So, you find out you’re going blind, what are you going to do with the remaining days of vision? Let’s pretend, okay?
First of all we’re going to pretend that we don’t have braille or books on tape. Those are out of the question. We’ve got a few months left and aside from spending time memorizing the faces of loved ones and visiting what Lennon calls the “places I remember“, we’re going to spend some time with a good book or two. I mean, you’re going to have some time to kill on those flights around the world, right? What are you going to read?
Do you read for pleasure? Reveling in the comforting pleasure of a good book; the sound of the pages turning, the heft of the thing, the color of the type, a familiar story made into an old friend? Or do you read for knowledge? Spiritual comfort? Or just practical knowledge? How to Read Braille might be a good title.
For the record, I’m not going blind. I had a bit of an eye scare but everything is perfectly fine. Thing is though, when you forget your book and you’re stuck in a waiting room for a few hours, People magazine gets old and you start to think of things like this.
Anyway, it’s like a desert island list only… more final. What would you read if you were going blind?
5 Comments
I’d re-read every Soseke book, and ironically(?), I’d read one of my all-time favourite novels, Blindness, by that master storyteller, José Saramago.
I wouldn’t read, I’d look at art, photos, maps, ballets, plays, etc. Converting text to audio is not a problem. You can even get cell phones that do it.
I’d read “Nicholas Nickleby” , “Pride and Prejudice” and try to remember as much of them as I could- oh -and anything by Garrison Keillor. All three books manage to be very precise, very particular- and yet universal as well. And they’re funny.And they’re sad.
I like Sylvia’s answer but let’s say I was going deaf too… I think I would try once and for all to finish reading the Bible or I would re-read The Hobbit.
If I was going to go blind, I would probably read “Going Blind’ For Dummies Or “Being Blind” For Dummies!
The funny thing is I am serious, I love the dummy series of bookes Right now I have around 50 dummy bookes on shelf….
I like to learn how to do new things!
Ian
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