Is digital killing the reading habit?


Social and digital inform you, but are eroding the long-format reading habit. Click To Tweet.

A friend sent me this very inspiring and cleverly written story. You’ll probably recall reading it from one of numerous WhatsApp forwards and Facebook posts. Here it is, as received and un-subbed:

A jobless man applied for the job of “Sweeper” at Microsoft.

The HR interviewed him. Then watched him cleaning the floor as a test. “You are Appointed” he said. “Give me your e-mail address and I’ll send you the forms to fill in.”

The man replied, “But I don’t have a computer, neither an email.”

“I’m sorry,” said the HR manager… “If you don’t have an email, that means you do not exist. And who doesn’t exist, cannot have the job.”

The man left with no hope at all. He didn’t know what to do, with only $10 in his pocket. He then decided to go to the supermarket and buy a 10Kg tomato crate. He then sold the tomatoes in a Door to Door round. In less than two hours, he succeeded to double his capital. He repeated the operation three times, and returned home with $60.

The man realised that he can survive this way, and started to go everyday earlier and return late. Thus, his money doubled or tripled everyday. Shortly, he bought a cart, then a truck, then he had his own fleet of delivery vehicles. 5 years later, the man is one of the biggest food retailers in the US.

He started to plan his family’s future, and decided to have a life Insurance. He called an insurance broker, and chose a protection plan.

When the conversation was concluded, the broker asked him his email. The man replied, “I don’t have an email.”

The broker answered curiously, “You don’t have an email, and yet have succeeded to build an empire. Can you imagine what you could have been if you had an email?!”

The man thought for a while and replied, “Yes, I’d be an ‘Sweeper’ at Microsoft!”

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Maugham

That little summarized hash-slinging above is from a great original, a short story by W Somerset Maugham, entitled The Verger, and is one of the best examples of his inimitable writing craft. I’d need to be an Orwell or a Hemingway to be able to describe it with any justice at all, and those who have read the story will likely agree it is pure genius.

Ironically, Maugham wrote, “There are three rules for writing a great novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” Click To TweetSo, to come back to the forward I just shared above. While large numbers of social media users would have skimmed through and instantly shared that little ‘inspirational’ adaptation above, I doubt if even two percent of them would have read the beautiful original, The Verger.

Wither reading:

With so many sites, apps and social account hammering away news, stories, takes, pokes, jibes in text, pics and videos at all the  people active on all those platforms, one sees a trend that, for a lover of books and longer form writing, is disturbing, to say the least.  I must have close to a thousand books (whittled down from a total of 6-odd-thousand for reasons of space in our Mumbai apartment after I got married) at home, handpicked ones over the years, across genres and sub-genres. But nobody at home really wants to read a book today. And it’s not as if they don’t want to read the physical copy but will read a soft copy – PDF, eBook or a kindle version. No, the time they have, and their reading habits, due to the reduced attention spans thanks to essentially short format digital and online pieces, have reduced to, well, ‘reduced’ or shorter pieces.

We must go digital. But slash the reading habit to tiny, back of the envelope length tiny-formats? That’s a travesty

So does one still continue one’s love affair with that beautifully immersive aroma that floats up to embrace your senses when you open a book? Or, for the sake of the environment, do what my bank  encourages me to – go digital and soft-copy because it takes one tree to produce just 3000 sheets of paper? Obviously, for the sake of the environment, that’s a no-brainer.  We must go digital. But slash the reading habit to tiny, back of the envelope length tiny-formats? That’s a travesty.Today, youngsters haven’t been reading books as much as my average friend did decades ago, but that’s the sign of the times. No one’s suggesting that the youngsters aren’t well informed or aspirationally motivated – I’m not judging anyone, and in fact, have learnt a lot from my own teenaged daughter and her elder brother.

I enjoy reading, and I can’t help wishing the weaned-on-social-only youngsters today also experience the immense pleasure of reading a good book. Obviously, the first step would be to decide to do that, and to keep aside enough time for it. It invariably happens that once a book grips you, your reading schedule goes out the window into the recycle bin.

However, somehow, I know that many students of English literature — and probably literature in other languages too — across school, college and university, today take the short cut read guides and notes that abridge a 100-page Tom Jones into a 10-page summary with critical appreciation and questions added. And in an exam system that doesn’t really probe at all if a student has actually read and grasped the nuances of a Fielding. Hardy or Maugham text, all one needs is what the ‘guides’ provide.   Anyway, that’s how far sideways the reading habit has gone. The exposure to great writing is at its nadir, and hence, at-best-average books written in  often ungrammatical because it’s the spoken language today, have become popular. But regardless of their writing quality, I’m glad authors like Chetan Bhagat are spinning tales that connect with the mindset of youngsters whom they engage today. At least someone is pushing the reading habit.

