"National Library summarized the state of reading in Poland. It's been the best in 10 years,” says the title Article on the survey for 2023. What's the best way? "In 2023, reading at least 1 book in the 12 months preceding the survey declared 43 percent of respondents, 9% more than in the last 2 years, most in 10 years – according to National Library study on the state of books reading in Poland in 2023.’. As for reading 7 or more books a year, things have not changed – 8% of the population is inactive concerned..
Since it's been the best in a decade, in explanation we should be happy. This is besides the message of the article. As a realist on the ground, I will take another look at this matter.
Conversely, we can conclude that: in 2023 57% of the population did not declare reading a single book, while 92% of the population reaches for little than 7 books each year. We can discuss for whom the glass is half full, and for whom it is half empty, but it may be rather "objective" to say that the situation is optimistic, to put it mildly, it does not gloat.
The point is that tastes are not discussed, but I was curious about what books are most important. Well, in 2023 these were successively: criminal literature, moral and romanticist literature and (which I am already subjectively more pleased with) non-fiction literature (i.e. biographies, publications, past of the 20th century). The 4th place besides included guides.
Of course, the study conducted on the basis of a survey on the "general Polish example of typical Poles and Poles at least 15 years old" did not analyse, let us call it "personal" causes of this situation. Rather, it is about increased accessibility to libraries by including in the National Reading improvement Programme the request to open public libraries in at least half of the Saturdays per year. From myself, I would add that allowing the usage of a single library card to all libraries in the city is besides a crucial facilitation.
But what happens in the heads of society? Didn't these 57% scope for 1 book due to the deficiency of time? hard surviving conditions? A simple deficiency of interest?
It's not my goal to think and psychoanalyze fellow citizens, but to think about what would happen if there were no books... If we hadn't read absolutely nothing... If we had yet run out of ideas and words... If any words became completely abroad to us...
To reflect on this abstract thought (or to be sure?) I will, of course, scope to another texts of culture.
Forbidden words – Jean Luc Godard and “Alphaville”
"Alphaville" is simply a movie from the border between sci-fi and noir films (although I would alternatively talk about the 1965 parody of the movie noir). In a dark, totalitarian and technocratic city called Alphaville, there is an infallible computer, Alpha 60. The law is logical, but this logic does not take into account emotions (I presume that the word "emotions" was surely long removed from use).
It's a place where people who act illogically are sentenced to public execution. For example, people who dare to cry for their loved ones are shot.
The pain of losing a loved 1 is completely illogical for a computer-steward. And the word “cry” was withdrawn from the dictionary.
By the way, the scene of killing a man crying after his dead wife seems to correspond beautifully with Albert Camus, whose hero, Meursault, was convicted of murder, in fact the most doomed for not having shed a single teardrop at his mother's funeral. In short, his guilt for murdering a man could have been washed distant if not for his full indifference (otherness) in matters far beyond the trial. In Alphaville, it's completely different: this display of any feelings is the hardest offense that costs life.
