fair which was a great success. And it ends with the 34th edition of the Dieppe Book Fair. If the trees in October allow us to see all the colors, the books made possible by the trees allow us to appreciate a whole palette of colors through knowledge and feelings.
I participated in the opening of the Acadian Peninsula show. From the messages delivered on this occasion, I learned that the show has become a must in the programming of fall activities. The education council emphasizes the educational value of the show. The university campus asserts its privileged role as partner. The city of Shippagan talks about attracting visitors. Sponsors cite economic benefits. This is all true and worth emphasizing. But there is more.
Literature plays an invaluable role in one’s journey of life. I couldn’t say it better than Pope Francis. On July 17, he signed an eleven-page letter on “the role of literature in training”. At a time of banishment by some, the pope is bold in inviting us to “choose our readings with openness, surprise, flexibility, letting ourselves be advised, but also with sincerity, trying to find what we need at each moment of our time. life” (no. 17).
This letter may surprise you. Because the Church has already blacklisted certain books throughout its history. Today, she has the humility to recognize the advances of humanity thanks to the disturbing audacity of certain authors. Additionally, some might ask why is the Pope interested in an area that is not central to his mission. He himself responds: “as a Christian, nothing human is indifferent to me” (no. 37).
Benefits of reading
Reading makes us sensitive to the mystery of others. It takes us out of our cocoon to better understand the emotions we experience: rejection and betrayal, abuse and humiliation, passion and surpassing ourselves, courage and self-sacrifice. In addition, reading allows us to name universal feelings that we all experience: by crying over the fate of a character, we are in reality crying over ourselves and over our emptiness, our loneliness, our faults.
In a world influenced by audiovisual media, dispatches reduced to a few words and fake news, reading allows you to take a certain distance from the immediate. It requires us to slow down to assess the issues, form our conscience and have an objective portrait of reality based on facts instead of opinions. Reading teaches us the humility of non-simplification and educates our conscience on the risk of making hasty judgments.
The Pope places great emphasis on personal commitment in the act of reading. Reading uses the imagination. This is active in rewriting with its own memories, its experiences and its hopes, what the author tells. In this sense: “a literary work is a living and always fertile text, capable of speaking anew in multiple ways and of producing an original synthesis with each reader it encounters” (no. 3).
Long live the authors
Many other positive effects of reading are highlighted in the pontifical letter. There is the acquisition of a wider vocabulary, stimulation of creativity, reduction of anxiety, increase in concentration. It makes us empathetic to the experiences of others and keeps us from pretending to understand everything. Literature is a school of life!
There are so many positive effects of reading.
This leads me to wonder how we managed to convince so many people to fill the gyms, while the libraries often remain deserts. Some must have understood that it is easier to manipulate strong arms than well-trained intelligence.
Returning from an apostolic trip to Japan, a journalist asked the Pope what the West had to learn from the East. He replied: “I think there is a bit of poetry missing in the West.” There is also a shortage of it in Acadia. It’s not because we lack authors! These are the readers who are rare.
If you suffer from a literature deficiency, it can be cured. Go to the Dieppe Book Fair. Enter a bookstore. Become a member of a library. Open a book. A whole world will open up before you.
Happy reading!
