Table of Contents

Literature Abuse: American's Hidden Affliction

Causes of Problem Reading

Social Costs of Literature Abuse

Heredity

Other Predisposing Factors

Prevention

Self-Test for Literature Abuse: How many of these apply to you?

Additions to Michael's Test

Warning

Decline and Fall: The English Major

Little Known Side Effects of Literature Abuse (Eleanor Dinkins)

After having this up for over a year, I finally received a note from the author, Michael McGrorty. Thanks for this delightful quiz, Michael! Also thanks for all those adding to Michael's list!

Literature Abuse: American's Hidden Affliction

Once a relatively rare disorder, Literature Abuse (or "readaholism") has risen to crisis levels due to the accessibility of higher education and increased college enrollment since the end of the Second World War. The number of literature abusers is currently at record levels.

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Causes of Problem Reading

Excessive reading during pregnancy is the major cause of prenatal LA among the children of heavy readers. Known as Fetal Fiction Syndrome, it leaves its tiny victims prone to a lifetime of nearsightedness, daydreaming and emotional instability.

Most abusers have at least one parent who abused literature, often beginning at an early age and progressing into adulthood. Siblings of abusers are also likely to become literature abusers. Spouses of an abuser may themselves become problem readers.

Other predisposing factors: parents who are English teachers, professors, or heavy fiction readers; parents who do not encourage children to play games, participate in healthy sports, or watch television.

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Social Costs of Literature Abuse

Abusers become withdrawn and uninterested in society or normal relationships. They fantasize, creating alternative worlds to occupy and daydream about "castles in the air," while neglecting work, friends, and family. In severe cases "problem readers" develop bad posture from reading in awkward positions, or from carrying heavy book bags. In the worst instances, they become cranky reference librarians in small towns.

Excessive reading during pregnancy is perhaps the number one cause of moral deformity among the children of English professors, teachers of English and creative writing. Known as Fetal Fiction Syndrome, this disease also leaves its victims prone to a lifetime of nearsightedness, daydreaming and emotional instability.

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Heredity

It has been established that heredity plays a considerable role in determining whether a person will become an abuser of literature. Most abusers have at least one parent who abused literature, often beginning at an early age and progressing into adulthood. Many spouses of an abuser become abusers themselves.

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Other Predisposing Factors

Fathers or mothers who are English teachers, professors, or heavy fiction readers; parents who do not encourage children to play games, participate in healthy sports, or watch television in the evening.

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Prevention

Pre-marital screening and counseling, referral to adoption agencies in order to break the chain of abuse. English teachers in particular should seek partners active in other fields. Children should be encouraged to seek physical activity, and to avoid isolation and morbid introspection.

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Self-Test for Literature Abuse: How many of these apply to you?

1. I have read fiction when I was depressed or to cheer myself up.
2. I have gone on reading binges of an entire book or more in a day.
3. I read rapidly, often "gulping" chapters.
4. I sometimes read early in the morning or before work.
5. I have hidden books in different places to sneak a chapter without being seen.
6. Sometimes I avoid friends or family obligations in order to read novels.
7. Sometimes I re-write film or television dialog as the characters speak.
8. I often read alone.
9. I have pretended to watch television while secretly reading.
10. I keep books or magazines in the bathroom for a "quick nip."
11. I have denied or "laughed off" criticism of my reading habit.
12. Heavy reading has caused conflicts with my family or spouse.
13. I am unable to enjoy myself with others unless there is a book nearby.
14. I seldom leave my house without a book or magazine.
15. When travelling, I pack a large bag full of books.
16. At a party, I will often slip off unnoticed to read.
17. Reading has made me seek haunts and companions which I would otherwise avoid.
18. I have neglected personal hygiene or household chores until I finished a novel.
19. I become nervous, disoriented, or fearful when I must spend more than 15 minutes without reading matter.
20. I have spent money meant for necessities on books instead.
21. I have sold books to support my reading "habit."
22. I have daydreamed about becoming a rich & famous writer, or "word-pusher."
23. I have attempted to check out more library books than is permitted.
24. Most of my friends are heavy fiction readers.
25. I have sometimes passed out or woken groggy or "hung-over" after a night of heavy reading.
26. I have suffered 'blackouts' or memory loss from a bout of reading.
27. I have wept, become angry or irrational because of something I read.
28. I have sometimes wished I did not read so much.
29. Sometimes I think my fiction reading is out of control.

If you answered 'yes' to five or more of these questions, you may be a literature abuser. Affirmative responses to ten or more indicates a serious reading problem --seek help now! Fifteen or more "yes" responses indicates a severe or chronic "readaholic" personality. Intervention is seldom effective at this stage.

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Additions to Michael's Test

Individuals from a Georgette Heyer list and visitors to this site have added their questions to the above test. Thanks to all who have shared.

...and from ARGH (Abused Readers of Georgette Heyer)
Laura A. Wallace added:

30. When you shop for furniture, do you always look at bookshelves?
31. Do you try to convince yourself that you don't really need other furniture, so that you can justify getting rid of it, so that you can buy more bookshelves?
32. Do some of your bookshelves have books at least two rows deep?
33. Do you bring a large cardboard box with you to library book sales?
34. When you last moved (i.e., changed place of residence), did you have more than ten boxes of books? And did you refuse to consider getting rid of any books to reduce the weight and cost of your move?

