Reading Woman

This is as if could only be in an intellectual woman’s dream scene, alone one person, and only one person, calmly reads in a room, does not have to do any housework, does not have children interfere, does not have any disturbance. Noisy city life and worrisome human competition are all far away from her. The book in her hand is her entire world. She could have the extravagant only to dialog with her own mind.

Reading woman is peaceful. She immerses herself entirely in the word sea of story. Her eyes are acting as oars breaking the wave and seeking for the other remote spiritual shore. She does not have time to chit chat or talk incessantly. She does not have time to provoke judgment of right or wrong. Her turning of page is gentle like micro breeze over a lawn. The book is like a partition wall blocking all together outside noise, but her ear can distinguish the slightest sound between book pages, and she replies the sound with tears or happiness.

Reading woman is laborious. She is not a privileged woman in the 17th century story. She is one of the 20th century's busy women who had to run between her job and housework. She saves spending on fashionable clothing or luxurious cosmetics for buying books. She waits until husband and children have gone to sleep, and scarifies her own good dream time to read. Regardless of her buying books or reading books, she pays with the blood and sweat. She overdraws her future time for reading credit. If a woman loves both the family and the reading, she would be in constant struggle for balance in a sea of bitterness with no bound.

Reading woman is stupid. She cannot distinguish difference between the books and the reality. She thinks the book story as her life, regards the book character as herself. Reading woman can rationalize clearly others' matter, frequently direct the book aphorism to teach others, but she is completely muddled in the cloud to own matter in the fog. Coping the reality with the book experience is often a wrong adding to another wrong.

But eventually reading woman is happy. The rational ponder gives her own brains; she has the charm of self-confident. The knowledge filters out her pain; the strength enables her to resist material enticement. She becomes formidable rich over more impractical satisfactions.

Longs for reading, she chooses the book from the vast book sea which suits perhaps her alike. In the mornings with light rain, in the dusks with wind blow, in the winters with heavy snow fall or in the springs with willow catkin flutter, if possible, could she add a cup of steam green tea? She frequently imagines she were under a full bloom of cherry tree, or were on a river bank with carpet like fresh green, or were on a sand beach seashore lessening perhaps striking sound of startled Tao on the reef. She hugs book and she reads until she totally forgets both book and her. Once in a while, there were butterflies or birds flying over her head, or fluttered light flower fragrance from a distant place - that could be either real or imagines of romantic acme.

In reality, throughout her several dozen years readings, the poetic sentiment for readings may not always stay. She read through her childhood on hot summer sweaty sleeping mat, and under cold winter thin bedding; she read under oil lamp in regiment dormitory, and under candle light in mountain woods tent; she read in a journey at dirty train station, she read in packed like sardines residence, she read on a quack sound making broken chair. Those days without a comfortable studio but her desires was high of the reading craziness, just because of her mind hunger, day after day, and year after year, reading like swallow has gradually become kind of physiological needs and inertia.

Reading could be divided into two kinds. One is for some applied needs: glancing over the outstanding literary work to seek for the disparity, understanding the current trend and the characteristic to make the reference, consulting theory books and dictionary to meet the supplemental knowledge … But woman likes another kind of reading, which has nothing to do with her needs, not for writing, natural science, philosophy, art, as well as biography, she reads simply because she likes. Though on surface these reading seem useless, but it acting like the forest oxygen and the fresh spring water, improves your breath and blood, transforms your knowledge structure and the thought space. Its osmosis is long-term and invisible, not for quick success and immediate gain. If the first kind of reading is like modern western medicine, like immediate and effective infusion intravenous injection, then the latter is like recuperation with Chinese medicine, like nourishing supplementing with strong and healthy body. What a pity we are always trying to seek medical help when we already feel sick. In the labyrinth book city, we could have missed many sinuous deep paths for the good books.

Reading woman is now having her own studio. She looks at the full rack of bookshelf and begins to worry. She discovers in a lifetime, even if she does not do any work and uses all her time to read and read, she is still unable to read off the world of great books. This discovery is really a desperate one.