Newcastle University

In terms of the experience of reading does it affect the way you feel?

Yes, yes, I mean some of the comic books that I’ve read make me laugh. I can remember when I was still fairly young, I should think I would be 13-14 something like that, I read Three Men In a Boat by Jerome K Jerome, and I can remember it’s a funny sort of scenario in the head. My mother and father became accustomed to having a few minutes rest after lunch, and I didn’t want to rest after lunch. It’s interesting actually as I got older I became more and more addicted to the rest after lunch, but at that particular time I was reading when they were sort of semi asleep, and I can remember laughing out loud on a number of occasions and really irritating them because they were trying to have a snooze and I was laughing at Three Men In a Boat. And similarly with Wodehouse, that makes me laugh still, and that’s a nice experience. But when you read something like Catcher in the Rye, which I’ve mentioned already, that becomes at times an almost spiritual experience. You can experience the sorrow and the joy at certain situations of Holden Caulfield, the hero, and it affects your emotions in a very direct way. And similarly you can read books which make you sorrowful about the human condition, and that also is a valuable experience too. So I do get emotionally involved with some of the stuff that I read.