reading aloud – Deborah Makarios

It is one of the interesting variations between humans that we find different ways to relax – or perhaps more precisely, that we relax in different ways. What produces the effect of relaxation in one person will have a completely different effect on another.

Case in point: the Caped Gooseberry finds strategy games a fun unwinding leisure-form, while I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about them.

Contrariwise, I find few things more relaxing than curling up on the couch watching a DVD, but for the Caped Gooseberry it’s more an energy-user than an energy-giver. And so it goes.

When we were preparing to marry, our minister suggested that we might need to put some effort into finding ‘mutually enjoyable leisure activities’, and how truly she spoke.

This is one of the reasons why we so often read aloud to each other: it’s a leisure activity we both enjoy. This works in well with another favourite form of relaxation for me: handwork (as long as it’s going well and I don’t have a deadline hanging over my head). It is particularly handy as I am not yet skilled enough to knit and read at the same time.

My favourite form of relaxation, however, is strictly solitaire: chain-reading. Generally I chain-read books I’ve read before, or books of a genre I am familiar with – nothing that requires too much focus. I do of course read mentally stimulating books, but not when I’m tired and stressed. Then I read to relax: Christie, Marsh, Wentworth, Sayers et cetera.

When I’m really stressed, I can feel the itch to sit down with a book almost as a physical symptom – unfortunate if the stress is due to the old problem of So Much To Do, So Little Time. Addict? Perhaps.

Perhaps I should consider other ways we can combine our relaxations. The pair in the first photo inspired me to consider strategy drinking games – tea drinking of course. Except the Caped Gooseberry doesn’t care for tea at the best of times, and adding the bitter taste of defeat would probably not improve the flavour in his eyes.

Who am I kidding? The game would probably end with him triumphing by strategy while I drown my sorrows in tea, as yet untasted by the gentleman in question.

Any other ideas? And how do you relax?

There are tears drying on my face.
Before you leap in with your kind expressions of concern, allow me to reassure you: they are tears of laughter (the next best thing to tears of joy).

I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up it was a common pastime of an evening to lounge about in – well, the lounge, each reading our own books. Doesn’t sound very congenial to the outside view, perhaps, but the important element was that each reader would share the interesting or funny bits of their own book. (Readers of stark existentialist dread need not apply.)

Having grown in years and moved on from the home of my ancestors, I have maintained the tradition of reading out the funny bits to my husband.
Now, there are some people in this world who can read something screamingly hilarious with a straight face and not so much as a quiver of the voice. I salute them (except when they’re beating me at the dictionary game) but I will never be one of them.

Indeed, it is not unknown in my family of origin for the reader to have a few stabs at getting through the funny passage, repeatedly dissolve in laughter as they approach the really good bit, and eventually have the book prised from their quivering grasp because the rest of the family is now desperate to know how the sentence ends. I can even recall one occasion where nearly everyone in the family had had a go at the book before someone could be found capable of reading the whole passage in a passably intelligible voice.

Somehow a passage that will merely make you snort or chuckle when read to yourself is magnified in hilarity when sharing it with others. Truly, it is more blessed to give than to receive…

What had me weeping with laughter (not to mention gurgling my words in a most unladylike manner) was an excerpt from Full Moon by my hero P.G. Wodehouse, which the cunning-as-serpents publishers inserted in the back of Carry On, Jeeves with no consideration as to whether readers of the second title would necessarily have access to the first, now tantalisingly dangled before them.
However.

The scene is Blandings Castle. Clarence, Earl of Emsworth, is having a peaceful listen to his prize pig’s breathing before bed when his brother-in-law Egbert pops up.

‘Ah, Egbert,’ he said, courteously uncoiling himself.
Going for a stroll to stretch his legs after his long journey, Colonel Wedge had supposed himself to be alone with Nature. The shock of discovering that what he had taken for a pile of old clothes was alive and a relation by marriage caused him to speak a little sharply.

And this is how the Colonel reports it to his wife:

“Where do you think I found him just now? Down at the pigsty. I noticed something hanging over the rail, and thought the pig man must have left his overalls there, and then it suddenly reared itself up like a cobra and said “Ah, Egbert.” Gave me a nasty shock. I nearly swallowed my cigar. Questioned as to what the deuce he thought he was playing at, he said he was listening to his pig.”
“Listening to his pig?”
“I assure you. And what, you will ask, was the pig doing? Singing? Reciting ‘Dangerous Dan McGrew’? Nothing of the kind. Just breathing.”

When was the last time you laughed until the tears ran down your cheeks? If not Wodehouse, then who? All recommendations hailed with cries of delight!

Tag: reading aloud

Relax!