Greentoxic-eay-1
I used to be immune from literature reading.I didn’t care that the boy falling into blind love in Fitzgerald’s story was called Gatsby or Bill Gates, nor I hardly knew anything about sonnet except that there were 14 rows in it.In spite that both my parents were trying to foster me to be a daughter of a cultured family with a grandfather who was addicted to literature, I used to believe that I wouldn’t be influenced by those maive words in fat books.
My grandfather is a profeor of literature.When I was a little girl, I often saw him sitting in his room, hugging over books as if he was hungering for words.His face, often displayed the emotions he read.Lots times he was so immersed in his own world of words and stories and he could not hear me calling him.And sometimes, it seemed that he was talking with the people and even lived with the people in the books instead of us.It was kind of scary for me.
But one thing changed my mind about him or reading.I encountered a group of his students visiting him, and they talked a lot while I listened.My grandfather talked about a period when he had experienced extreme prosecution of intellectual freedom.When he said that literature should serve all mankind with humanistic care, his eyes was brimming with tears.
It was the first time that I saw my grandfather’s tears.I indeed couldn’t understand and accept all my grandfather’s views.However, he
opened a door for me that day, that he showed me other things literature might bring, except pleasure.Yes, like many young teen girls, I used to be crazy about adolescence love stories published in magazines.But gradually, I did find that almost all the plots of those stories were similar.I started to wonder, what was in real great writings.
I turned to my grandfather for help.He told me that eyes were the windows of soul，and so were the books.When we read them, we were reading the authors’ hearts, and re-understood ourselves.I soon started books with my grandfather’s guide.Portia in The Merchant of Venice made me want to be a woman with wisdom, courage and independent personality; the honest and independent heroine Elinor in Sense and Sensibility made my tears exhausted.Also, many Chinese claical works improved my knowledge of my own history and culture and I started to understand my own country and people better.I kept reading.After I reached high school, my grandfather encouraged me to establish a Reading Community, in which my schoolmates exchanged books and thoughts after reading, and I began to write editorial articles of book reviews for our school newspaper.
I still cannot share the profound understanding of literary works as my grandfather does, but I believe what he said to his students and me: When you feel lonely, helple or hopele, just read.Books don’t cheat you, they won’t betray you, and they will never hurt you.They can give
you knowledge, courage, hope and power.I want to continue reading in my future, and literature is what I would like to study for my major.
