So we are still discussing Manguel's A History of Reading in my class. I have been assigned a particular question dealing with this book; the question is simple: how does Manguel describe the process of being read to? how did this evolve historically?
The first thing that I would like to discuss is Saturnino Martinez, a cigar-maker and poet that first published a newspaper for workers that made cigars. His newspaper was called La Aurora and it survived close to five years (1865-1870). In 1866 the governor of Cuba published an edict that severly penalized writers who were caught distracting the workers of tobacco shops with the reading of books. In less than five years, Saturnino had managed not only to catch the attention of the Cuban (read Spanish) government but had also managed to severly malign himself within the county as a subversive entity. Now, that is the kind of history that I like to know and that I find particularly useful to know. Especially in this country where reading is such a passive and sedentary behavior.
This behavior was eventually transferred to Key West and American cigar-makers (who were probably predominantly Cuban) were read to while they manufactured cigars. The interesting thing is that these lectors were payed by the actual cigar makers and not the administration of the cigar factories; it is almost as if the cigar makers were fully aware of the entertainment and instruction of being read to. Before that, way before that you had the Benedictine monks that decreed in Article 38 of their code that reading would be an essential part of their daily life. I skipped a swath of this chapter because it kind of drags but I will catch up on the lives of joglars, troubadors, and the like which populated the Middle Ages and were a vibrant part of society.
Spicaresque:
A Spanglish blog dedicated to the works, ruminations, and mongrel pyrotechnics of Yago S. Cura, an Argentine-American poet, translator, publisher & futbol cretin. Yago publishes Hinchas de Poesia, an online literary journal, & is the sole proprietor of Hinchas Press.
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1 comment:
Yo son,
Where do you think the famed Cuban Montecristo brand's name comes from?
Cigar rollers were read Dumas' most thrilling tome, and it became their favorite.
What are the parallels between a colonial, probably Afro-Cuban cigar artisan and an imprisoned count sewing himself in his own shroud to escape and Island prison and avenge his beloved?
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