35. You don't buy a handbag unless you are sure that a book will fit in it.
36. You don't go ANYWHERE without a book.
37. You take a book to the choir practice just to sneak a look at it when the choir director is giving directions to the other voices.
38. You are able to read and walk at the same time.

39. You refuse to buy jackets or coats unless they have at least one pocket big enough to hold a book. Well, at least I have an excuse. I need them to hold my notepads and pens so that people can talk to me and I to them.
40. You read novels when you should be writing essays on the Classical lifestyle.
41. You read your set texts for English during Classical Studies lectures. (Before anyone asks why I'm doing Classical Studies, it's not really my choice, it's the compulsory third course that all students must do, choosing from a list, and is usually dropped after 2 terms.)
42. You go psychotic when anybody badmouths your favourite authors. (DON'T ASK)
43. When given a book-token, your first thought is - "That's nowhere near enough!!"
44. You can't find the books you want so you write the kind of books you want....
45. You re-read the books you wrote to be the kind of books you want. because you couldn't find the books you wanted, and then want more of the same so you write some more books and then re-read them.

...and from visitors...
Gail Taylor added:

46. You go to the toilet for the express purpose of a few minutes of quiet reading time.
47. You catch a bus to work rather than drive because it gives you all that waiting and sitting time to read.
48. You own several copies of the classics, not to mention your favourite books.
49. You have more books loaned to friends and family than your friends and family OWN.
50. Your friends never use the phrase: "Have you read...." to you because they know you have.
51. You are currently reading about 4 books at once.
52. You read the book BEFORE the movie comes out.
53. You'll read anything new just because it's something you HAVEN'T read already.
54. You answer all the literature questions on quiz shows before the host finishes the question.
55. While reading this you have a book open on your desk so you can read it while waiting for the computer.
    (Sorry, I have to go, I'm just getting to the GOOD bit in my book!)

56. You read in the bathtub or jacuzzi till the pages are soggy.
57. You can walk a mile and a half up hill on the treadmill.

58. Even though on crutches, recovering from surgery, you are unable to resist an invitation to visit a bookstore.
59. You are unable to dine without a book propped up in front of your plate.
60. You hide your current reading inside a hymnbook, in order to continue reading during the church service.
61. You beg your child to let you read aloud the next chapter of "Harry Potter" at his bedtime.

62. Bibliophelia

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Warning

"Reading Addiction" has been classified as "behavior with a significant voluntary component," as defined in the Beatty-Eisner Amendment. If you are declared a "known literature abuser," you will become INELIGIBLE for SSA disability payments and/or ADA protections. Your fate is likely to be a life of poverty and despair, drifting from one dead-end job to another, as you wallow shamelessly in the causes of your addiction.

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Decline and Fall: The English Major

Within the sordid world of literature abuse, the lowest circle belongs to those sufferers who have thrown their lives and hopes away to study literature in our colleges.

Parents should look for signs that their children are taking the wrong path - don't expect your teenager to approach you and say, 'I can't stop reading Spencer.' By the time you visit her dorm room and find the secret stash of the Paris Review, it may already be too late.

What to do if you suspect your child is becoming an English major:

1. Talk to your child in a loving way. Show your concern. Let her know you won't abandon her- but that you aren't spending a hundred grand to put her through Stanford so she can clerk at Waldenbooks, either. But remember that she may not be able to make a decision without help; perhaps she has just finished Madame Bovary and is dying of arsenic poisoning.
2. Face the issue: Tell her what you know, and how: 'I found this book in your purse. How long has this been going on?' Ask the hard question- Who is this Count Vronsky?'
3. Show her another way. Move the television set into her room. Praise her brother, the engineer. Introduce her to frat boys.
4. Do what you have to do. Tear up her library card. Make her stop signing her letters as 'Emma.' Force her to take a math class, or minor in Spanish. Transfer her to a Florida college.

1. She can tell you how and when Thomas Chatterton died.
2. She names one or more of her cats after a Romantic poet.
3. Next to her bed is a picture of: Lord Byron, Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, or any scene from the Lake District.

Most important, remember, you are not alone. To seek help for yourself or someone you love, contact the nearest chapter of the American Literature Abuse Society, or look under ALAS in your telephone directory.

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Little Known Side Effects of Literature Abuse (Eleanor Dinkins)

LA sufferers often develop such a love of words that words spilling into their daily intercourse with others, so a wise therapist will look for these side effects.

LA sufferers occasionally confound others with pretentious displays of multi-syllabic words and unstinted forays into immoderate puns.

In about .5% of one test group that had been deprived of books for a period of 3 months, test subjects resorted to creating crossword puzzles, word searches, anagrams, palindromes, double entendres, spoonerisms, malapropisms, limericks, tautologies, and other such word games to indulge their cravings for words.

A small percentage of LA victims become unnecessarily concerned with word origins and have been known to search etymologies from contemporary jargon back to Romance language roots, to Latin, and finally to original grunts and cave paintings.

Another side-affect of Literature Abuse is synonym abuse. LA sufferers will spend inordinate amounts of time searching through the lexicon for the most precisely descriptive word to fit a sentence; i.e., which synonym is better to describe their conversation... is it chitchatting, babbling, quarreling, wrangling, arguing, debating, discussing, talking, ad nauseum.

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Changes last made on: Tuesday, April 9, 2008
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