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Review Essay

Reading . . . and the imagination

Tulip Chowdhury
AARON Becker, a writer has come up with his wordless children's book Journey. No hassles of spelling and yet the book, beginning with a little girl drawing on the wall of a door and venturing into an unknown world, opens the floodgates of the imagination. Journey has hit the bestseller list. Aaron Becker has done the illustration himself and taken the main protagonist through adventures that keep children mystified and turning pages to the last. Yes, that is an exception to the reading experience but one would say it is a new approach to reading books. They get the story through pictures but the goal is reached, children start imagining.
At times I sit and wonder, 'What if I had not read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carol? Had I not imagined myself to have dropped down the rabbit hole into the world of peculiar anthropomorphic creatures, would my curiosity of the underground world been wakened? The fairytales that came up with tales of Chader Buri (Lady on the Moon), fairies with wings, kings and queens and the witch that sails over the moonlit clouds on her broom. The witch's laughter of "HEEEEEEE!!!" with large scary teeth, the enchanted castles that held kings and queens turned into stones, the magic wand you always wished you owned, the giant that lifts mountains on his shoulder and the pictures of a hundred other imaginary bad and good things to hold your breath: fairy tales have fed the mind with all that. They have fed the mind and the heart with the first sips of imagination that gave way to the floodgates of our intelligence, to dream of all impossible to come true! The inner being becomes indomitable where the unknown is concerned, it ventures out fearless and awed with each discovery.
Rabindranath Tagore's song. " Ochenare bhoike amar ore ochenare chine chine uthbe jibon bhore " ( Why fear the unknown...knowing the unknown will fulfill my life....?) speaks of the human thirst for knowledge within and beyond the realm of knowledge.
Fairytales come usually with easy language that children can follow and that help them to open the doors to the imagination, teaches them to think! As Albert Einstein has said,
"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." And again he said,
"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking."
To open a child's mind to creativity is like harvesting his intelligence to come up with the fullest and richest yields. In this age of science and technology experts would still suggest that the innocent mind is flavored with child-like delights that stories of demons, fairies, princesses and prin-
cess bring to young minds. The tender hearts believe that the real Prince Gharming will come, that heart of your beloved one lies seven beds beyond the sea, inside a huge whale's stomach and in there is the needle the hole of which holds the heart. The mind gets the message; the heart is a precious thing and it's hard to win.
As we help a child to take his first step we help him find the ways to think, to imagine through reading. The good thing is that technology has brought imaginative stories in audio and video formats and children's minds get food for thoughts with intense exposure to supervised entertainments. These days we find stories of Superman, Spiderman, X-Man, Bionic Woman and others like these are imaginative stories that extend the imaginations of children. But the plots are often based on the use of physical powers, of stories of heroes that can shoot and kill, can beat enemies black and blue. Though imagined, they are like starters to the children to violence. They seem to create space for hatred instead of sending messages of peace. In fairy tales the heroes may kill but the killing is shown mostly for the good of saving the innocent. Fairy tale killings don't seem to come with the vicious self that attacks with open fangs.
In Hansel and Gretel the wicked witch that lures children to eat them is tricked into getting killed. The kids outwit the witch to death in self defense. Apart from the rosy pictures of fairy tales the parts where the prince kills the demon is very logical to survival. The prince who fights the duel to win his love is on the eternal war of love and hate that come with romance. Sadness is there in fairy tales but it seems to blend in with the imaginative world.
Writers like J. K. Rowling who opened the world of Harry' Potter, an extensive and intense world of magicians, are of the opinion that children had better be exposed to the real world than lose themselves in wild imaginations like fairy tales. But the common ground of most writers is that fairytales and other works in the imagination are crucial to developing children's ability to think far beyond the existing life beyond them, to imagine wonders that can be made to happen! However, stories like Cinderella and many other fairy tales introduce the concept of the cruel stepmothers. This is not a realistic approach to mothers who are capable of loving and caring for step children as their own children. However, here again we see that good and kind Ginderella is helped by a fairy. And so children are fed the basic truth of being good and being rewarded for goodness though we would not welcome the idea of step mothers being cruel beings.
Fiction and poetry come with tales that are woven from the imagination, though they are often linked to the real life like spiders' web. The world of literature delves into human lives and the world that surrounds them. But the imaginary stories take the cream of the cake, they are the stepping stones to opening our windows to the strangest, saddest or
happiest tales that at times make the real world so trivial. The fantasy world takes children's minds to the existence of worlds that could and do stretch their minds beyond vision. Science fiction written to children's levels of intelligence certainly are mind boosters. They also get the young brains to take technology beyond what they are and that again is the opening up of the world of the imagination.
