The Readers

  (a completely random essay by Shattered Teardrops about Readers and Reading.)

There is that certain power coming from a reader’s mind which brings the characters of a book to life; a power that is only given to the very few whose solitary silences are spent in the company of books. 

(c) JaneMere @ DeviantArt.com

It is a strange power but a wonderful one nonetheless, for it liberates readers from the physical constraints of their surroundings and gives them wings to fly through time and space without moving an inch from where they are standing or sitting.

This power is imagination – the very power to picture people, things and culture that may have not existed within the reader’s time or within the reader’s culture.

Reading allows the reader to glimpse into the minds and hearts of the characters within the book who are whole-heartedly written by the Author; and in a small indirect way, the reader and Author meets through these characters.

Whereas the Author teaches and weaves a series of events through words, the reader learns and rides the emotions and situations presented by the characters and their circumstances. And within the pages of a book, imagination makes the reader grow, learn and experience various things.

One can say that a Reader is a special being bestowed with such a power to be enlightened through the words inscribed within the pages of a book. He is given the unrestrained power of the mind to freely run where the book directs it to go.

And with each and every book a Reader reads, his heart soon follows and experiences the same guiding emotions felt by the characters. Not only the reader is an enlightened person to understand the complexities of human relationships as described within the books, he is also a compassionate person to be able to relate and feel the same emotions as the characters.

(c) ElementsOfPersuasion @ DeviantArt.com

Although the words within the book describe everything there is within the story, the Reader is freely given the liberty to read between the lines or not. At some point within the story, the Author loses control of the little things and details which the Reader’s mind makes up for.

Yes, the Author is responsible for the story and the characters; but it is the Reader who is responsible for the story’s interpretation and therefore, holds a more powerful position than the Author. Once the book leaves the Author’s hand and reaches the palm of the Reader, the Reader’s power is invoked and there… the magic starts.