Steve Bornfeld — That’s Life: Don’t be a schnook; grab a book

Friday, May 19, 2000 | 9:11 a.m.

Steve Bornfeld is the Sun features editor. His column appears Fridays. Reach him at steveb@lasvegassun.com or 259-4081.

Reading -- just for the joy of it.

Do people actually still do that?

Actually read for reasons other than gathering, processing, distilling and distributing information?

Actually read a good book instead of newspapers, magazines and Internet files? Actually read about fictitious characters in made-up situations instead of real people investigated by Senate subcommittees? Actually gain larger insights about humanity through fanciful tales than through hard facts? Actually get carried away to another world by the power of one writer's vivid imagination?

Actually not answer the question "Did you read (INSERT NAME OF BOOK)?" with "I'll wait till the movie comes out"?

Apparently they do. I didn't. Or hadn't -- in a long, long time. And I desperately missed it.

But I'm back on the book beat, awash in its wonders once more. I even wandered into a Borders bookstore and strode straight past the magazine rack and into the novels section -- an act so un-me in recent years that I was tempted to demand a picture-ID from myself.

Unlike my exceedingly well-read columnizing colleague Scott Dickensheets, a bookstore junkie whose Shelf Life column graces the Friday Accent section and expertly chronicles the literary world (and whom, I suspect, has set up legal residence, a post office box and maybe even a small kitchenette at Barnes & Noble), I had, over the course of several decades, lost the knack of the novel. The sense of the story. The lust for the literature. The hook of the book.

As the Information Age snowballed to avalanche proportions (and being employed in the information business), my off-time reading was restricted to -- and overwhelmed by -- Time, Newsweek, Brill's Content, Esquire, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, Premiere, newspaper trade magazines (Editor & Publisher), TV/movie trade magazines (Electronic Media, Variety, Hollywood Reporter), the New York Times, countless online newspapers and my own newspaper, the very one now clasped in your hand.

How fast did I read them all? I think the backlog on my night stand includes stories on presidential candidate George Bush -- sans W.

Then there was television. In a former life this space held a television column written by yours truly who, in order to fill it, had to, well, watch television -- lots of it. (It's only since giving it up that I've realized that life doesn't have a laugh track.)

Books -- especially fiction -- became a casualty of this life long ago. Until this life went in for a make-over.

With the abdication of a TV column came a life-restoring release from the tube's addictive allure. My TV diet these days? "The News with Brian Williams" on MSNBC, the occasional "M*A*S*H" rerun on FX (preferably the early ones with Henry and Trapper, before everyone started shouting and overacting), Las Vegas ONE for local news and every new episode of "Law & Order" (may it run 50 years, or until Steven Hill cracks a smile, whichever comes first).

Then, in an act amounting to sacrilege for a newspaper editor, I severely cut back my magazine consumption. Even in the Information Age -- especially in the Information Age -- you have to wonder: How much informational bombardment can one person stand before craving the sweet scent of ignorance?

Well, maybe not ignorance -- just a different sort of knowledge. One based less on the News of the Moment than the Life of the Mind.

Off to Borders, where I scooped up the newer works (newer to me, anyway) of a few favorite authors -- Tom Wolfe, Larry McMurtry, Jay McInerney, Philip Roth, among others -- who had dazzled me back when I could be dazzled by words not topped by datelines, bylines and headlines.

And I dove in. I haven't emerged since (except, of course, for my job, which demands the publishing of datelines, bylines and headlines).

My current read is McInerney's "Brightness Falls," a scintillating, scathing look at Reagan-era materialism as filtered through the New York publishing world. To be lost in the lives of these colorful characters, lost in a compelling story that arcs and loops at its own pace, lost in a masterful writer's rich, descriptive, detailed prose ... the pleasure is immense.

Modern life is marked by a craving for visual stimulation -- computer-generated special effects on the big screen, High Definition TV crystallizing the small screen, the small screen turning into the big screen thanks to jumbo-sized TVs and entertainment centers that transform living rooms into screening rooms.

Conversely, there is something so basic, so direct, so primal, even, about sinking into a favorite chair, adjusting a reading lamp and losing oneself in a wonderful book.

It's like re-connecting with something real, untouched by dot-com, CNN and anything that begins "the Associated Press is reporting today ..." and "our reporter is on the scene -- Bob, what can you tell us?"

The more voluminous and ubiquitous and repetitious news becomes, the less real it seems, its sheer scope and size less likely to increase our knowledge than numb our brains. And its growth seemingly knows no bounds: A "virtual newscaster," or computer-generated news reader, recently debuted on the Internet, as if eerily validating the unreality of our never-ending news culture by having an unreal entity deliver it.

After awhile it's all just white noise -- reported by an electronic ghost.

But through a novel's carefully crafted characters and situations, I've gotten back in touch with the subtleties of human interaction, the complexities of human urges and the contradictions of human behavior -- the truths of our lives that transcend the facts of our lives.

Amid all the bells and whistles and buzzers of the Information Age, cracking open a book reminded me of something increasingly rare, bordering on endangered:

Thoughtfulness. Just something to think about.