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit: Maugham

So yes, there’s no debating that information is power, and social and digital keep most of the world informed and ‘activist-ed’ today.  Reading great books will open minds further. Maugham did write, “She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.”

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The Verger by W Somerset Maugham

Here’s the original beautiful piece of writing, The Verger. How deftly, evocatively, Maugham builds creates the world of the story, builds its characters, and, crucially, your empathy for them. Or rather, for the verger. Read and enjoy!

The Verger by W. Somerset Maugham

There had been a christening that afternoon at St. Peter’s, Neville Square, and Albert Edward Foreman still wore his verger’s gown. He kept his new one, its folds as full and stiff though it were made not of alpaca but of perennial bronze, for funerals and weddings (St. Peter’s, Neville Square, was a church much favoured by the fashionable for these ceremonies) and now he wore only his second-best. He wore it with complacence for it was the dignified symbol of his office, and without it (when he took it off to go home) he had the disconcerting sensation of being somewhat insufficiently clad. He took pains with it; he pressed it and ironed it himself. During the sixteen years he had been verger of this church he had had a succession of such gowns, but he had never been able to throw them away when they were worn out and the complete series, neatly wrapped up in brown paper, lay in the bottom drawers of the wardrobe in his bedroom.

The verger busied himself quietly, replacing the painted wooden cover on the marble font, taking away a chair that had been brought for an infirm old lady, and waited for the vicar to have finished in the vestry so that he could tidy up in there and go home. Presently he saw him walk across the chancel, genuflect in front of the high altar and come down the aisle; but he still wore his cassock.

“What’s he ‘anging about for?” the verger said to himself “Don’t ‘e know I want my tea?”

The vicar had been but recently appointed, a red-faced energetic man in the early forties, and Albert Edward still regretted his redecessor, a clergyman of the old school who preached leisurely sermons in a silvery voice and dined out a great deal with his more aristocratic parishioners. He liked things in church to be just so, but he never fussed; he was not like this new man who wanted to have his finger in every pie. But Albert Edward was tolerant. St. Peter’s was in a very good neighbourhood and the parishioners were a very nice class of people. The new vicar had come from the East End and he couldn’t be expected to fall in all at once with the discreet ways of his fashionable congregation.

“All this ‘ustle,” said Albert Edward. “But give ‘im time, he’ll learn.”

When the vicar had walked down the aisle so far that he could address the verger without raising his voice more than was becoming in a place of worship he stopped.

“Foreman, will you come into the vestry for a minute. I have something to say to you.”

“Very good, sir.”

The vicar waited for him to come up and they walked up the church together.

“A very nice christening, I thought sir. Funny ‘ow the baby stopped cryin’ the moment you took him.”

“I’ve noticed they very often do,” said the vicar, with a little smile.

“After all I’ve had a good deal of practice with them.”

It was a source of subdued pride to him that he could nearly always quiet a whimpering infant by the manner in which he held it and he was not unconscious of the amused admiration with which mothers and nurses watched him settle the baby in the crook of his surpliced arm. The verger knew that it pleased him to be complimented on his talent.

The vicar preceded Albert Edward into the vestry. Albert Edward was a trifle surprised to find the two churchwardens there. He had not seen them come in. They gave him pleasant nods.

“Good afternoon, my lord. Good afternoon, sir,” he said to one after the other.

They were elderly men, both of them and they had been churchwardens almost as long as Albert Edward had been verger. They were sitting now at a handsome refectory table that the old vicar had brought many years before from Italy and the vicar sat down in the vacant chair between them. Albert Edward faced them, the table between him and them and wondered with slight uneasiness what was the matter. He remembered still the occasion on which the organist had got in trouble and the bother they had all had to hush things up. In a church like St. Peter’s, Neville Square, they couldn’t afford scandal. On the vicar’s red face was a look of resolute benignity but the others bore an expression that was slightly troubled.

“He’s been naggin’ them he ‘as,” said the verger to himself. “He’s jockeyed them into doin’ something, but they don’t like it. That’s what it is, you mark my words.”

