Parting with Reader's Digest > IDEAS & IDEALS

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This morning, to my mild surprise, I found that I have missed reading Reader's Digest for quite a long period of time. Hurriedly I checked the pile of the old issues of the magazine at a corner of my study and discovered that I have not received it for more than six months consecutively. I got puzzled at first, but realized soon that my annual subscription of the magazine had expired since last May and I had not renewed it.

     For a moment I felt angry at this unexpected turn of the event. I could not believe, nor accept this fact easily. How Could I miss reading this magazine, Reader's Digest, for more than six months and did not notice it? How could I neglect or forget renewing the subscription? Am I no longer a reader of Reader's Digest? Impossible.

     As I habitually do whenever a bad thing happens to me, I tried to allocate the responsibility on someone else other than me. I thought of the lady in the office who was in charge of the distribution of the magazine in Seoul. She used to make a call without fail to remind me of the expiration of the subscription, usually a few months ahead of it, and exhorted me to extend it. She did not call me this time for unknown reasons. Surely she was to blame.

     But no. She was not. It was I who was surely to blame. That I lived in complete ignorance of the grave accident for so long was the undeniable evidence to begin with. Once it was impossible for me to miss even an issue of the magazine. It was a disaster, an apocalypse, the end of the world. If such a case had ever occurred, (it occurred several times during my long subscription) I surely would have called the lady in the office in less than no time, and complained with angry voice about the calamity and demanded immediate re-delivery of the missing edition of the month, as if I could not live the rest of the month without it.

     Actually I could not live without it. More than anything else, how could I have lived a month, as a diligent student of English, without testing my English vocabulary by checking the "Word Power" in it. I took this private exam every month for myself with this magazine. In this secret monthly test I was mostly graded as "Fair"(C), sometimes "Good"(B), and rarely "Excellent"(A). Quite naturally I was dejected with C, hopeful with B, but with the rare occasions of earning A I felt immensely happy, proud and secure for the rest of the month.

     After this vocabulary exam my eyes went freely to the other so many gems studded in it - humorous as well as useful articles: "Laughter Is the Best Medicine," "Life Is Like That," "All Things in Life" "As Kids See It," "Quotable Quotes," etc. And then to the cartoons: funny, satiric, and even intellectual cartoons interspersed here and there throughout the magazine like twinkling stars at night in the sky.

     This worldly famous and unique magazine - Reader's Digest - provided me with everything I needed for improving and polishing my English: new and difficult words; various idioms, usages, phrases, and sentences; terse but exemplary paragraphs; and the interesting, useful and moving anecdotes, stories and fine essays accompanied by the beautiful and apt illustrations and photographs - all wrapped and condensed in a pretty and handy size of a book.

     During my long career as a professor of English I used it as a textbook for the course of "English Reading" in the classroom with great success and pleasure for me as well as for the students. I liked it and they liked it. Often I meet with some old students of mine on the street who recall with much fondness and wistfulness the experience of reading it in the classroom with me. Some said that they have become a permanent reader of the magazine ever since.

     Like so many important and precious things in my life, I don't remember how it came to me first in my life. It was so long ago. At first, as far as I remember, it was the Korean version of the magazine translated from English. English edition came into my hands later, most probably after I entered university. What is clear is it has always been with me for such a long period of time that it has become a lifelong friend of mine.

     What makes me really sad and regretful now, however, is not the fact of having been deprived of my right as a faithful reader of the magazine against my will. It is my mild and tepid attitude and reaction to the unjust, inconceivable and unimaginable situation into which I have fallen. Two months have passed already since I discovered the grave mistake or loss, but I have not taken any prompt and proper action for the reparation of the loss, nor have I taken any immediate step forward to right the wrong done to me. I did not call anybody in the office to let them know of the emergency, nor protested, nor even asked anybody about the missing magazine at all. I have just let the case rest where it is.

     To be frank with you, I knew this was coming. To be more honest with you, I allowed this accident to happen. I wished the lady in the office would not call me any more. Her engaging voice, once so enthralling, has ceased to be a wake-up call to the new brave world of diligence, pleasure, knowledge, adventure and success. Instead it has become more of solicitation, nuisance, a work, and duty. I don't remember from when it exactly began, but I know that my youthful appetite for the magazine has been steadily shrinking since. In fact, I have been thinking seriously of parting company with one of my dear things in my life.

     I think the time has come for me to bid adieu to Reader's Digest. I am old, and I must a   dmit that my passion for the magazine has inevitably waned, and I cannot rekindle the interest in the magazine any more. The pile of the old issues does not look beautiful as it used to do. It is no longer the source and storage of knowledge, pleasure and inspiration. I feel I would be happier without the burden of reading it every month from now on. Enthusiasm, the very stuff that youth is made of, is gone from me. Nothing can revive it. Enthusiasm is all.          
     (November, 16, 2009)