When we read for pleasure we find the true essence of reading. We cannot force feed the children on reading but allow them to find their own genre of reading that usually spreads and reaches out to other branches. Reaching out to our imagination, to the content of the heart, triggering the mind to unimagined destinations lifts up the whole being. But reading that takes the breath away, blows the mind, comes with a dynamic power of its own. Fairy tales, fables, fantasy, cartoons give us sublime moments of reading when our hearts and minds delve beyond the possible.
Writers and reader agree that fairytales can be called the opening chapter to the world of the imagination. Kings and queens, demons and witches crowd the imaginative world of the readers. Snow White, The Seven Dwarfs, The Frog Prince, Little Red Riding Hood and other stories that children start listening to at bedtime open up the imagination like flood gates. The mind delves deeper and deeper, wondering what else can happen. Can a human being really turn to stone for a curse and be back again as a prince with just a kiss? The young generation of today would love to find that Prince Charming with a kiss even if it means kissing a frog, as in The Frog Prince. Finding love on the Internet seems to be equally riskier. At least you can touch the frog and not be dependent on empty space for information. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the kiss of a prince awakens Snow White from a life- long sleep. The path of true love is not easy and this story or The Frog Prince is certainly hat tricks to the saying.
Fictions stretch the minds for the young and adults alike. Here also imaginations find roots and trees grow with flowers and fruits. The challenge of the writer is to feed the reader the dreams that can be, the cruelties that may be and yet keep roots in the ground. Reflections of real life scenarios blend in with truth but at times truth can be stranger than fiction. The reader feels life identifying the self with the characters and the plots of fiction. Horror stories like Alfred Hitchcock's hair raising tales give a twist to the imaginative world, they make readers shiver and sweat with fear. But even then that too is imagination of its own kind.
But what happens when the inquisitive mind of a reader is seeking something beyond what can really happen, seeks stories of love, thrill, mystery, happiness beyond the horizon? How high or how deep will the writer take you? Wait, remember how Rip Van Winkle woke up after twenty years and still finds his daughter? Remember the story of a king who travelled to the ends of the earth to bring a black rose for his beloved daughter?
This is human bondage! And for today's generation it would be reflecting on how Spiderman passed over high rise buildings or how Wonder Woman busted a crime scene. Indeed, imagined stories seem to hold the actual essence of being the ideal food for thought. Laughter and tears, all mingle in the imagination.
William Shakespeare draws an incredible picture of love tragedy with his "Romeo and Juliet" and "Othello". Contemporary writers Danielle Steele, Nicholas Sparks, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amy Tan and others with their fictions create stories that bring readers to characters that are intriguing and plots that allow one to have different perspectives of life. East of Eden by John Steinbeck or Fires of Spring by James A. Michener hold the saga of men and women that cause bubbles of happiness in the reader and at the same time throws light into twisted minds that you could have little idea of. Margery Allingham, Richard Allen, Agatha Christie and Stephen King give you goose bumps, playing with fears with crime stories that cloud minds. And again we reach for the imagination to make us peep through key locks.
Comic books like Archie and Tin Tin take readers to closer scenarios of the humorous world with pictures. Cartoons like Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz tingle the brains and brings smiles. Reading the poem Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss seems to carry the reader right then to unimaginable places.
Come to the world of myths, yet another world of mastery in the imagination. The Greeks were symbols of ancient civilization at its zenith. Their myths surrounding gods and goddesses are vast works of imagination. The Olympian pantheon of gods was the most well known with twelve known deities. Twelve of them are said to have lived on mount Olympus. Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey' epic in its imagination.
But it does get one thinking that in fairy tales most of the ruling princesses are beautiful. And so what happens to the human beings that come with less beauty? Many fairy tales depict roles of princes or kings as the heroes that rescue damsels in distress. One wonders if hearing these stories, the little girls too will see themselves as the weaker sex? Bionic Woman or Stories like Japanese cartoon character Mikami Reiko is a 20 year old ghost sweeper is the heroine of present generation bookworms. One would feel that the women are here in better places in the imaginative world of the younger generation.
Fairy tales, fictions' fantasy or poems. She readers, are the rich fields of imagination that you want to delve into! Real life stories have their contributions in making us realize the true happenings and prepare us to be imaginative on a wiser level. We can never stop thanking our fairy tales and fables, which are the essential ingredients to the imagination.