But his thoughts did not appear on Albert Edward’s clean cut and distinguished features. He stood in a respectful but not obsequious attitude. He had been in service before he was appointed to his ecclesiastical office, but only in very good houses, and his deportment was irreproachable. Starting as a page-boy in the household of a merchant-prince he had risen by due degrees from the position of fourth to first footman, for a year he had been single-handed butler to a widowed peeress and, till the vacancy occurred at St. Peter’s, butler with two men under him in the house of a retired ambassador. He was tall, spare, grave and dignified. He looked, if not like a duke, at least like an actor of the old school who specialised in dukes’ parts. He had tact, firmness and self-assurance. His character was unimpeachable.

The vicar began briskly.  “Foreman, we’ve got something rather unpleasant to say to you. You’ve been here a great many years and I think his lordship and the general agree with me that you’ve fulfilled the duties of your office to the satisfaction of everybody concerned.”

The two churchwardens nodded.

“But a most extraordinary circumstance came to my knowledge the other day and I felt it my duty to impart it to the churchwardens. I discovered to my astonishment that you could neither read nor write.”

The verger’s face betrayed no sign of embarrassment.

“The last vicar knew that, sir,” he replied. “He said it didn’t make no difference. He always said there was a great deal too much education in the world for ‘is taste.”

“It’s the most amazing thing I ever heard,” cried the general. “Do you mean to say that you’ve been verger of this church for sixteen years and never learned to read or write?”

“I went into service when I was twelve sir. The cook in the first place tried to teach me once, but I didn’t seem to ‘ave the knack for it, and then what with one thing and another I never seemed to ‘ave the time. I’ve never really found the want of it. I think a lot of these young fellows waste a rare lot of time readin’ when they might be doin’ something useful.”

“But don’t you want to know the news?” said the other churchwarden.

“Don’t you ever want to write a letter?”

“No, me lord, I seem to manage very well without. And of late years now they’ve all these pictures in the papers I get to know what’s goin’ on pretty well. Me wife’s quite a scholar and if I want to write a letter she writes it for me. It’s not as if I was a bettin’ man.”

The two churchwardens gave the vicar a troubled glance and then looked down at the table.

“Well, Foreman, I’ve talked the matter over with these gentlemen and they quite agree with me that the situation is impossible. At a church like St. Peter’s Neville Square, we cannot have a verger who can neither read nor write.”

Albert Edward’s thin, sallow face reddened and he moved uneasily on his feet, but he made no reply.

“Understand me, Foreman, I have no complaint to make against you. You do your work quite satisfactorily; I have the highest opinion both of your character and of your capacity; but we haven’t the right to take the risk of some accident that might happen owing to your lamentable ignorance. It’s a matter of prudence as well as of principle.”

“But couldn’t you learn, Foreman?” asked the general.

“No, sir, I’m afraid I couldn’t, not now. You see, I’m not as young as I was and if I couldn’t seem able to get the letters in me ‘ead when I was a nipper I don’t think there’s much chance of it now.”

“We don’t want to be harsh with you, Foreman,” said the vicar. “But the churchwardens and I have quite made up our minds. We’ll give you three months and if at the end of that time you cannot read and write I’m afraid you’ll have to go.”

Albert Edward had never liked the new vicar. He’d said from the beginning that they’d made a mistake when they gave him St. Peter’s. He wasn’t the type of man they wanted with a classy congregation like that. And now he straightened himself a little. He knew his value and he wasn’t going to allow himself to be put upon.

“I’m very sorry sir, I’m afraid it’s no good. I’m too old a dog to learn new tricks. I’ve lived a good many years without knowin’ ‘ow to read and write, and without wishin’ to praise myself, self-praise is no recommendation, I don’t mind sayin’ I’ve done my duty in that state of life in which it ‘as pleased a merciful providence to place me, and if I could learn now I don’t know as I’d want to.”

“In that case, Foreman, I’m afraid you must go.”

“Yes sir, I quite understand. I shall be ‘appy to ‘and in my resignation as soon as you’ve found somebody to take my place.”

But when Albert Edward with his usual politeness had closed the church door behind the vicar and the two churchwardens he could not sustain the air of unruffled dignity with which he bad borne the blow inflicted upon him and his lips quivered. He walked slowly back to the vestry and hung up on its proper peg his verger’s gown. He sighed as he thought of all the grand funerals and smart weddings it had seen. He tidied everything up, put on his coat, and hat in hand walked down the aisle. He locked the church door behind him. He strolled across the square, but deep in his sad thoughts he did not take the street that led him home, where a nice strong cup of tea awaited; he took the wrong turning. He walked slowly along. His heart was heavy. He did not know what he should do with himself. He did not fancy the notion of going back to domestic service; after being his own master for so many years, for the vicar and churchwardens could say what they liked, it was he that had run St. Peter’s, Neville Square, he could scarcely demean himself by accepting a situation. He had saved a tidy sum, but not enough to live on without doing something, and life seemed to cost more every year. He had never thought to be troubled with such questions.

