I read once in Deleuze and Guattari's Introduction: Rhizome an interesting term: assemblage. A book is an assemblage, a multiplicity. Well, people are too, aren't they? We're all assemblages in our own right, right? We aren't just made up of us, but of everything around us too, are we not?

I've read other things, The Library as Mind by Manguel, that tell of how the order of the things we see affect the way we see them. To be more specific: the books that we read before the book we are currently reading affect the way we perceive the current book. Say you are reading Vas; you get something completely different out of it when you read Mumbo Jumbo before it than when you read Written on the Body before it.


At eight years old, books were my best friend. I attribute my need for reading glasses, and potentially all-around glasses, to my love of reading: I was that kid that read in the dark after lights-out because I just couldn't get enough. You always hear of little kids having heroes and role models, people that they want to be like. I had characters. It is my process to place myself in the shoes of the protagonist whilst reading. Male or female, it doesn't matter, it is me. When reading the Harry Potter novels, it wasn't Harry fighting for his life, it was me.

Maybe that is why reading has such a hold over me, why I'm so drawn to books and stories. It's an adrenaline rush: an alternate reality.

I believe the term escapism is used when this behavior is manifested through the use of drugs. Books were my drugs. I used them to escape. Still do.


I was created by the books I read.  

Let's try something a little different: Let me tell you a story...

It was in those cramped halls that I somehow seemed to discover myself. It was one of those flash instances of understanding that are completely convincing in and of themselves. I was reading Their Eyes Were Watching God for my tenth grade World Literature class when I stumbled across my own meaning written in Zora Neal Hurston's hand. I was on the path to people, not things.

Lunch time was my normal homework-cram time because I was too busy doing nothing at home to actually do my homework there. But not for Zora. I made time. I was lying on the floor in the front room of my mother's house when I finished the book. It was in that room that she saw me shedding tears over a heartache I couldn't possibly know for myself, but understood the weight of, nonetheless.    

And it wasn't just the desire to feel what I had never known that drew me to this. Sitting there, reading this book, reading of the hardship, the heartache, and the strength of Janie. I wanted to be her. I didn't necessarily want the heartache or to have to kill Tea Cake, but I wanted her strength in character. I was soft-spoken, I let people walk on me, I didn't know how to assert myself. I was most definitely not independent--but I was also only a sophomore in high school. 

I imagined myself in her shoes:

Waking up to the world underneath the pear trees and blossoms and bees. Knowing what was previously unknown to myself. Learning that life isn't what was originally planned/expected. Now that I'm older, I definitely see that I am going through similar  issues.