Not only I, but I think all bookworms will be agreeable with J.P. Lenoir. A book is a book and nothing will replace a book. The pleasure and sensation of relishing a book is beyond compare. A book in your hand is palpable pleasure. You are savouring the pleasure of literature like a well-prepared dish. But unfortunately with the advent of new technologies like smart phones and computers « c’est la lecture qui en fait les frais. Aujourd’hui la lecture est tombée à son niveau le plus bas, » especially among the school population where students have developed an aversion for reading since they have other fish to fry. « Et pourtant ils sont condamnés à lire, » if they want to fare well at language level.
If today we are churning out quantity at the expense of quality at language level, it is because of an acute lack of reading on the part of our school population. With an anaemic vocabulary, the most they can do is to snatch a mere pass 7/8 at SC out of the jaws of failure. Today our students have become allergic to reading and dictionary work. They just do their homework because they have no alternative, then they turn to their distractions at the expense of reading.
Without reading there is no vocabulary, and in the absence of a wide and varied vocabulary, there is no expression and comprehension. « Ils ont toutes les peines du monde à mettre leurs idées sur papier.» They cannot express themselves nor can they take in what they read.
La Librairie Le Trèfle
When the first library of the island Le Trèfle situated in Port-Louis closed its door, one could read on the pulled down shutters « La lecture se meurt. » Et J.P. Lenoir d’ajouter « une librairie qui disparait est comme une étoile qui s’éteint dans le ciel de la culture. » Today the old business of booksellers has to bow to the inevitable and give in to the demands of that society « qui plonge lentement mais sûrement dans une hébétude mentale sans précédent » according to J.P. Lenoir. The culture of reading is dying slowly but inexorably among the new generation who has lamentably failed to grasp the importance and beauty of literature. They have no time or they don’t want to find time to read, so they turn to facility at the risk of paying a heavy price for it. Those who have been trying to short-circuit reading by turning to new technologies have paid a heavy price at language level. With a sketchy vocabulary their power of comprehension and expression is lamentably low. A successfully written or spoken work exacts an intelligent reading on the part of the learners. Those who want to succeed at language level are doomed to read, unless there is a complacent attitude on their part ― « Français je ‘konn’, Anglais je me débrouille. » « Un livre est un outil irremplaçable. » The new technologies will never replace a book. Literature is life. It is unimaginable to imagine a world without books, unless we prefer existence to life. If we want to live a fuller life emotionally and intellectually, we need reading― books, media, magazines, etc. Any author who is wiser, wittier and more loveable than yourself will add to your stock of knowledge, wisdom, wit and love provided that you read with an open mind. Reading builds up your personality and makes you an exact man. It broadens your circle of friends and increases your range of emotions and ideas. It is an evasion from the tedium and routine of life. You get other people’s points of view to augment your own knowledge, thus you outgrow your own opinions. We can wind up by saying that reading is the basis of a child’s education and the enhancement of man. It is the very source of knowledge which lifts man from the plane of pure animalism to socialism.