The vergers of St. Peter’s, like the popes Rome, were there for life. He had often thought of the pleasant reference the vicar would make in his sermon at evensong the first Sunday after his death to the long and faithful service, and the exemplary character of their late verger, Albert Edward Foreman. He sighed deeply. Albert Edward was a non-smoker and a total abstainer, but with a certain latitude; that is to say he liked a glass of beer with his dinner and when he was tired he enjoyed a cigarette. It occurred to him now that one would comfort him and since he did not carry them he looked about him for a shop where he could buy a packet of Gold Flakes. He did not at once see one and walked on a little. It was a long street with all sorts of shops in it, but there was not a single one where you could buy cigarettes.

“That’s strange,” said Albert Edward.   To make sure he walked right up the street again. No, there was no doubt about it. He stopped and looked reflectively up and down.

“I can’t be the only man as walks along this street and wants a fag,” he said. “I shouldn’t wonder but what a fellow might do very well with a little shop here. Tobacco and sweets, you know.”

He gave a sudden start.

“That’s an idea,” he said. “Strange ‘ow things come to you when you least expect it.”

He turned, walked home, and had his tea.

“You’re very silent this afternoon, Albert,” his wife remarked.

“I’m thinkin’,” he said.

He considered the matter from every point of view and next day he went along the street and by good luck found a little shop to let that looked as though it would exactly suit him. Twenty-four hours later he had taken it and when a month after that he left St. Peter’s, Neville Square, for ever, Albert Edward Foreman set up in business as a tobacconist and newsagent. His wife said it was a dreadful come-down after being verger of St. Peter’s, but he answered that you had to move with the times, the church wasn’t what it was, and ‘enceforward he was going to render unto Caesar what was Caesar’s.

Albert Edward did very well. He did so well that in a year or so it struck him that he might take a second shop and put a manager in. He looked for another long street that hadn’t got a tobacconist in it and when he found it and a shop to let, took it and stocked it. This was a success too. Then it occurred to him that if he could run two he could run half a dozen, so he began walking about London, and whenever he found a long street that had no tobacconist and a shop to let he took it. In the course of ten years he had acquired no less than ten shops and he was making money hand over fist. He went round to all of them himself every Monday, collected the week’s takings and took them to the bank.

One morning when he was there paying in a bundle of notes and a heavy bag of silver the cashier told him that the manager would like to see him. He was shown into an office and the manager shook hands with him.

“Mr. Foreman, I wanted to have a talk to you about the money you’ve got on deposit with us. D’you know exactly how much it is?”

“Not within a pound or two, sir; but I’ve got a pretty rough idea.”

“Apart from what you paid in this morning it’s a little over thirty thousand pounds. That’s a very large sum to have on deposit and I should have thought you’d do better to invest it.”

“I wouldn’t want to take no risk, sir. I know it’s safe in the bank.”

“You needn’t have the least anxiety. We’ll make you out a list of absolutely gilt-edged securities. They’ll bring you in a better rate of interest than we can possibly afford to give you.”

A troubled look settled on Mr. Foreman’s distinguished face. “I’ve never ‘ad anything to do with stocks and shares and I’d ‘ave to leave it all in your ‘ands,” he said.

The manager smiled. “We’ll do everything. All you’ll have to do next time you come in is just to sign the transfers.”

“I could do that all right, said Albert uncertainly. “But ‘ow should I know what I was signin’?”

“I suppose you can read,” said the manager a trifle sharply.

Mr. Foreman gave him a disarming smile.

“Well, sir, that’s just it. I can’t. I know it sounds funny-like but there it is, I can’t read or write, only me name, an’ I only learnt to do that when I went into business.”

The manager was so surprised that he jumped up from his chair.

“That’s the most extraordinary thing I ever heard.”

“You see it’s like this, sir, I never ‘ad the opportunity until it was too late and then some’ow I wouldn’t. I got obstinate-like.”

The manager stared at him as though he were a prehistoric monster.

“And do you mean to say that you’ve built up this important business and  amassed a fortune of thirty thousand pounds without being able to read or write? Good God, man, what would you be now if you had been able to?”

“I can tell you that sir,” said Mr. Foreman, a little smile on his still aristocratic features. “I’d be verger of St. Peter’s, Neville Square.”

 


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