From the Editor's Desk: December 2020

In Robert McFarlane’s recent book, The Gifts of Reading, he says a gift ‘moves in two ways, we might say: the receiver of a gift is emotionally moved by being given something freely, unexpectedly. And the gift itself moves in the sense of moving onwards, of circulating. Having experienced generosity, we are generous to others in turn. The gift gives on … in wild excess of its own original extent.’

The Gifts of Reading was born from an essay McFarlane wrote about a gift given to him that had changed his life. He wrote an essay about this that was published as a small book with all the proceeds going to the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, which does vital work saving migrant lives at sea in the Mediterranean and the Bay of Bengal. It relies on donations for its continued operation. Soon people were buying dozens of copies at a time and giving them away. Copies were bought and left in huts in the highlands of Scotland. These huts were left open and maintained by volunteers. As McFarlane says, ‘a sort of gift shelter, as it were, where strangers are kind to strangers.’ The gift he received became a gift for others in so many varied ways.

To keep the ‘gift’ moving The Gifts of Reading, an anthology about the gifts of reading and books, was created, featuring McFarlane’s lead essay and using it to title the book. Writers from around the world were invited to share their own experiences of the gifts of reading.

Each writer approaches the subject of the gift of reading differently.

William Boyd tells us about his novel True Confessions whose protagonist, John James Todd, is held in solitary confinement in a German prison camp. ‘His spirit begins to break until a kindly prison guard volunteers to feed him a few pages of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s astonishing autobiography, The Confessions, bit by bit.’ He was beginning to break but those pages sustained him, in fact, keeping him sane. He muses about how books had, in real life, sustained the minds and lives of prisoners, becoming as precious as food and water. Reading giving the gift of life.

He talks about human behaviour in fiction in comparison to real life. That he knows exactly what Elizabeth Bennet thinks about Mr Darcy, but he has no idea what his neighbour thinks of him after 30 years of living next door. He advocates, if you want to know what makes people tick, read a novel. And that is the power of fiction.

Roddy Doyle reminisces about a time when he was sitting in a pub in Belfast, having downed a pint. The pub was packed but he was snugly sitting in a corner and just started reading a copy of Broadsword Calling Danny Boy. Next thing he was laughing. He writes, ‘“Broadsword calling Danny Boy” is a line from Where Eagles Dare, one of those great, daft Second World War films that were made in the 1960s … it came back to me, vividly, very quickly.’ Doyle’s mother had passed away earlier that year. He says he was too old to be an orphan but that was what he was. Alone. Surrounded by family and friends, but alone. A couple of months later he lost a close friend. He had struggled. That day, sitting in that noisy pub, as those around him held frothy pints in hand, prattling and shouting with friends, he found that he could laugh with himself again. He was happy in his own company. He felt joy again. Given by the gift of reading.

Children’s author, S F Said, remembers when he was three years old. His uncle was reading The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss to him. He felt electrified. He so wanted the cat to come to his house and smash everything up! He would always love books and stories, because it seemed like anything was possible in them. He says The Cat in the Hat urges its readers to take nothing for granted, be open to anything, and question everything – right from its opening image, which appears to be a hat, but is in fact a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant. Question everything. A gift from a book to a child which would inform his life.
     Salley Vickers talks about the books she learned by heart, many of which were by Beatrix Potter. When people ask her who had influenced her writing it was Beatrix Potter that topped the list for style. She cites the opening of The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, where Potter uses the word ‘soporific’ – an alleged effect of eating lettuce. The use of more sophisticated vocabulary such as peevish, improvident, disconsolately, ponderous, stricken, and frugal were delicious words that gifted a young Vickers with the tools to begin her journey as a writer.

When I talk to you when you call, or write via email, when books arrive on my desk, when I send books to reviewers, when gr is released each month and is put in your hands via the letterbox or arrives in your email inbox to view online, when you share the magazine and the books you find inside it with family and friends, that is the gift of books and reading. It is a gift that brings us together, informs us, broadens our experiences and understanding of our world. They teach us empathy and help us to see people, really see them, and allow them to be themselves. We experience all the array of emotions by reading. We laugh, we cry, we are furious, we learn the truth, we see the lies, we are inspired, we love. It is feeling what it is to be human. It is a true gift. And we are lucky. Not everyone gets to receive this precious gift.

But if we can share this precious thing, even in just a small way, just one conversation, reading to one child, sharing one book, as McFarlane says, ‘Truly, the gift gives on, and on, and on ...’ 

Rowena,

And Baxter, who wishes you a safe and happy summer with a new bouncy ball under the tree.