I've Been Challenged,Part 1 or:You Cannot Be Serious

It must have been a surprise to my family when, aged three, I rather matter-of-factly picked up a Little Golden Book and, with it right-side-up, began to read. No one, you see, had actually set out to teach me.It must have been organic, the natural result of an already marked fascination with the written word: even as a toddler, I wandered around the house clutching books in my hands, imploring every adult to read to me, please. At my grandparents' house, I would often slip away from my playroom, or anywhere else I was suppose to be, to go read in the hall coat closet. Yes, the coat closet: it is where a box containing all of my books was kept. After struggling to open the door, then again to snap the light on by pulling the long white string that dangled from the ceiling, it was easier to plop down and "read" right there, next to the vacuum and my grandpa's golf shoes. After awhile, my worried family ceased their worrying, as my whereabouts were set in cement.


There are a few commonalities to the hundreds of photographs snapped by my family during my first five years. Within the frame can be found me, my light brown musical teddy bear and books. "Start as you mean to go on" is a phrase that I have seen randomly popping up on the web in recent weeks. It is trite but manages still to neatly encapsulate the course of my life in the thirty years since I first decoded that Little Golden book.


My love for reading things in book form is fierce and adamantine. It is one of the tallest and sturdiest pillars of my being; my self-identity is en-coiled so completely with books that I am unsure if I could ever unravel it, even if I chose to try. This, then, is the very thing that has been asked of me: to forsake books for the entire month of March.


This gauntlet was hurled at me by The Chef, a seasoned veteran in putting challenges to me that at first seem cruel or needless and, on occasion, flat-out silly. He has proven himself on a number of these occasions to have a surprising depth of insight into my character and motivations.Example: Steak, the noshing of, by his birthday. I was a vegetarian at that time, something that I have since ceased to be. That is another story, however, but it is an example of a compelling coerciveness that I have never met in another person, save myself.


When he first suggested that I not read a book, except for professional needs, for an entire month--and a month of 31 days, at that--I took it for a joke. It was merely an off-handed comment, after all, spoken in his normal voice while he was dressing for work one morning. I would have expected such heterodoxy, if it was truly meant, to be accompanied by the opening of the very earth beneath our feet ,gale-force winds or, at the least, by a circling of ravens above our heads. As those things did not happen, I laughed off his suggestion as a jest.


But, no, the man was serious, and remains so. He maintains the position that it would do me good to be a non-reader for a month. I asked him if he thought it would do him good to be a non-breather for a month, as it nearly amounts to the same thing. I would not, could-not give such a ridiculous challenge a thought. What could I, or anyone, possibly gain intellectually, spiritually, philosophically or in any way that matters, by not reading books? The answer, now that it has come, is exoteric: how would I know? I have gone no more than a day or two, in all my years as a reader, without picking up a book or two ( or three) and greedily ingesting at least a few pages.


The first of March is a scant few hours away, and I remain undecided in my response. While I am reluctant to attempt something that seems to be designed to entirely impoverish my soul, I am not entirely unwilling. A month is not a lifetime, it is a gathering of days that will quickly disappear.I am wise enough to know that there is something to be learned from the brief absence of words, although what that is, exactly, is yet unknown.


If I take up this challenge, I will not be entirely bereft of words: the fast is for (non-professional) books only, leaving the internet and magazines open to my perusal.While I try to decide, I am going to take a cue from these rules. Instead of finishing the night with Charlotte Bronte, I am going to close it with the March Issue of 'Marie Claire' and a glass or two of wine.


Tomorrow, in Part II, I will contemplate a life without books while explaining why my life is contained,explained and justified, in so large a part, within them.

THE ABOVE PHOTO IS BY LIN KRISTENSEN OF NEW JERSEY. IT IS LICENCED UNDER THE CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 2.0. CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO SEE ALL OF THE INFORMATION.