Ox-Tales and the joy of being read to

Reading is mental exercise. It requires metaphorical muscles to lift the words from the page, and into the voice of the author that you hear inside your head. Apparently the more you use them, the more you read, the easier it becomes, and the more effortlessly you glean all that’s desirable in a novel.

My reading muscles are temperamental. Sometimes I’m surprised by my ability to glide over the sentences on the page, savoring all that is special about the words and the meaning, but yet effortlessly cruising through the story like a sports car cruises through country roads. Sometimes, it’s the exact opposite; the car coughs and splutters, jerks forwards, then backwards, doing violence to the story, perhaps even becoming oblivious to it.

My abilities to be read to, however, are immaculate. I’m sure of this after last night’s Ox-Tales event when four great authors read short stories to a packed QEH. It was so easy; all I had to do is listen, and off I went to the vivid places. I think hearing the words rather than reading them, freed my imagination just that little bit extra; farther was it then able to run away, with the images and feelings the stories were there to inspire.

Of course it helps that what we heard were amazing pieces of writing: short stories that were “half way to poetry”, which, in my opinion, is the perfect amount. And how else could they be more sweetly enjoyed, than by hearing them read by the writers themselves.