The Future Of The Book

`The Future Of The Book" essay competition was sponsored by An Chomhairle Leabharlanna, The Irish Times and International Education Services. In the under-18 category, the winner of the first prize was Irene O'Daly (left), whose essay is published below. Runners up were: Deirdre Healy, Carrigaline, Co Cork, and Trevor Purill, Thurles, Co Tipperary. Highly commended were: Louise Kelly, Clara, Co Offaly and Colleen Nelligan, Castleisland, Co Kerry. In the under-14 category, the winner of the first prize was Dervla Keena (right), whose essay is published below. Runners up were: Carla Beattie, Skerries, Co Dublin and Emily Shackleton, Rathgar, Dublin 6.

History began with the advent of man's ability to record the sounds he communicated. The stone tablets on which he transcribed his words were a precursor to the book as we know it today. Shakespeare once said "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players". As people who live a continuous drama of stories we have an insatiable desire to tell and hear more stories. We have been called homo fabula, story-telling beings. Although books are seen as being in a fragile position due to the barrage of technological advances they face, I believe they are safe, as books are the most prevalent form of recording and making available stories of all genres.

In the past many people have realised the importance of the book as a form of transmitting their opinion. Chairman Mao, the Communist Leader of China, altered his nation's perception of his character through his Little Red Book. The four gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, used their record of the life of Jesus to spread Christian thought. Books can change ideas and people recognise their power. Hitler ordered a mass burning of books as he knew that the ideas contained in them could threaten his dictatorship. Many writers have been denounced by their fellow countrymen due to the books they have written. For example, the Russian author, Alexander Solzhenitzen, was placed in one of Stalin's concentration camps because of his writings and ultimately exiled due to his refusal to conform to the system. The importance of the book will not die and will refuse to be lessened by the advances in technology that our world has undergone. Even now, people are using books as a tool to spread their beliefs. Books will continue to shape our world as they have done in the past.

In his play The Old Ones, Arnold Wesker attempts to share the importance of books:

"Here is a book. Books! Take them. Use them. Other men may build an alien world out there you never dreamed of. Defend yourself! Books! Centuries of other people's knowledge, experience. Add it to yours, measure it with yours. They're your only key to freedom and happiness. Books! There is no other. I promise you. There is no other!"

Books are vehicles for our transportation to another world, another reality, only this is a reality where there is no pain and fear. Unattainable dreams come true on the page. Books are the personification of the wild and private sides of our character. With a book I can travel to places I never dreamed of. I can travel to Narnia, frolic with talking animals, fight evil giants and sail to the edge of the world. I can slip into 19th-century England and live in Jane Austen's world of match-making, class echelons and drawing room intrigues. I can stand beside Charles Ryder and watch as his best friend, Sebastian, is overcome by alcoholism in Evelyn Waugh's wonderful Brideshead Revisited. I can journey and yet still remain cocooned in a chair by a roaring fire, comfortably sheltered from the elements. Perhaps the greatest journeys are those that never took place and are only found in the minds of their creators. Reading is a holiday, free from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. C. S. Lewis once wrote, "Through literature, I become 1,000 and yet remain myself."

Books are food for the imagination. They help us to develop our opinion-forming faculties. As we are confronted by the opinions of others we learn argumentative skills and freedom of thought. Books provide opportunities to experience and explore dreams. Through books we are not only spectators but can actually participate in a reality which is not our own. In fact, books are a reflection of the world we live in, a delicious parody on human nature. We can prepare ourselves for life through books, meeting characters who exist in some form or another in the world, and facing situations with which we are all forced to deal at some stage. The greatest stories are those that go on forever. The imagination is a continuation of these unfinished stories.

The demise of the book has been forecast many times. In the 20th century the position of books in our society has become more fragile. Television has increased in importance and other new forms of receiving information, such as the Internet, have become commonplace. Yet books continue. Their beauty lies in the fact that they are not a passive activity like watching television, but one where the reader is as much part of the story as the characters. Through television we are fed images of what people should look, walk and talk like. Books leave this to our own imagination and we can form our own opinion on various characters and on the world they live in; we are not forced to believe a media image. The Internet, in turn, provides us with information that is being constantly changed and updated. Books preserve the past. They hold the stories of ourselves, of the things that matter to us and affect us. The author Ben Okri once wrote: "Without fighting, stories have won over more people than all the great wars put together". Perhaps the Internet and other technological advances are the present. Yet in order to progress we need to have the security of the past. The past truly is the key to the future.

Books are the great social leveller. Everyone can enjoy a book, but inventions such as the Internet are only for the privileged few. No special equipment is required for reading, only your imagination and that will never go out of date.

Books began before the technologically orientated modern time and they will endure beyond it. Books which have shaped the past will continue to shape the future. The greatest stories are those that go on forever. Life, the story which we live, is an example of this. When we die, we live on in the imaginations of those who loved us. Just as we never end, so books will never end. History begins with a book and history must terminate with the book. The book is safe, as our future is its future.